“Took it twice?” she repeated, faintly, with troubled visions of the future.  “Well, well, the mischief is done now, so there is no use in talking about it; but I’m worried, all the same.”

“Hurry up, Percy,” called Joel across the table, “and don’t dawdle so.  We’re going to make a double ripper, four yards long, to go down that hill there.”  He laid down his spoon to point out the window at a distant snow-covered slope.

Percy shivered, but recalling himself in time, said “Splendid,” and addressed himself with difficulty to his mush.

“Well, you’ll never be through at that speed,” declared Joel.  “See I’ve eaten three saucerfuls,” and he handed his plate up, “And now for the fourth, Mamsie.”

“Oh! baked potatoes,” cried Ben, rolling one around in his hand before he took off its crackling skin.  “Weren’t they good, though, with a little salt.  I tell you, they helped us to chop wood in the old times!”

“I really think I shall have to try one,” said Percy, who deeply to his regret was obliged to confess that Indian meal mush had few charms for his palate.

“There’s real milk in my mug now,” cried Phronsie, with long, deep draughts.  “Polly, did I ever have anything but make-believe in the little brown house; ever, Polly?”

Polly was saved from answering by a stamping of snowy boots on the flat doorstone.

“Hurrah, there!” cried Van, rushing in, followed by Jasper.  “Hoh, you slow people in the little brown house, come on for the double ripper!”

IX

A SUDDEN BLOW

“Mamsie,” cried Polly, suddenly, and resting her hands on her knees as she sat on the floor before the stove, “do you suppose there is any one poor enough in Badgertown to need the little brown house when we lock it up to-morrow?” “Not a soul,” replied Mrs. Pepper, quickly; “no more than there was when we first locked it up five years ago, Polly.  I’ve been all over that with the parson last evening; and he says there isn’t a new family in the place, and all the old ones have their homes, the same as ever.  So we can turn the key and leave it with a clear conscience.”

Polly drew a long breath of delight, and gazed long at the face of the stove that seemed to crackle out an answering note of joy as the wood snapped merrily; then she slowly looked around the kitchen.

“It’s so perfectly lovely, Mamsie,” she broke out at length, “to see the dear old things, and to know that they are waiting here for us to come back whenever we want to.  And to think it isn’t wicked not to have them used, because everybody has all they need; oh! it’s so delicious to think they can be left to themselves.”

She folded her hands now across her knees, and drew another long breath of content.

Phronsie stole out of the bedroom, and came slowly up to her mother’s side, pausing a bit on the way to look into Polly’s absorbed face.