"How I wish 'twas gingerbread!" cried Joel, tumbling over the
rickety steps in a trice. "Polly, why don't we ever have any?"
he called back, twitching off the cover of the pail. It fell to
the floor and rattled off, making a great noise.

"Stop banging that pail, Joe," called Polly, in a sharp little voice,
and twisting the end of the thread tighter. "Dear me, this hateful
thing won't go in that eye. Go in, you!" with a push that sent the
thread way beyond the needle.

"I ain't bangin' the pail," contradicted Joel, in a loud,
injured voice; "the old thing fell down. 'Twarn't my fault." And
he ran noisily across the provision room to pick it up.

"Well, set it on tight," said Polly, "and you're a very naughty
boy, Joel, and always making a fuss over the bread pail."

Joel didn't hear her, as he was busily engaged in cramming the
cover on the pail, and in a minute or two he came up with his
pockets full of dry bread, and his chubby face beaming with
satisfaction.

Polly tried again, without avail, to thread her needle, and at
last, as he ran out with a good whoop, she laid it down and put
her head back against Mamsie's big chair in which she was
sitting. "O dear," she sighed, "how I wish I could go off to-day
and play just once! How good it must be in the woods!"

"Don't you suppose you'll go when you are a big woman?" asked
Phronsie, laying down Seraphina, where she sat on the floor, and