CHAPTER IIMRS. PEPPER ATTENDS TO THE MATTER
PARSON HENDERSON shut the gate with a firm hand, and stepped out into the road.
The parsonage door opened, and the minister’s wife ran down the path. “Here, Adoniram, take this to Mrs. Pepper.” She put a clean folded napkin, from which came a nice smell of something newly baked, into his hand. “Oh, I do hope Mrs. Pepper will let you see that horrible Mr. Peters,” she began anxiously.
“Mrs. Pepper always knows her own mind,” said the parson, “and if she wants to attend to the matter, it’s not for us, Almira, to interfere.” He handled the napkin bundle gingerly and moved off.
“It was perfectly dreadful, Jim Thompson said, and you know he tells the truth, husband.”She pattered after him. “Do see if you can’t persuade her to let you see Mr. Peters. You know you want to.”
“That I do!” declared the parson, his eyes flashing. “Well, don’t you worry, Almira; it will be attended to.”
“He ought to be driven out of town—that old creature had,” cried his wife, with very red cheeks. “Everybody hates him. Now I hope this will make him leave Badgertown.”
“Softly there, Almira,” the parson patted one of the red cheeks. “Badgertown must be careful what it does. There are his poor wife and Matilda to consider.”
“Oh, I know it,” groaned Mrs. Henderson. “Well, do try and get Mrs. Pepper to let you fix the matter up.” She hurried over the old flat stone. There in the doorway stood Miss Jerusha.
“I sh’d think Adoniram had enough to do, without taking up with Mis Pepper’s troubles,” she said tartly.
“Oh, it’s his business to do what he can for Badgertown people, Jerusha,” said Mrs. Henderson.
“Badgertown people!” sniffed Miss Jerusha.She set her spectacles straighter, and glared at the parson’s wife. “You’ve all gone mad over that little brown house family,” she said. “For my part, I hate shiftless folks who expect to be looked out for all the while.”
“Don’t you ever call the little brown house people shiftless again in my presence.” The parson’s wife got as tall as she could, even up to her tiptoes. “Anybody with a heart would be sorry for that poor brave woman, and those dear children who are trying to help her. I can’t think, Jerusha, how you can be so—so—”
She left the last word to look out for itself, her voice trailing off. But she marched with a high head past the long angular figure, and the door of her husband’s study closed with a snap.
“Let me see ’em—let me see ’em!” Joel prancing around in the little brown house kitchen, stopped suddenly and twitched the small calico sleeve.
“No,” said David, edging off. “I don’t want anybody to see ’em.”
“I’m going to,” declared Joel, holding on with both hands to the blouse as David whirled around. “I saw ’em yesterday, and I’m goingto see ’em again. Hold still, Dave.Zip!”
“There, now you’ve torn it!” Davie gave a small cry of distress.
Joel’s stubby hands dropped and he stood quite still in dismay.
“’Tisn’t torn—torn—much,” he said quite aghast.
“It’s torn—and now Mamsie will have to work and mend it. O dear!”
With that the tears fell, and Davie threw himself on the floor, and sobbed as if his heart would break.
“Whatisthe matter?” cried Polly, rushing in from the bedroom, where she had been giving Phronsie her breakfast of mush. For once there was some real milk, for Doctor Fisher had set a bottle on the kitchen table after his visit to see how the measles were coming on. “Oh, Davie!” She threw herself down beside him. “Where are you hurt?”
Mrs. Pepper hurried over the steps from the provision room, where she had been looking over the potatoes to see how long they would last.
“I tore—tore—” said Joel, in the middle of the kitchen floor. His face was workingdreadfully and he twisted his hands together trying not to cry.
“What did you do, Joe?” cried Polly, running over to him.
“Mamsie,” cried Davie, throwing his arms around her, “he didn’t mean to.”
“There—there,” said Mrs. Pepper, taking him up to her lap. “Joel, come here and tell Mother all about it.”
“He didn’t mean to,” began Davie again, wiping up his tears.
“I don’t believe Joey did mean to, Mamsie, whatever it is,” said Polly, pulling him along. He was digging one small fist into first one eye and then the other, and saying at every step, “I didn’t mean to, Mamsie,” and he threw himself down and burrowed his face on top of Davie’s legs in Mrs. Pepper’s lap.
“Stop saying you didn’t mean to, Joel, and tell Mother what you did to Davie,” said Mrs. Pepper firmly.
Joel put out a shaking hand and felt for the torn place in the little calico blouse, Polly hanging over them in great anxiety. “There,” he said, “I didn’t mean to do it, Mamsie.”
“He means he’s torn Davie’s jacket,” saidPolly with a little gasp. “O dear me, Joel, you’ve scared us almost to death!”
“Mamsie will have to work and mend it,” howled Joel. With that Davie began again to cry, and to burrow deeper against Mrs. Pepper’s neck.
