"Did you cut that out?" cried Dick, turning around in his chair, and
regarding her enviously, "all alone by yourself? Didn't Grandpapa help
you just one teeny bit to make the legs and the hands?"

"No; she made it all herself," said the old gentleman, with justifiable
pride. "There, Phronsie, here's your pan," as Polly set it down before
her with a "You precious dear, that's perfectly elegant!"

Phronsie placed the boy within the pan, and gave it many a loving pat.
"Grandpapa sat here, and looked at it, and smiled," she said, turning
her eyes gravely on Dick, "and that helped ever so much. I couldn't ever
have made it so nice alone. Good-by; now bake like a good boy. Let me
put it in the oven all by myself, do, Polly," she begged.

So Phronsie, the old gentleman escorting her in mortal dread that she
would be burned, safely tucked her long pan into the warmest corner,
shut the door, and gravely consulted the clock. "If I look at it in
twenty-one minutes, I think it will be done," she said, "quite brown."

In twenty-one minutes the whole kitchen was as far removed from being
the scene of a baking exploit as was possible. Everything was cleared
away, and set up primly in its place, leaving only a row of fine little
biscuits and cookies, with Phronsie's gingerbread boy in the midst, to
tell the tale of what had been going on. Outside there was a great
commotion.

Deacon Brown's old wagon stood at the gate, for the Peppers and their
friends; and, oh! joy, not the old horse between the shafts, but a newer
and much livelier beast. And on the straw laid in the bottom of the