IX

THE BAG OF RYE FLOUR


All that week Mother Pepper kept Joel and David away from the
Store, and Polly or Ben had to go, whenever the errands made it
necessary. Polly, when it was her turn, did not trust herself to
look at the flaming yellow sheets of paper with the big staring
letters across them, stuck up in the dirty store windows, or
hung from the beams in among the kitchen utensils, or breadths
of calico and gingham, wherever they would attract the most
attention.

One, in particular, was nailed up just inside the door. It was
pretty hard to avoid this, but Polly turned her head away, and
tried not to think of it, but keep her mind on what Mamsie said
just before starting. "Don't keep looking at what you want and
can't have, but keep busy over what you can have;" so she set
her brain hard to work over the play, trying to decide whether
she would have Mr. Primrose, who was to be Ben, rescue from the
bear the white cat, who was to be Phronsie, in the remains of
the old white fuzzy mat that Mrs. Henderson had given them to
play with, or whether she (Polly), who was to be the fairy,
should change her back into the small damsel she was at first,
or whether--"