The next week, Jed went to the grist-mill, the other end of the village, with some buckwheat to be ground, and, calling at the post-office coming home, he found an express-box from Boston, with "Miss Mary Ann Murphy, Redfield, Massachusetts," printed on it in large black letters. He knew that was Polly's name, he said; and never having heard tell of but one Mary Ann Murphy in these parts, he hoisted it into the wagon.
Polly was washing by the kitchen-door as he rattled in at the gate.
"Hullo, there!" he sang out. "Here's a box that's a-wantin' Miss Mary Ann Murphy!"
"Git along wid yer nonsinse!" Polly said, scrubbing at one of Tom's blue gingham shirts. For Jed is such a fellow for fooling that you never can be sure when to believe him, and Polly thought it was a box of starch, or else of soap, that Ma had ordered from the grocery, and that Jed was only trying to get her to come and lug it into the house for him, so he could drive straight on to the barn.
Ma had set me to picking currants for jelly that morning, and I was getting over the vegetable-garden fence with a heaping pail on each arm when Jed spoke. In a minute, one pail was this side of the fence, and one was rolling along the path the other side, and I was in the wagon, reading the big black letters!
"Oh, Polly, 't is!" I hollered. "True's you live and breathe, a box from Boston! Oh, hurry up!"
Polly stopped short in "The Wearing of the Green," that she had commenced to sing at the top of her voice, and whirled about, her mouth and eyes as round as three pepper-box covers.
"Heh!" said she.
"An express-box for Polly, Jed?" called Ma, sticking her head from the kitchen-window. "You don't say so! Fetch it right in here." And Ma whisked the clothes-basket from before the door.
Jed threw the lines on Jerry's back, and shouldered me and the box, and dumped us both on the kitchen-floor.