Davie turned his blue eyes full of delight: "I might go a little
way; but I'm not going to the cave; only just after the flowers--the
green ones and the others."

"All right," said Joel, carelessly, thinking that after Davie
got started he could persuade him to keep on. "Now, you wait
here till I get my gun."

Joel's gun was an old willow branch out of which he had knocked
the pith; then he would put in round pebbles, when he wanted to
use it, and punch them out suddenly with another stick, screaming
out at the same time, "Look out, my gun's going off. _Bang!_"

So he ran off nimbly and got his gun from the corner of the
woodshed, where he had hidden it, and then in to Polly in the
kitchen.

"Give us somethin' to eat, Polly, please. Dave an' me."

"You can get some bread in the tin pail in the provision room,
Joe," she said, without looking up. She was trying to sew up a
long seam in one of the coats Mother Pepper was making for Mr.
Atkins, and it bothered her dreadfully, for it wouldn't look
like Mamsie's, try as she would. And she had picked it out three
times, and was just threading her needle to begin again, when
Joel rushed in.

"Why, you've only been through breakfast a little while," she
said quickly. "Dear me, Joe, seems to me you're always hungry."