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Updated: May 3, 2025
The gaffers scrambled for places, wedged in a compact circle, the spectators standing behind them to advise or take a hand as occasion offered. Chook looked at the kip, a flat piece of wood, the size of a butter-pat, and the two pennies, blackened on the tail and polished on the face. A gaffer stepped into the ring and picked them up. "A dollar 'eads! A dollar tails!
She held out her hand with authority. "My mother said I was to carry the butter-pat, and I shall carry it," said Peletiah, putting out one hand for it, and the other behind his back. Rachel wrinkled her brows and thought a minute. "So she did," she said. Then she set the butter-pat in Peletiah's hand, and pinched his thumb down over it. "There, hold on to it," she said, "or you'll lose it again.
And before either boy knew what was going to happen, she was hauling them along at such a mad pace as they had never before in all their lives indulged in. The butter-pat slipped out of Peletiah's hand, gone on the wind, and landed on the roadside grass. "Wasn't that a good one!" cried Rachel, her eyes shining, as she brought up suddenly.
"No such thing." Rachel held the butter-pat firmly in her slender, brown hand. "My! you ain't fit to carry no butter-pats let 'em drop out of your hands. Come on!" "I shall carry it," declared Peletiah doggedly, and bringing his pale eyes to bear on her face, while he stood still in his tracks. "I hope you may get it," cried Rachel triumphantly. "I never see such a boy. Come on, I say."
And now here Aunt Abigail, talking about a butter-pat, had brought it to life! Of course all this only lasted a moment, because it was such a new idea! She soon lost track of what she was thinking of; she rubbed her eyes as though she were coming out of a dream, she thought, confusedly: "What did butter have to do with the Declaration of Independence? Nothing, of course!
Peletiah, not having had time to put down the butter-pat, now came up and presented it with all due formality. "But who is this little gal?" asked Grandma, as he set the butter-pat in the middle of the checked apron over her lap. "She's Rachel," said Peletiah. "Eh? What?" Grandma held a shaking hand behind her ear.
"And I'm a-goin' to live here," declared Rachel, in a transport, and wriggling in the sweet clover, "if I'm good. I'm goin' to be good all the time. Yes, sir!" "I lost the butter-pat," repeated Peletiah. "Butter-pat?" Rachel caught the last words and sprang to her feet. "Oh, yes, I forgot; we must hurry with the butter-pat. Come on!" and she whirled around on Peletiah.
Now, come on!" The way back was conducted on slower lines, as Rachel had an anxious oversight lest the butter-pat should again be taken off on the wind, so that Peletiah and Ezekiel had a chance to recover their breath, with some degree of composure, by the time they turned down the lane to Grandma Bascom's.
"Oh, my! ain't things sweet, though!" wrinkling up her nose in delight. "I lost the butter-pat," observed Peletiah, when he could get his breath. "I never see anything so beautiful," Rachel was saying, over and over. Then she flung herself flat on the grass, and buried her nose in it, smelling it hungrily. "Oh, my!" "I lost the butter-pat," observed Peletiah again, and standing over her.
"Why, where ?" as she saw his empty hands. "I lost the butter-pat," said Peletiah. "I've been telling you so." "No, you haven't," contradicted Rachel flatly. "Yes, I have," said Peletiah stolidly. "No such thing." Rachel squared up to him, her black eyes flashing. "You haven't said a single word, you bad, wicked boy."
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