Part 27 (2/2)

”Yes,” said the boy simply; ”I've played ever since I was a little fellow, no bigger'n Phronsie.”

”Oh, Jasper!” cried Polly, clasping her hands, her cheeks all aflame--”do you mean to say you do really and truly play on the piano?”

”Why yes,” said the boy, looking into her flas.h.i.+ng eyes. ”Polly's always crazy about music,” explained Ben; ”she'll drum on the table, and anywhere, to make believe it's a piano.”

”There's Dr. Fisher going by,” said Joel, who, now that they had gotten on the subject of music, began to find p.r.i.c.kles running up and down his legs from sitting so still. ”I wish he'd stop.”

”Is he the one that cured your measles--and Polly's eyes?” asked Jasper running to the window. ”I want to see him.”

”Well there he is,” cried Ben, as the doctor put his head out of the gig and bowed and smiled to the little group in the window.

”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 d.i.c.k, 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 j.a.ppy, and--”

”What!” said the children.

”Oh,” said Jasper with a laugh, ”they call me j.a.ppy--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 j.a.ppy. ”Don't you like j.a.ppy?” 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 Jasper?” she asked gravely.

”Yes, the very same,” he said.

When they parted--j.a.ppy 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. ”j.a.ppy'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 grat.i.tude, 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 j.a.ppy 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?”

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