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

Mamsie would let us spend the whole afternoon out there. You can't think what perfectly splendid times we had there, Adela Gray!"

Adela by this time was beyond words, but stared up at Polly's face speechlessly. "And what fun it was on baking days, Polly," cried Jasper, unable to keep quiet any longer; "do you remember when I burnt all my cakes around the edges?"

"Well, that was because the old stove acted so," said Polly; "one minute it wouldn't bake at all, and the next it burnt things black."

"And the washing the dishes and things up afterward," said Jasper, reflecting; "I think I liked that just as well as the baking, Polly."

"It was good fun," said Polly; "and how funny you looked with one of Mamsie's aprons tied round under your chin, Jasper."

"I know it," said Jasper, bursting into a laugh. "I must have looked like - I don't know what. But it was good fun, Polly."

And then Phronsie came running up, and after her came Grandpapa to see that she got there all right.

"Oh, Polly, do you see the windmills?" she cried, clapping her small hands.

"Yes, Pet," said Polly, looking all along the soft curves of the shore, "there are hundreds of them, aren't there?"

"There was a girl coming out of the door of one of them," announced Phronsie, climbing up on the seat and putting her arm around Polly's neck. "Polly, I'd like to live in a windmill; I would," she whispered close to her ear.

"Would you, Pet?"

"Yes, I would truly," she said. "Why couldn't I, Polly, just like that girl I saw coming out of the door?" she asked, looking back wistfully.

"Well, that girl never had a little brown house to live in," said Polly; "think of that, Phronsie."


XIII

"THE CLEANEST PLACE IN ALL HOLLAND"


"Oh, Polly, see the cunning little doll-houses!" exclaimed Phronsie in a little scream, flying about from Grandpapa at the head of his party on their way up from the boat-landing, and then back to the rear of the procession, which happened to be Polly and Jasper.

"Hush, Phronsie, don't talk so loud; they are not doll-houses," said Polly. "People live in them."

"People live in them!" echoed Phronsie, standing quite still on the paved road, that shone as if just freshly scoured.

"Yes, yes; come along, child, the people will hear you," said Polly, seizing her hand.

Phronsie suffered herself to be piloted along, but she stumbled more than once over the cobbles, her eyes were so busy.

"Take care, Phronsie," warned Polly, "you came near falling on your nose that time."

"I'll go on the other side," said Jasper; "there, now, Phronsie, give us your hand. Well, I don't wonder you are surprised. I never saw such a place as this Broek is."

"They've just washed it all up, haven't they, Jasper?" asked Polly, her brown eyes scanning the little walks along each tiny garden they passed. Everything shone alike.

"They're always washing up, I believe," answered Jasper, with a laugh. "I suppose they live in a pail of water, so to speak."

"Oh, Jasper, in a pail of water!" exclaimed Phronsie, between them, poking her head out to look for such a strange and unwarrantable sight provided by the inhabitants of Broek.

"I mean they're always scrubbing, so they can never be separated from their pails of water," said Jasper.

"It seems almost too bad to step on such clean roads," said Polly, getting up on her tiptoes, and stepping gingerly off. When Phronsie saw Polly do that, she got up on her tiptoes too, and tried to get over the ground with her.

"You can't do that long," said Jasper, with a laugh for both, "and it wouldn't do any good, Polly, if you could, for these Broek women will have to come out and scrub up after us all the same."

"I suppose they will," said Polly, with a sigh of relief, coming down on to the rest of her feet, which proceeding, Phronsie was very glad to copy. "And it isn't as nice as it looks to walk on the tips of your toes. Jasper, do see those cunning little windows and those china images inside!"

"It seems as if they were all windows," said Jasper, scanning the tiny panes shining at them from all the cottages. "Dear me, the Broek women have something to do, don't they, to keep everything so shiny and clean?"

"Haven't they!" cried Polly. "Well, I don't wonder it is the cleanest place in all Holland. They must have to sit up all night and wash and scrub."

"It's the cleanest place on the whole earth, I imagine," laughed Jasper.

"But I should love to see some boys playing with mud pies," sighed Polly, running her glance up and down the immaculate road, and compassing all the tiny gardens possible to her range of vision.

"Mud pies!" exclaimed Jasper, in mock surprise. "Polly, how can you mention such a thing as dirt or mud here!"

"Jasper, do you suppose the children can have a good time here?" pursued Polly, anxiously, willing to give up the mud pies, if only reassured on the latter point, which seemed to her a very doubtful one.

"We'll hope so," answered Jasper. "See the klompen outside that door, Polly. Well, here we are at the dairy, Polly."

"And can I see the cows?" cried Phronsie. "Oh, Grandpapa is calling me," and off she ran.

And so he was calling her, as he and the parson had now reached the dairy door, under cover with the dwelling, which seemed much less an object of painstaking care than the house where the cows resided and the cheeses were made.

