Five Little Peppers Abroad, Margaret Sidney [best classic books to read TXT] 📗

little face very red with her exertion, and the brown eyes filling with tears.

"Well, I declare," cried Polly, at sound of her mother's tone; "so you shall, Phronsie. Now I'll stand just as still as a mouse, and you shall make that old button fly into its hole."

"So he shall, old button fly into his hole," laughed Phronsie through her tears. And presently she declared it was done. And with a final pat, this time from Mother Fisher's fingers, Polly was released, and the rest of the dressing was soon done.

And there, waiting at the end of their corridor, was Jasper, in every conceivable way trying to get the better of his impatience. When he did finally see Polly, he dashed up to her. "Well, are you really here?"

"Yes," cried Polly, scampering on, with Phronsie clinging to her hand, "I really believe I am, Jasper. But don't let's go faster than Mamsie," looking back for her.

"You all run on," said Mother Fisher, laughing, "I shall get there soon; and really, Mr. King has waited long enough," she added to herself.

And, indeed, Mr. King thought so too, and he couldn't control his delight when the three danced into the little private parlour, opening out from his bedroom, and came up to his side.

"I slept over," said Polly, in a shamefaced little way; "I'm sorry, Grandpapa dear."

"You needn't be; not a bit of it," declared Grandpapa, holding her off at arm's length to scan her rosy face; "the best thing you could possibly do" - Mamsie's very words. So Polly felt relieved at once. "And now we will wait for Mrs. Fisher," he added, with a glance at the door.

"Here she is," piped Phronsie, who had been regarding the door anxiously.

"Yes, here she is," repeated old Mr. King, in great satisfaction, holding Polly fast. "Well, now, Mrs. Fisher, that you have come, we'll begin our festivities. Our Polly, here, is fifteen years old to-day - only think of that!" Still he held her fast, and bent his courtly white head to kiss her brown hair.

Polly clung to his other hand. "It can't be a house celebration, Polly, my dear, with a party and all that, but we'll do the best we can. And to add to our pleasure, and to be company for you" (not a suggestion of the pleasure he was to give), "why, we've another little girl with us who has chosen this very day for her birthday, too. Adela, come here."

Adela Gray, who had been standing silently, looking on with a sad heart at finding herself with a birthday on her hands, and no one to celebrate it with her, though for that matter all her birthdays had been rather dismal affairs at the best, in the Paris school, now shrank back at Mr. King's sudden summons, and hid behind her grandmother's black gown.

"Come, Adela," commanded Mr. King, in a tone that brooked no further delay. So she crept out, and stood in front of him.

"Oh, Adela!" exclaimed Polly, in a transport, drawing her up by her other hand, for still Grandpapa held her fast. "Is it your birthday too? How perfectly elegant! oh, oh!"

And everybody said, "How fine!" And they all were smiling at her. And Adela found herself, before she knew it, coming up out of her old despair into brightness and warmth and joy. And she never knew when old Mr. King proclaimed her fourteen years old, and dropped a kiss - yes, he actually did - on her head. And then she found herself on his other side, by the big centre table, that was covered with a large cloth. And Polly made her put her hand under it first, saying, "Oh, no, Grandpapa, please let Adela pull out the first parcel." And lo, and behold - she held a neat little white-papered bundle tied with a blue ribbon.

"Open it," cried Jasper, as she stood stupidly staring at it, in her hand. "Don't you see it's got your name on it?" But Adela didn't see anything, she was so dazed. So Jasper had to open it for her. "We may thank our stars the first parcel happened to be for her," he was thinking busily all the time he was untying the ribbon. And there was just what she had wanted for, oh, so long - Mrs. Jameson's little books on Art - her very own, she saw as soon as her trembling fingers opened the cover.

After that, the skies might rain down anything in the shape of gifts, as it seemed to be doing for Polly and for her; it didn't matter to Adela; and she found herself, finally, looking over a heap of white papers and tangled ribbons, at Polly Pepper, who was dancing about, and thanking everybody to right and to left.

"Why don't - why don't - you - thank him?" old Mrs. Gray mumbled in her ear, while the tears were running down her wrinkled cheeks.

"Let her alone," said old Mr. King, hearing her. "She's thanked me enough. Now then, to breakfast, all of us! Come, Polly - come, Adela
- Jasper, you take Mrs. Gray," and the others falling in, away they all went down to the big dining room, to their own special table in the centre.

"I do so love what Joey sent me, and Ben and Davie," breathed Polly, for about the fiftieth time, patting her little money-bag which she had hung on her belt. Then she looked at the new ring on her finger very lovingly, and the other hand stole up to pinch the pin on her trim necktie, and see if it were really there. "Oh, Jasper, if the boys were only here!" she whispered, under cover of the chatter and bustle around the table.

