A THREATENED BLOW
One day, a few weeks after, Mrs. Pepper and Polly were busy inthe kitchen. Phronsie was out in the "orchard," as the one scraggyapple-tree was called by courtesy, singing her rag doll to sleep underits sheltering branches. But "Baby" was cross and wouldn't go to sleep,and Phronsie was on the point of giving up, and returning to the house,when a strain of music made her pause with dolly in her apron. Thereshe stood with her finger in her mouth, in utter astonishment, wonderingwhere the sweet sounds came from.
"Oh, Phronsie!" screamed Polly, from the back door, "where are--oh,here, come quick! it's the beau-ti-fullest!"
"What is it?" eagerly asked the little one, hopping over the stubbygrass, leaving poor, discarded "Baby" on its snubby nose where itdropped in her hurry.
"Oh, a monkey!" cried Polly; "do hurry! the sweetest little monkey youever saw!"
"What is a monkey?" asked Phronsie, skurrying after Polly to the gatewhere her mother was waiting for them.
"Why, a monkey's--a--monkey," explained Polly, "I don't know anybetter'n that. Here he is! Isn't he splendid!" and she lifted Phronsieup to the big post where she could see finely.
"O-oh! ow!" screamed little Phronsie, "see him, Polly! just see him!"
A man with an organ was standing in the middle of the road playing awaywith all his might, and at the end of a long rope was a lively littlemonkey in a bright red coat and a smart cocked hat. The little creaturepulled off his hat, and with one long jump coming on the fence, he madePhronsie a most magnificent bow. Strange to say, the child wasn't in theleast frightened, but put out her little fat hand, speaking in gentletones, "Poor little monkey! come here, poor little monkey!"
Turning up his little wrinkled face, and glancing fearfully at hismaster, Jocko began to grimace and beg for something to eat. The manpulled the string and struck up a merry tune, and in a minute the monkeyspun around and around at such a lively pace, and put in so many queerantics that the little audience were fairly convulsed with laughter.
"I can't pay you," said Mrs. Pepper, wiping her eyes, when at last theman pulled up the strap whistling to Jocko to jump up, "but I'll giveyou something to eat; and the monkey, too, he shall have something forhis pains in amusing my children."
The man looked very cross when she brought him out only brown bread andtwo cold potatoes.
"Haven't you got nothin' better'n that?"
"It's as good as we have," answered Mrs. Pepper.
The man threw down the bread in the road. But Jocko thankfully ate hisshare, Polly and Phronsie busily feeding him; and then he turned andsnapped up the portion his master had left in the dusty road.
Then they moved on, Mrs. Pepper and Polly going back to their work inthe kitchen. A little down the road the man struck up another tune.Phronsie who had started merrily to tell "Baby" all about it, stopped aminute to hear, and--she didn't go back to the orchard!
About two hours after, Polly said merrily:
"I'm going to call Phronsie in, mammy; she must be awfully tired andhungry by this time."
She sang gayly on the way, "I'm coming, Phronsie, coming--why, where!--"peeping under the tree.
"Baby" lay on its face disconsolately on the ground--and the orchard wasempty! Phronsie was gone!
"It's no use," said Ben, to the distracted household and such of theneighbors as the news had brought hurriedly to the scene, "to look anymore around here--but somebody must go toward Hingham; he'd be likely togo that way."
"No one could tell where he would go," cried Polly, wringing her hands.
"But he'd change, Ben, if he thought folks would think he'd gone there,"said Mrs. Pepper.
"We must go all roads," said Ben, firmly; "one must take the stage toBoxville, and I'll take Deacon Brown's wagon on the Hingham road, andsomebody else must go to Toad Hollow."
"I'll go in the stage," screamed Joel, who could scarcely see out of hiseyes, he had cried so; "I'll find--find her--I know.
"Be spry, then, Joe, and catch it at the corner!"
Everybody soon knew that little Phronsie Pepper had gone off with "across organ man and an awful monkey!" and in the course of an hourdozens of people were out on the hot, dusty roads in search.
"What's the matter?" asked a testy old gentleman in the stage, of Joelwho, in his anxiety to see both sides of the road at once, bobbed theold gentleman in the face so often as the stage lurched, that at last heknocked his hat over his eyes.
"My sister's gone off with a monkey," explained Joel, bobbing over tothe other side, as he thought he caught sight of something pink thathe felt sure must be Phronsie's apron. "Stop! stop! there she is!"he roared, and the driver, who had his instructions and was fully insympathy, pulled up so suddenly that the old gentleman flew over intothe opposite seat.
"Where?"
But when they got up to it Joel saw that it was only a bit of pinkcalico flapping on a clothes-line; so he climbed back and away theyrumbled again.
The others were having the same luck. No trace could be found of thechild. To Ben, who took the Hingham road, the minutes seemed like hours.
"I won't go back," he muttered, "until I take her. I can't see mother'sface!"
But the ten miles were nearly traversed; almost the last hope was gone.Into every thicket and lurking place by the road-side had he peered--butno Phronsie! Deacon Brown's horse began to lag.
"Go on!" said Ben hoarsely; "oh, dear Lord, make me find her!"
The hot sun poured down on the boy's face, and he had no cap. What caredhe for that? On and on he went. Suddenly the horse stopped. Ben doubledup the reins to give him a cut, when "WHOA!" he roared so loud that thehorse in very astonishment gave a lurch that nearly flung him headlong.But he was over the wheel in a twinkling, and up with a bound to a smallthicket of scrubby bushes on a high hill by the road-side. Here lay alittle bundle on the ground, and close by it a big, black dog; and overthe whole, standing guard, was a boy a little bigger than Ben, withhonest gray eyes. And the bundle was Phronsie!
"Don't wake her up," said the boy, warningly, as Ben, with a hungry lookin his eyes, leaped up the hill, "she's tired to death!"
"She's my sister!" cried Ben, "our Phronsie!"
"I know it," said the boy kindly; "but I wouldn't wake her up yet if Iwere you. I'll tell you all about it," and he took Ben's hand which wasas cold as ice.
Five Little Peppers and How They Grew Page 10