“No, no, you’re not going to talk yet,” seeing Percy and Van beginning violent efforts to join in the conversation.  “Let the Peppers have a chance to talk over old times first.  See how good Jasper is to wait.”

“I would much prefer to hear the Peppers talk forever,” said Jasper, smiling down on the two Whitneys, “than to have the gates opened for a general flood.  Go on, do, Polly and Ben, and the rest of you.”

“Oh! there is so much,” said Polly despairingly, clasping her hands, “we shouldn’t get through if we talked ten years, should we, Ben?  Mamsie,” and she rushed over to her, “can we have a baking time to-morrow, just as we used to in the old days?  Oh! do say yes.”

“Yes, do say yes,” echoed Jasper, also rushing to the side of the little rocking-chair.  “You will, won’t you, Mrs. Pepper?”

“Hoh! hoh!” cried the two Whitneys derisively, “I thought you could ‘hear the Peppers talk forever.’  That’s great, Jasper.”

“Well, when it comes to hearing a proposal for a baking frolic, my principles are thrown to the wind,” said Jasper recklessly.  “Why, boys, that’s the first thing I remember about the little brown house.  Do say yes, Mrs. Pepper!”

VIII

SOME BADGERTOWN CALLS

Well, I declare!” exclaimed Grandma Bascom, opening the door and looking in, “I never!”

“Come in,” cried Mr. King sociably.  His night over at the parsonage had been a most fortunate experiment.  “I haven’t slept so finely in ten years,” he confided to Mrs. Whitney as they met at breakfast at the minister’s table.  So now, his face wreathed with smiles, he repeated his invitation.  “Come in, do, Mrs. Bascom; we’re glad to see you.”

“I never!” said Grandma Bascom once more, for want of something better to say, and coming close to the center of operations.

Jasper, attired in one of Mrs. Pepper’s long aprons, which was fastened in the style of the old days, by the strings around his neck, was busily engaged in rolling out under Polly’s direction, a thin paste, expected presently under the genial warmth of the waiting stove, to evolve into most toothsome cakes.  Ben was similarly attired, and similarly employed; while Joel and David were in a sticky state, preparing their dough after their own receipt, over at the corner table, their movements closely followed by the three Whitneys.

Phronsie, before a board laid across two chairs, was enlightening old Mr. King who sat by her, into the mysteries of baking day.

“Do bake a gingerbread boy,” he begged.  “I never had anything half so good as the one you sent over to Hingham.”

“You were my poor sick man then,” observed Phronsie, with slow, even pats on her bit of dough.  “Please, the rolling-pin now, Grandpapa dear.”

“To be sure,” cried the old gentleman; “here, Jappy, my boy, be so good as to hand us over that article.”