"Don't let us think of that, Polly," Jasper made haste to say; "it will make father feel so badly if he thinks you are worrying."

"I know it," said Polly, pulling herself out of her gloom in an instant, to be as gay as ever, till the big sombre dining room seemed instinct with life, and the cheeriest place imaginable.

"What good times Americans do have!" exclaimed a lady, passing the door, and sending an envious glance within.

"Yes, if they're the right kind of Americans," said her companion, wisely.

All that wonderful day the sun seemed to shine more brightly than on any other day in the whole long year. And the two girls who had the birthday together, went here and there, arm in arm, to gladden all the tired, and often discontented, eyes of the fellow-travellers they chanced to meet. And when finally it came to the dusk, and Polly and Adela were obliged to say, "Our birthday is almost all over," why then, that was just the very time when Mother Fisher and the little doctor (for he was in the plan, you may be very sure, only he wanted her to make all the arrangements, "It's more in a woman's way, my dear," he had said), - well, then, that was their turn to celebrate the double birthday!

"Where are those girls?" cried the little doctor, fidgeting about, and knocking down a little table in his prancing across the room. Jasper ran and picked it up. "No harm done," he declared, setting the books straight again.

"O dear, did I knock that over?" asked Dr. Fisher, whirling around to look at the result of his progress. "Bless me, did I really do that?"

"It's all right now," said Jasper, with a laugh at the doctor's face. "Lucky there wasn't anything that could break on the table."

"I should say so," declared the little doctor; "still, I'm sorry I floored these," with a rueful hand on the books. "I'd rather smash some other things that I know of than to hurt the feelings of a book. Dear me!"

"So had I," agreed Jasper, "to tell you the truth; but these aren't hurt; not a bit." He took up each volume, and carefully examined the binding.

When he saw that this was so, the little doctor began to fidget again, and to wonder where the girls were, and in his impatience he was on the point of prancing off once more across the room, when Jasper said, "Let us go and find them - you and I."

"An excellent plan," said Dr. Fisher, hooking his arm into Jasper's and skipping off, Jasper having hard work to keep up with him.

"Here - where are you two going?" called Mr. King after them. And this hindered them so that Polly and Adela ran in unnoticed. And there they were on time after all; for it turned out that the little doctor's watch was five minutes ahead.

Well, and then they all filed into the big dining room, and there, to be sure, was their special table in the centre, and in the middle of it was a tall Dutch cake, ornamented with all sorts of nuts and fruits and candies, and gay with layers of frosting, edged and trimmed with coloured devices, and on the very tip-top of all was an elaborate figure in sugar of a little Dutch shepherdess. And around this wonderful cake were plates of mottoes, all trimmed in the Dutch fashion - in pink and green and yellow - while two big bunches of posies, lay one at each plate, of the two girls who had a birthday together in Old Amsterdam.

"Oh - oh!" cried Polly, seizing her bunch before she looked at the huge Dutch cake, and burying her nose deep among the big fragrant roses, "how perfectly lovely! Who did do this?"

But no one said a word. And the little doctor was as sober as a judge. He only glared at them over his spectacles.

"Grandpapa," gasped Polly, "you did."

"Guess again," advised Grandpapa. "Mamsie - " Polly gave one radiant look at Mother Fisher's face.

Then Dr. Fisher broke out into a hearty laugh. "You've guessed it this time, Polly, my girl," he said, "your mother is the one."

"Your father really did it," corrected Mother Fisher. "Yes, Adoniram, you did, - only I saw to things a little, that's all."

"Which means that pretty much the whole business was hers," added the little doctor, possessing himself of her hand under cover of the table. "Well, girls, if you like your birthday party fixings, that's all your mother and I ask. It's Dutch, anyway, and what you won't be likely to get at home; there's so much to be said for it."


XII

THE HENDERSON BOX


And as Mother Fisher observed, they would all enjoy Marken better for the delay, for there would be more time to anticipate the pleasure; and then there was the Henderson box to get ready, for Grandpapa King had not only approved the plan; he had welcomed the idea most heartily. "It will be a good diversion from our scare," he said, when Polly and Jasper laid it before him.

"And give us all something to do," he added, "so go ahead, children, and set to work on it." And Polly and Jasper had flown off with the good news, and every one did "set to work" as Grandpapa said, diving into the shops again.

Phronsie tried to find the mate to her china cat, that was by this time sailing over the sea to Joel; and it worried her dreadfully, for, try as she would, she never could see another one. And she looked so pale and tired one night that Mr. King asked