“For shame, Joel!” cried Polly. “It’s ever so much worse to cry now than it was to tear Davie’s jacket.”
“Is it?” cried Joel, bringing up his head suddenly and gazing at her out of two black eyes; the tears trailed down over his snubby nose. “Is it really, Polly?”
“Indeed it is, Joe,” she said decidedly.
“Then I’m not going to cry any more,”, declared Joel, wiping off the last tear with the back of one brown hand, and jumping up.
“Now, that’s Mother’s good boy,” said Mrs. Pepper approvingly.
“Whatever made you tear Davie’s jacket, Joe?” cried Polly, very much puzzled and running after him.
“I wanted to see the red things on his legs,” said Joel. “Oh, I’d ’a’ made Old Man Peters squinge and squinge if I’d been there! This is the way I’d have done.” Joel ran over to thecorner and seized the broom, and landed about him so savagely that Polly flew off laughing, and Davie joined in with a merry shout, until the little old kitchen fairly rang with the noise.
“Yes—sir-ee!” said Joel, prancing madly around, “that’s the way I’d ’a’ squinged him if I’d been there.”
Davie slid out of Mother Pepper’s lap and ran after him, the torn bit of calico flapping at the end of his blouse.
“Let me, Joel,” he cried, trying to reach the broom as Joel pranced on.
“You couldn’t do it,” said Joel. “I must squinge Old Man Peters myself,” holding the broom very high. Then he saw Davie’s face. “You may have it,” he said.
Polly ran into the bedroom and came back on her tiptoes. “Phronsie’s asleep,” she said. “Now I’m awfully glad, for I can clean out the stove. Then I can get the bread in.” She ran over and knelt down before the old stove, and presently there was a great to-do with the brush and the little shovel and the old woolen cloths.
Mrs. Pepper sighed as she rolled up in a newspaper two coats that she had just finished.“I don’t know what I should ever do without you, Polly,” she said, looking over at her.
“Don’t you, Mamsie?” cried Polly in great delight, and sitting back on her heels, she brought up a countenance with long black streaks running across it. “Don’t you really, Mamsie?”
“No, I don’t,” said Mrs. Pepper, “and that is a fact. Mother wouldn’t know what to do without you. But dear me, child, what a pair of black hands—and your face, Polly!” as she went into the bedroom to put on her bonnet.
Polly looked down at her hands. Then she burst out laughing. “I brushed back my hair,” she said, “it tumbled into my eyes so,” and she jumped up and ran to the cracked looking glass hanging over in the corner. “My! what a sight I am!”
“Let me see,” cried Joel, rushing over. “Don’t wash it off, Polly, let me see!”
David flung down the broom and tumbled after. “Let me see, too, Polly.”
“I look just like that old black man who used to come after rags,” said Polly, turning around on them and holding up her hands.
“Oh, you do—you do!” howled Joel inhuge delight, while Davie crowed and clapped his hands. “You do, just exactly like him, Polly!”
“Wait a minute,” said Polly. She rushed out and came running back with Ben’s old cap on her head and her arms in his coat. “Now wouldn’t you think I was that old black man?” she said, stalking up and down the kitchen crying out, “Any rags, Mam?” and she swung the big potato bag at them.
“Oh, Polly,” screamed Davie in a transport, “youarethat old black man,” while Joel marched after echoing, “Any rags, Mam?” and swinging an imaginary bag at every step he took.
Suddenly Polly stopped, tore off the cap and the coat. “Take back the potato bag into the provision room, Joel,” she said, tossing it to him. “I forgot the stove, and the bread has got to go in. O dear me!” She flew over to the sink, and presently back she came. “There now, I’m scrubbed clean, but I’ll get all black again, I suppose,” and she kneeled down again before the stove.
Mrs. Pepper came out of the bedroom and stopped a minute by the green door to smile atthem all. Then she went out with her bundle to take to Mr. Atkins at the store; but first there was another errand of importance to attend to, so she turned off at the cross-road. The smile had dropped away from her folded lips, as she stepped swiftly along toward the Peters farm.
“Here she comes—here’s Mis Pepper!” cried Matilda. “Do stop wringin’ your hands, Ma. You hain’t done nothin’ else sence yesterday. Mis Pepper can’t blame us.”
“O dear,” mourned Mrs. Peters. “’Twas th’ quince sass that made all th’ trouble.”
“’Twarn’t th’ quince sass at all,” contradicted Matilda flatly. “Pa never said a word about it. Do stop—Mis Pepper’s at th’ door.”
“Rat-tat!” went the old iron knocker. Matilda jumped, all her nerves askew, while Mrs. Peters sank down in the nearest chair.
“O dear, there ain’t time to git on a clean apurn.” Matilda opened the big door—her tongue clapped up to the roof of her mouth, and she couldn’t find a word to say.