But everything was as neat as a pin in the house, though, and Polly and Jasper concluded they would explore the two rooms, as everybody seemed to be expected to do, after the main object of the visit was accomplished and the dairy inspected.

"Dear me, do they have to take their shoes off before they go in the house?" cried Polly.

"I suppose so," said Jasper. "Well, it isn't much trouble to get out of those sabots, that's one comfort for them."

"Dear me," Mrs. Fisher was saying, "if they haven't a carpet on the floor for the cows to walk on!" And there, surely, were strips of carpeting all down the walks between the rows of stalls, and something that looked like braided hemp in the bottom of the stalls themselves. And everything was tiled where it could be, with little tiles, and all these and every bit of the woodwork itself shone beautifully - it was so clean and polished.

Mrs. Fisher's black eyes shone, too. "It's beautiful," she said to her husband, "to see everything so clean for once in the world."

"What are those hooks for?" asked Jasper of the stolid Dutchman, who showed them about, and who spoke English fairly well.

"We hook the cows' tails up so they won't shake any dirt on their sides," said the Dutchman.

"O dear me!" exclaimed Polly Pepper, and everybody laughed - but she didn't.

"I think that is cruel," she said. "What do the poor things do to beat off the flies, pray tell?"

"Flies?" said Mother Fisher. "I don't suppose they ever see a fly here, Polly."

"They'd chase one worse than the dirt, I guess," said the little doctor.

"Oh," said Polly, with a sigh of relief.

"Come, Polly, let us go into the cheese room," suggested Jasper, peering in, for everything was connected and under one roof. "There's a man in there, and he is telling something;" so they skipped in, while Phronsie was bewailing that there were no cows there, and where were they?

"Why, Phronsie, they are all out in the fields. You wouldn't have them shut up this hot day," said Grandpapa.

"No," said Phronsie, swallowing the lump in her throat, "I wouldn't, Grandpapa; I'd much rather know they are having a nice time. I don't want them in here, I truly don't."

"That's a nice child," said old Mr. King, approvingly. "Well, now, we'll see how they make these wonderful Edam cheeses, Phronsie."

"I shall call this place the Cheesery," announced Polly, running about between the vats and the big press.

"Oh, Polly, that's a capital name," said Jasper. "So shall I call it the 'Cheesery' in my journal. Look at the rows and rows of them, Polly."

"And how round and yellow they are," said Polly; "just like pumpkins, aren't they? Wouldn't it be fine if we could take some home, to send to Badgertown? Dear Mrs. Beebe is so fond of cheese, Jasper."

"It is a pity; but we couldn't take cheeses very well. Fancy our trunks, Polly!" He wrinkled up his face; at sight of it Polly laughed merrily.

"No, of course not," she said; "but oh, how fine they look!"

"Grandpapa, I'd like to buy one," said Phronsie, overhearing a bit of this, and opening her little bag that hung on her arm, to get her purse.

"What in the world can you do with a Dutch cheese, child?" exclaimed old Mr. King.

"But I would like to buy one," persisted Phronsie. And after much diving Phronsie produced the little silk purse - "Polly wants one, Grandpapa," she got up on her tiptoes to whisper confidentially.

"Oh, is that it?" said Mr. King. "Well, now, Phronsie, I don't really believe Polly wants one. You would better ask her. If she wants one you shall buy it for her."

So Phronsie ran off. "Do you, Polly? Do you?" then she gently pulled Polly's sleeve to make her hear, for Polly and Jasper were hanging on the description that the man in attendance was pouring forth.

"Do I what?" cried Polly, only half understanding, and lost in the thought of how much fun it must be to make little yellow cheeses, and set them up in rows to be taken to market.

" - want one of those dear sweet little cheeses?" finished Phronsie.

"Yes, indeed," answered Polly, bobbing her head, and listening to the man with all her might.

"Yes, she does, Grandpapa," declared Phronsie, flying back, "she told me so her very own self."

"The goodness, she does!" exclaimed old Mr. King, "Well then, she shall have one. But pick out a small one, Phronsie, the very smallest you can find."

This was so much a work of time, Phronsie laying aside one selection after another, each yellow cheese looking so much better on comparison, that at last old Mr. King was almost in despair, and counselled the purchase of the last one that Phronsie set her eyes on. But meantime she had spied one on the upper shelf of all.

"There it is, Grandpapa," she cried, clapping her hands in delight, "the very littlest of all, and isn't it beautiful, Grandpapa, dear?"

"Indeed it is," assented Grandpapa, and he had the man lift it down and do it up; a piece of a Dutch newspaper again doing duty, when Phronsie held out her arms to receive it. "You can't carry it, child; give it to me. What in the world shall we do with the thing?" all this Grandpapa was uttering in one breath.

"Oh, Grandpapa, dear, I do so want to carry Polly's little yellow cheese," said Phronsie, the tears beginning to come in her eyes.

Grandpapa, who had taken the round parcel from her arms,