every single thing in the world, I do believe," she brought up with a sigh.
"I heard him say he'd broken his gold pen," said Ben, "the other day."
"Oh, Bensie!" cried Polly, with sparkling eyes, and seizing his arm, "how perfectly splendid you are to always think up the right things."
"No, I don't, Polly." Ben was guilty of contradiction, but his cheek glowed. "You always get ahead of me with twenty plans while I'm thinking up one."
"But your one is the best," laughed Polly, squeezing his arm affectionately. "Oh, now let's hurry and buy the gold pen."
"Well, do you children want it?" asked Ben, looking around at them, "because it must be something that we all like, else Grandpapa won't care anything for it."
"Phoo!" cried Joel, horribly disappointed at such a quiet present. "What's an old pen, anyway? Can't write with it, without a handle."
"Well, we are going to give the handle, of course," said Ben, "only it must be a black one, for we haven't money enough for a solid gold one."
"And did you suppose we'd give Grandpapa a pen without a handle, Joey?" said Polly, quite horror-stricken at the very idea.
"Well, you said pen," persisted Joel.
"And so it is pen," said Ben, gayly, his spirits rising fast, "and handle, too. Well, now, do you vote for it, Joe?" and he slapped his back.
"Yes," said Joel, "if you'll give the handle, too."
And David saying "yes," then Polly had to explain it all to Phronsie. "And just think, pet, you can sit by him at his table, and watch him write with it," she finished.
"Oh, I want to buy my dear Grandpapa a pen," cried Phronsie, dreadfully excited and hopping up and down; "do, Bensie, please get it now, this very one minute!"
IV
"IT'S JOEL'S OLD LADY"
So a pen was bought, and a lovely gold-mounted black handle, all the children hanging over the purchase in rapt attention. And it was left to be marked with Grandpapa's initials and to be sent to Ben in two days, in order to be actually sure to be on hand in time for Christmas, which now was only a week away. "For suppose it shouldn't be there in time!" breathed Polly. At which the rest of the Pepper children took alarm. "Oh, won't it?" gasped Joel, in distress, trying to fly back to the counter, as the whole bunch moved away in great delight at this momentous undertaking accomplished.
"Here, you!" Ben seized his jacket and pulled him back, then he slipped away himself, while Polly reassured Joel that she was only supposing that if they hadn't bought Grandpapa's present this very day what might have happened, so that she didn't see Ben go, until, as he hurried back, "Why, where—" she began, looking around.
"Nothing," said Ben, answering her question, and his face grew red, "only I thought you'd better have the parcel sent to you," for he remembered just in time how dearly Polly loved to receive bundles addressed to her own self.
"Oh, Ben!" exclaimed Polly, in dismay, "you shouldn't have done so. I'm going back to tell them to change it."
"Indeed you won't," declared Ben, bursting into a laugh, "I guess changing it once is enough. Come on, Polly."
But once outside they couldn't get along for the throng.
"What is it?" cried David, who happened to be first, Joel hanging back to look at the things on the last counter. "A fire. Oh, Polly, it must be!"
"A fire!" Joel caught the last word. "Oh, good, that's prime!" He cleared the steps with a bound. But Ben was after him and had him fast.
It was impossible to see what the commotion was about, the people pressing up to the curbstone in such a throng.
"It isn't any fire at all," declared Joel, with a sniff, quite willing to be led back by Ben. "There aren't any fire-engines or anything! Come on, let's go to Gallagher's."
"Gallagher's" was the best all-round shop in town, and it was the children's perfect delight whenever allowed to go there.
"But something has happened," said Polly, standing on her tiptoes, and craning her neck to look up the street where the group was the thickest. "O dear me! It's a woman, and she's hurt!"
"Tried to go across the street and got knocked down," volunteered a man, who, having seen all he wanted to, kindly made way for Polly to take his place.
"O dear me!" she began, then she caught sight of the face. "Ben," she clutched his sleeve, "it's Joel's old lady!"
Sure enough, the face, now as white as the big puffs of hair above it, came into view as two men lifted the owner, a big, stately woman, to the sidewalk. They came close to the little Peppers, so that the stiff black silk coat, now plentifully besprinkled with mud, brushed them as it passed. Joel gave a howl as she was carried by. "It's that cross old woman!" he exclaimed.
"Hush, Joel!" Polly pulled his arm.
"Get out of the way!" said the men, pushing with their burden into the drug store, two doors off.
The bystanders, having seen all that satisfied their curiosity, rushed off to the delayed Christmas shopping. Only the Pepper children were left.
"Polly," said Ben, hoarsely, and his blue eyes shone, "just think, supposing she belonged to us."
"She couldn't," said Joel, decidedly, "she's awful cross."
"For shame, Joel," said Ben, sternly. "I'm going in to see." He hurried after just as the men laid down the old woman on the marble floor.
"Blest if I know who she is!" said one of them, wiping his forehead as the perspiration rushed off.
"She run right in front of the wagon, I seen her myself," said the other.
"Well, I guess she's dead," said the first man. Ben pushed up nearer, motioning for the rest of the children who had followed to keep back. Meantime the proprietor ran to the telephone. "I would thank you to call my carriage," said the old lady, the eyes in the white face flying open. The two men who had brought her in, and the little fringe of spectators, principally composed of the druggist's clerks and the little group of Peppers, tumbled back suddenly.
"She's out of her head," said one of the men behind his hand. "She didn't have no carriage." Ben pushed by him, the old woman's eyes closing again, when Polly knelt down by her side, and forgetting how scared she had been by that face the last time she saw it, she seized the poor stiff hand in its black glove. "Oh, ma'am," she cried, "can't you tell me who you are, and we will get you home?"
The eyes flew wide open again, and the face was quite as terrible, where she lay on the floor of the druggist's shop; the Roman nose and the big white puffs stood up in such a formidable way.
"Oh!" the keen black eyes bored into Polly's face; but "lift me up, and call my carriage," was all she said.
Ben heard, as did the others, and he rushed up to the proprietor just as the doctor, a dapper little man
