and younger; but in Polly's and Ben's souls, the desire grew so
overwhelmingly great as to absorb all lesser thoughts. Many and
vast were their secret plans, by which they were to astonish her at
some future day, which they would only confide--as they did
everything else--to one another. For this brother and sister were
everything to each other, and stood loyally together through "thick
and thin."

Polly was ten, and Ben one year older; and the younger three of the
"Five Little Peppers," as they were always called, looked up to
them with the intensest admiration and love. What they failed to
do, couldn't very well be done by any One!

"Oh dear!" exclaimed Polly as she sat over in the corner by the
window helping her mother pull out basting threads from a coat
she had just finished, and giving an impatient twitch to the sleeve,
"I do wish we could ever have any light--just as much as we want!"

"You don't need any light to see these threads," said Mrs. Pepper,
winding up hers carefully, as she spoke, on an old spool. "Take
care, Polly, you broke that; thread's dear now."

"I couldn't help it," said Polly, vexedly; "it snapped; everything's
dear now, it seems to me! I wish we could have--oh! ever an' ever
so many candles; as many as we wanted. I'd light 'em all, so there!
and have it light here one night, anyway!"

"Yes, and go dark all the rest of the year, like as anyway,"
observed Mrs. Pepper, stopping to untie a knot. "Folks who do so
never have any candles," she added, sententiously.