So we got up and combed each other's hair with our fingers, and then we ate a pie between us, and then we put out our sign. It was streaked some because it got rained on, but you could read it close to. Then we spread our pies an' things out on a board, and began to roll our lemons the way I'd seen mother do to make the juice come out easy. We rolled 'em slow, and before they were all done, after a long while, we heard music, away off and faint, but coming nearer every minute, the big drums and little drums and bugles and horns all pounding and tooting away at "The Star-spangled Banner."
Oh, it was grand! I and Guy we ran out to the road. We couldn't see the procession so far away, because everything was so misty after the rain; but we could hear it coming nearer and nearer, and we wondered if our folks would come first, or last, or where. It did seem as if we hadn't seen our mothers for a month of Sundays.
So we stood and cracked our feet together once in a while and waited. And all of a sudden we heard a thundering racket a good deal nearer than the procession—a dreadful rattling and humping and thumping, and somebody away behind singing out "Whoa!"
"It's Mr. Pressy's old roan!" yelled Guy, all on fire in a minute. "He's running away with the gingerbread 'n' stuff, I do believe."
Then we heard a screech—a regular ear-splitter. And a girl ran out of a little Hollander house across the road and down a ways. And she put her hands over her eyes, and tumbled right on her knees, and screeched and screeched. And it all happened in a heap, though you have to tell it one to time; so about as soon as we saw Mr. Pressy's old roan and the woman we saw two little Hollander babies, with their yellow hair braided in wispy pigtails, and white dresses on, playing right square in the middle of the road.
"IT WAS ALL IN A MINUTE."
It seems to me as if I looked at Guy a long, long time, and Guy looked at me. And I thought about my mother, and my dog Ponto, and that we hadn't rolled all of the lemons; and then I felt as if something gave me a push. And it was all in a minute, and I and Guy we ran. And Guy was a little first, and he grabbed the nearest one, and I grabbed the other, and felt the horse right over me. And I jumped sideways, and threw the little Hollander, and something hit me.
So that's all I knew till I heard a roar in my ears that grew louder and louder, and pretty soon I knew 'twas folks talking, and I opened my eyes, and there I was in a little low room, with two funny brass candlesticks on the mantel-shelf; and my mother was there, and Guy, and Mrs. Arnold, and father, and Mr. Arnold, and Dr. Henry. They looked funny to me, and there was a queer smell in the room, and my head was tied up with a wet rag; the wet was what smelled so funny.
"Hullo!" said I, first thing.