Five Little Peppers and their Friends Part 45

"I'm not cross," contradicted Van, looking up at him with a very red face.

"Yes, you are, just as cross as a snapping-turtle," said Percy, trying to think of the worst thing he had encountered, and quite pleased as he saw its effect on Van.

"You shall just take that back, Percy Whitney," declared Van, hopping out of his chair, and doubling up his small fists. "I'm not a snapping-turtle."

Percy edged off, with a sharp lookout for the fists.

"I didn't say so."

"Yes, you did," said Van crossly; "you said just that very thing, Percy Whitney, and I'm not a snapping-turtle."

"I said you were as cross as one," said Percy, wishing he hadn't been quite as free with his comparisons, and moving off to a convenient corner.

"Well, that's just the same," said Van, advancing, "and Polly----"

[Transcriber's note: This page in our print copy was obscured by an ink blot. The words in brackets are those that we have supplied based on context and those letters that were visible.]

At the mention of Polly, Percy stopped suddenly, drew a long breath, and never thought of the [corner] again.

"[Why,] we promised her," he gasped; "I forgot all about it."

Down [went Van's] little fist.

"So we [did]," [he] said gloomily, and both boys crept off [together to]

the same corner Percy had selected for [himself].

"Whatever shall [we] do [now]?" breathed Percy, quite lost in his dismal reflections.

"We stopped," said Van, as something to be offered with a grain of hope.

"But we did a lot before we stopped," said Percy. A deep gloom had settled over his countenance, and he wouldn't look at Van. "Oh, dear me!"

Van fidgeted about for a minute,

"Well, I don't know," he said, twisting his hands. "Oh, dear me! Why, you might say I'm not a snapping-turtle," he cried cheerfully at last, and fairly hugging Percy in his delight.

"So I might," said Percy, well pleased, "but I didn't say you _were_ a snapping-turtle; I said you were as cross as a snapping-turtle."

"Well, you might say I'm not as cross as a snapping-turtle, then," said Van, determined to fix it some way.

So Percy said it, and then the two brothers plunged out of doors without a thought of the formalities of any plan. But it was Van who furnished it after all.

"Let's go down and see [Candace]," he said.

"Oh, yes, let's," cried Percy, [then] he stopped short and began to laugh.

"What's the matter?" Van twitched his sleeve.

"Nothing," said Percy, so relieved he hadn't said what was on the tip of his tongue; "you've done it after all and told something for us to do."

"Well, then, come on," cried Van, with a harder twitch. So they set off at a lively pace for the delights of Candace's little shop.

Meanwhile, Polly was sorrowfully confessing to Mrs. Sterling why she was late, and explaining all the reason that Joel couldn't accompany her. And the whole story of the morning affair on the pond, as gathered from Jack, for Joel hadn't told a word of the encounter with the crowd of rough boys, had to be gone over with before Mrs. Sterling could open her budget of news and her wonderful plan for the Comfort committee.

She was just beginning on it.

"I do like that name so very much," sighed Polly. She was on a little cricket by the side of the lounge, her hands resting on the gay sofa-blanket.

"Don't you?" cried Mrs. Sterling, in great satisfaction. "It expresses so much, Polly. I am so very glad that you like it."

"Master Joel Pepper is coming down the street," said Gibson, guilty of interrupting, for she knew how anxious her mistress was to see Joel. "Shall I call him in?"

"Do, by all means," said Mrs. Sterling, while Polly cried:

"Oh, I am so glad!"

So Gibson knocked on the window, and beckoned to Joel that he was wanted; then she hurried down to the big front door to let him in.

There was a funny little noise over the stairs, as if there were more than one pair of feet, which was soon explained by Joel's bursting in, dragging another boy after him, who had his arm done up in a sling.

"It's Jack," he said, by way of introduction.

"Oh, Joel!" cried Polly, springing to her feet, in consternation.

"Yes, and now what is it?" Joel advanced to the invalid's couch, ready for business.

"I'm very glad to see Jack," said Mrs. Sterling, with a smile, putting out her soft, white hand to the boy, who was gazing at the doorway through which he had come, as if nothing would please him so much as to go through it again, this time on the way back.

"You might get a chair, Joel, for your friend, and another for yourself,"

suggested Mrs. Sterling.

"I will--I will," cried Joel, well pleased to have something to do, and dragging up the first one he could find. "I'm going to sit on the carpet"--suiting the action to the words.

"Well, you see--" Mrs. Sterling, without more ado, began at once on her plan. Polly was by this time back on her cricket, very much relieved to find that it wasn't so very dreadful after all to have Jack there, since Mrs. Sterling seemed to like it. "There's nothing helps a boy who is to be shut up in the house for a long time, quite so much as to have the other boys who can go out to play, think of him, and plan for his comfort. Isn't that so?" Mrs. Sterling looked at her little audience keenly.

"Yes," said two of them. Jack was so scared at finding himself where he had never supposed he could be--in the stately brownstone mansion--that he fixed his eyes on the carpet, not daring to move; as for speech, it was quite beyond him.

"Well, now that Lawrence Keep has gotten hurt, I think it will be a very good plan to have a Comfort committee to look out for him."

"What can we do for him?" cried Joel, very much excited, and jumping up from the carpet.

"Joel, do sit down," said Polly, quite ashamed, and pulling him by the jacket.

Joel very unwillingly slid back to his place on the carpet, and fastened his black eyes on Mrs. Sterling's face.

"Well, there are so many things to do for a boy who won't be very sick, but must be shut up in the house," said Mrs. Sterling, "that really it takes time even to think of them all."

"What are some of them?" burst out Joel, pulling the sofa-blanket in his eagerness.