“Is your father in?” asked Mrs. Pepper pleasantly. Then she looked into the scaredface. “Don’t feel badly—you couldn’t help it,” she said.
Matilda twisted her hands in her dirty apron. “We feel dreadful—Ma an’ me,” she said, and burst out crying.
“There—there,” said Mrs. Pepper soothingly, trying to pat the nervous hands. “Don’t, Matilda; your mother will hear you. Can I see your father?” She stepped in and shut the door.
“He’s in there.” Matilda twitched out one hand from beneath the apron, and pointed a shaking finger to the little room that old Mr. Peters called his office. Mrs. Pepper knocked at the door.
“You better go right in ef you want to see him,” said Matilda in a loud whisper, “for he’ll sneak out th’ back door, ef he knows it’s you.” So Mrs. Pepper opened the door, and none too soon. Old Man Peters was crowding his long legs out of the big chair where he sat behind his desk, his eyes on the door leading out to the back yard.
“Oh, come in, Mis Pepper,” he mumbled, his long face getting redder and redder. “Take a chair an’ set.”
“I do not wish to sit down, Mr. Peters,” said Mrs. Pepper. “What I have to say will take but a few moments. I have come to see you about my boy.”
“Yes—yes—” grunted the old man in a terrible alarm. “Well, p’raps ’twas a mistake,” he twitched the papers on his desk with nervous fingers, then finally ran them through his shock of grizzled hair. “I didn’t mean to hurt th’ boy none. But mebbe ’twas a mistake. You better set, Mis Pepper.” He pointed to a broken-backed chair, the only one provided for his farm-hands when they went to wrangle over their hard-earned wages.
“It was more than a mistake, Mr. Peters,” said Mrs. Pepper in a clear voice, and ignoring the invitation.
“Well—mebbe—mebbe,” said the old man, wriggling around in his big chair. “See here now,” he suddenly stopped and looked in a tremor into her black eyes, “I’ll give you some money, an’ that’ll fix it up. How much do ye want?” he asked in an anguished tone.
“Money could never fix up a thing like this,” said Mrs. Pepper. Her tone was quiet, but the black eyes blazed. Old Man Peters’s hand fellin relief from the handle of his money drawer, but he slunk down in his chair.
“The only reparation you can make, Mr. Peters,” Mrs. Pepper went on, “is to be very sure that you will never lay a hand again on a Badgertown child; not only upon my child, but uponanychild. You understand that?”
“Ye—yes,” mumbled the old man.
“And one more thing. That is, that you will treat your wife and Matilda as women should be treated.”
“They’re well enough off,” declared Old Man Peters suddenly. Then he snarled out, “An’ what bus’ness is it of yours, Mis Pepper, I’d like to know.”
“Very well. If you don’t promise this, I shall see that the injury to my boy is atoned for. I shall give the matter into the hands of the town authorities, Mr. Peters.”
“Here—here—” screamed the old man, flinging out both hands, as she moved off. “Stop, Mis Pepper! I didn’t mean to say I wouldn’t promise. Yes—yes—I do! Will you stop! I say I will!”
“And Badgertown will see that you keep that promise,” said Mrs. Pepper. Then sheopened the door. Matilda, who had a shaking eye at the keyhole, nearly fell over backward on the entry oilcloth.
“Oh, Mis Pepper,” she gasped, seizing the strong arm. “Ma’s takin’ on somethin’ awful in th’ sittin’ room.”
“She won’t do that long,” said Mrs. Pepper grimly. “Come, Tildy.”
“Oh me—oh my!” old Mrs. Peters was throwing herself from one side of the rickety sofa in the sitting-room and moaning, with her fingers in her ears, when they came in.
“She’s got th’ high-strikes,” declared Matilda with big eyes. “I must go up garret and git some feathers an’ burn ’em right under her nose.”
“Come back—no need for that, Matilda.” Mrs. Pepper sat down on the sofa and drew the poor gray head into her arms. “There—there,” she said, just as if one of the Five Little Peppers was cuddled within them. “You’re going to see better times, Mrs. Peters. Your husband has promised to treat you and Matilda as women should be treated.”
But Mrs. Peters not understanding, wailed on, burrowing deeper into the kind arms.
Tildy jumped to her feet. “Oh my soul an’ body—did you make Pa saythat?”
“Mr. Peters promised it,” said Mrs. Pepper with a smile.
“Glory be!” Tildy set up a trot to the other end of the room, coming back to snap her fingers in glee. Then the joy went out of her face. “Pa never’ll keep that promise in all the world,” she gasped, drooping miserably.
“There is no doubt that the promise will be kept, Matilda,” said Mrs. Pepper. “And if it isn’t, why you just come to me.” Then she laid Mrs. Peters’s head back on the old sofa and went out and shut the door.