"He's just lovely," cried Polly, "oh! I wish you knew him.""If father's sick again," said Jasper, "we'll have him--he looks nice, anyway--for father don't like the doctor over in Hingham--do you know perhaps we'll come again next summer; wouldn't that be nice!""Oh!" cried the children rapturously; "do come, Jasper, do!""Well, maybe," said Jasper, "if father likes it and sister Marian and her family will come with us; they do some summers. You'd like little ****, I know," turning to Phronsie. "And I guess all of you'd like all of them," he added, looking at the group of interested listeners. "They wanted to come this year awfully; they said--'Oh grandpapa, do let us go with you and Jappy, and"----"What!" said the children.
"Oh," said Jasper with a laugh, "they call me Jappy--its easier to say than Jasper; ever so many people do for short. You may if you want to," he said looking around on them all.
"How funny!" laughed Polly, "But I don't know as it is any worse than Polly or Ben.""Or Phronsie," said Jappy. "Don't you like Jappy?" he said, bringing his head down to her level, as she sat on the little stool at his feet, content in listening to the merry chat.
"Is that the same as Japser?" she asked gravely.
"Yes, the very same," he said.
When they parted--Jappy and the little Peppers were sworn friends;and the boy, happy in his good times in the cheery little home, felt the hours long between the visits that his father, when he saw the change that they wrought in his son, willingly allowed him to make.
"Oh dear!" said Mrs. Pepper one day in the last of September--as a carriage drawn by a pair of very handsome horses, stopped at their door, "here comes Mr. King I do believe; we never looked worse'n we do to-day!""I don't care," said Polly, flying out of the bedroom. "Jappy's with him, mamma, and it'll be nice I guess. At any rate, Phronsie's clean as a pink," she thought to herself looking at the little maiden, busy with "baby" to whom she was teaching deportment in the corner.
But there was no time to "fix up;" for a tall, portly gentleman, leaning on his heavy gold cane, was walking up from the little brown gate to the big flat-stone that served as a step. Jasper and Prince followed decorously.
"Is this little Miss Pepper?" he asked pompously of Polly, who answered his rap on the door. Now whether she was little "Miss Pepper" she never had stopped to consider.
"I don't know sir; I'm Polly." And then she blushed bright as a rose, and the laughing brown eyes looked beyond to Jasper, who stood on the walk, and smiled encouragingly.
"Is your mother in?" asked the old gentleman, who was so tall he could scarcely enter the low door. And then Mrs. Pepper came forward, and Jasper introduced her, and the old gentleman bowed, and sat down in the seat Polly placed for him. And Mrs. Pepper thanked him with a heart overflowing with gratitude, through lips that would tremble even then, for all that Jasper had done for them. And the old gentleman said--"Humph!" but he looked at his son, and something shone in his eye just for a moment.
Phronsie had retreated with "baby" in her arms behind the door on the new arrival. But seeing everything progressing finely, and overcome by her extreme desire to see Jappy and Prince, she began by peeping out with big eyes to observe how things were going on.
Just then the old gentleman happened to say, "Well, where is my little girl that baked me a cake so kindly?"Then Phronsie, forgetting all else but her "poor sick man," who also was "Jasper's father," rushed out from behind the door, and coming up to the stately old gentleman in the chair, she looked up pityingly, and said, shaking her yellow head, "Poor, sick man, was my boy good?"After that there was no more gravity and ceremony. In a moment, Phronsie was perched upon old Mr. King's knee, and playing with his watch; while the others, freed from all restraint, were chatting and laughing happily, till some of the cheeriness overflowed and warmed the heart of the old gentleman.
"We go to-morrow," he said, rising, and looking at his watch.
"Why, is it possible that we have been here an hour! there, my little girl, will you give me a kiss?" and he bent his handsome old head down to the childish face upturned to his confidingly.
"Don't go," said the child, as she put up her little lips in grave confidence. "I do like you--I do!""Oh, Phronsie," began Mrs. Pepper.
"Don't reprove her, madam," said the old gentleman, who liked it immensely. "Yes, we go to-morrow," he said, looking around on the group to whom this was a blow they little expected. They had surely thought Jasper was to stay a week longer.
"I received a telegram this morning, that I must be in the city on Thursday. And besides, madam," he said, addressing Mrs. Pepper, "I think the climate is bad for me now, as it induces rheumatism.
The hotel is also getting unpleasant; there are many annoyances that I cannot put up with; so that altogether, I do not regret it."Mrs. Pepper, not knowing exactly what to say to this, wisely said nothing. Meantime, Jappy and the little Peppers were having a sorry time over in the corner by themselves.
"Well, I'll write," cried Jasper, not liking to look at Polly just then, as he was sure he shouldn't want anyone to look at him, if he felt like crying. "And you must answer 'em all.""Oh, we will! we will!" they cried. "And Jappy, do come next summer," said Joel.
"If father'll only say yes, we will, I tell you!" he responded eagerly.
"Come, my boy," said his father the third time; and Jasper knew by the tone that there must be no delay.
Mr. King had been nervously putting his hand in his pocket during the last few moments that the children were together; but when he glanced at Mrs. Pepper's eyes, something made him draw it out again hastily, as empty as he put it in. "No, 'twouldn't do," he said to himself; "she isn't the kind of woman to whom one could offer money."The children crowded back their tears, and hastily said their last good-bye, some of them hanging on to Prince till the last moment.
And then the carriage door shut with a bang, Jasper giving them a bright parting smile, and they were gone.
And the Peppers went into their little brown house, and shut the door.
