you, Polly." So Polly
trotted first to Ben, up the crooked, low stairs to the loft; and while
she regaled him with the brown toast and butter, she kept her tongue
flying on the subject of the little chicks, and all that she saw on the
famous Henderson visit. Poor Ben pretended hard to eat, but ate nothing
really; and Polly saw it all, and it cut her to the heart--so she talked
faster than ever.

"Now," she said, starting to go back to Phronsie; "Ben Pepper, just as
soon as you get well, we'll have some chickens--so there!"

"Guess we sha'n't get 'em very soon," said Ben, despondently, "if I've
got to lie here; and, besides, Polly, you know every bit we can save has
got to go for the new stove."

"Oh, dear," said Polly, "I forgot that; so it has; seems to me
everything's giving out!"

"You can't bake any longer in the old thing," said Ben, turning over and
looking at her; "poor girl, I don't see how you've stood it so long."

"And we've been stuffing it," cried Polly merrily, "till 'twon't stuff
any more."

"No," said Ben, turning back again, "that's all worn out."

"Well, you must go to sleep," said Polly, "or mammy'll be up here; and
Phronsie hasn't had her breakfast either."

Phronsie was wailing away dismally, sitting up in the middle of the old
bed. Her face pricked, she said, and she was rubbing it vigorously with
both fat little hands, and then crying worse than ever.

"Oh me! oh my!" cried Polly; "how you look, Phronsie!"

"I want my mammy!" cried poor Phronsie.

"Mammy can't come now, Phronsie dear; she's sewing. See what Polly's got
for you--butter: isn't that splendid!"

Phronsie stopped for just one moment, and took a mouthful; but the toast
was hard and dry, and she cried harder than before.

"Now," said Polly, curling up on the bed beside her, "if you'll stop
crying, Phronsie Pepper, I'll tell you about the cunningest, yes, the
very cunningest little chickens you ever saw. One was white, and he
looked just like this," said Polly, tumbling over on the bed in a heap;
"he couldn't stand up straight, he was so fat."

"Did he bite?" asked Phronsie, full of interest.

"No, he didn't bite me," said Polly; "but his mother put a bug in his
mouth--just as I'm doing you know," and she broke off a small piece of
the toast, put on a generous bit of butter, and held it over Phronsie's
mouth.

"Did he swallow it?" asked the child, obediently opening her little red
lips.

"Oh, snapped it," answered Po