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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Dotty Dimple Out West, by Sophie May
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Dotty Dimple Out West
+
+Author: Sophie May
+
+Release Date: July 29, 2005 [EBook #16383]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DOTTY DIMPLE OUT WEST ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Bethanne M. Simms, Stephanie Maschek and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+SOPHIE MAY'S
+LITTLE FOLKS' BOOKS.
+
+_Any volume sold separately_.
+
++DOTTY DIMPLE SERIES+.--Six volumes, Illustrated. Per volume, 75 cents.
+
+      Dotty Dimple at her Grandmother's.
+            Dotty Dimple at Home.
+                  Dotty Dimple out West.
+                        Dotty Dimple at Play.
+                              Dotty Dimple at School.
+                                    Dotty Dimple's Flyaway.
+
++FLAXIE FRIZZLE STORIES+.--Six volumes. Illustrated. Per volume, 75
+cents.
+
+   Flaxie Frizzle.   Little Pitchers.    Flaxie's Kittyleen.
+   Doctor Papa.      The Twin Cousins.   Flaxie Growing Up.
+
++LITTLE PRUDY STORIES+.--Six volumes. Handsomely Illustrated. Per
+volume, 75 cents.
+
+      Little Prudy.
+           Little Prudy's Sister Susy.
+                Little Prudy's Captain Horace.
+                     Little Prudy's Story Book.
+                          Little Prudy's Cousin Grace.
+                               Little Prudy's Dotty Dimple.
+
++LITTLE PRUDY'S FLYAWAY SERIES+.--Six volumes. Illustrated. Per volume,
+75 cents.
+
+    Little Folks Astray.      Little Grandmother.
+         Prudy Keeping House.      Little Grandfather.
+             Aunt Madge's Story.       Miss Thistledown.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
++LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS+,
+
+BOSTON.
+
+[Illustration: Title page]
+
+
+
+
+_DOTTY DIMPLE STORIES_.
+
+
+DOTTY DIMPLE OUT WEST.
+
+
+BY SOPHIE MAY,
+
+AUTHOR OF "LITTLE PRUDY STORIES."
+
+
++Illustrated+.
+
+
+BOSTON
+
+LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS
+
+10 MILK STREET
+
+
+
+
+Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869,
+
+BY LEE AND SHEPARD,
+
+In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+_DOTTY DIMPLE'S LITTLE FRIENDS_,
+
+GUSSIE TAPPAN AND SARAH LONGSLEY.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+CHAPTER                         PAGE
+
+   I. STARTING,                    7
+
+  II. THE CAPTAIN'S SON,          20
+
+ III. A BABY IN A BLUE CLOAK,     36
+
+  IV. "PIGEON PIE POSTPONED,"     52
+
+   V. THE MAJOR'S JOKE,           67
+
+  VI. NEW FACES,                  82
+
+ VII. WAKING UP OUT WEST,         96
+
+VIII. GOING NUTTING,             108
+
+  IX. IN THE WOODS,              119
+
+   X. SURPRISES,                 133
+
+  XI. SNIGGLING FOR EELS,        146
+
+ XII. "A POST-OFFICE LETTER,"    160
+
+
+
+
+DOTTY DIMPLE OUT WEST.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+STARTING.
+
+
+One beautiful morning in October the sun came up rejoicing.
+Dotty Dimple watched it from the window with feelings of peculiar
+pleasure.
+
+"I should think that old sun would wear out and grow rough round the
+edges. Why not? Last week it was ever so dull; now it is bright. I
+shouldn't wonder if the angels up there have to scour it once in a
+while."
+
+You perceive that Dotty's ideas of astronomy were anything but correct.
+She supposed the solar orb was composed of a very peculiar kind of
+gold, which could be rubbed as easily as Norah's tin pans, though so
+intensely hot that one's fingers would, most likely, be scorched in the
+operation.
+
+On this particular morning she felt an unusual interest in the state of
+the weather. It had been decided that she should go West with her
+father, and this was the day set for departure. "I am happy up to my
+throat:" so she said to Prudy. And now all this happiness was to be
+buttoned up in a cunning little casaque, with new gaiters at the feet,
+and a hat and rosette at the top. Forty pounds or so of perfect delight
+going down to the depot in a carriage.
+
+"Don't you wish you could go, Zip Parlin? I'd like to hear you bark in
+the cars; and I'd like to hear _you_ talk, Prudy, too!"
+
+As Dotty spoke, the faintest possible shadow flickered across her
+radiant face; but it was only for a moment. She could not have quite
+everything she wanted, because she could not have Prudy; but then they
+were to take a basket of cold boiled eggs, sandwiches, and pies; and
+over these viands, with a napkin between, were two picture-books and a
+small spy-glass. There was a trunk with a sunshade in it, and some
+pretty dresses; among them the favorite white delaine, no longer stained
+with marmalade. There were presents in the trunk for Grace, Horace, and
+Katie, which were to take them by surprise. And more and better than
+all, Miss Dotty had in her own pocket a little porte-monnaie, containing
+fifty cents in scrip, with full permission to spend it all on the way.
+She also had a letter from Susy to be read at Boston, and one from Prudy
+to be read at Albany.
+
+Yes, there was everything to be thankful for, and nothing to regret.
+She was quite well by this time. The rich, warm color had come back to
+her cheeks. She did not need the journey for the sake of her health; her
+papa was to take her because he chose to give her the same pleasure he
+had once given Prudy. It was Susy's private opinion that it was
+rightfully her turn this time, instead of Dotty's; but she was quite
+patient, and willing to wait.
+
+It was a long journey for such a little child; and Mrs. Parlin almost
+regretted that the promise had been made; but the young traveller would
+only be gone three or four weeks, and in her aunt's family was not
+likely to be homesick.
+
+It was a very slow morning to Dotty. "Seems to me," said she, vibrating
+between the parlor and the kitchen like a discontented little
+pendulum,--"seems to me it was a great deal later than this yesterday!"
+
+She had eaten as many mouthfuls of breakfast as she possibly could in
+her excited condition, had kissed everybody good by twice over, and now
+thought it was time to be starting.
+
+Just as her patience was wearing to a thread the hack arrived, looking
+as black and glossy as if some one had been all this time polishing it
+for the occasion. Dotty disdained the help of the driver, and stepped
+into the carriage as eagerly as Jack climbed the bean-stalk. She flirted
+her clean dress against the wheel, but did not observe it. She was as
+happy as Jack when he reached the giant's house; happier too, for she
+had mounted to a castle in the air; and everybody knows a castle in the
+air is gayer than all the gold houses that ever grew on the top of a
+stalk. To the eye of the world she seemed to be sitting on a drab
+cushion, behind a gray horse; but no, she was really several thousand
+feet in the air, floating on a cloud.
+
+Her father smiled as he stepped leisurely into the hack; and he could
+not forbear kissing the little face which sparkled with such
+anticipation.
+
+"It is a real satisfaction," thought he, "to be able to make a child so
+happy."
+
+The group at the door looked after them wistfully.
+
+"Be a good child," said Mrs. Parlin, waving her handkerchief, "and do
+just as papa tells you, my dear."
+
+"Remember the three hugs to Gracie, and six to Flyaway," cried Prudy;
+"and don't let anybody see my letter."
+
+Dotty threw kisses with such vigor that, if they had been anything else
+but air, somebody would have been hit.
+
+The hack ride did not last long. It was like the preface to a
+story-book; and Dotty did not think much about it after she had come to
+the story,--that is to say, to the cars.
+
+Her father found a pleasant seat on the shady side, hung the basket in a
+rack, opened a window; and very soon the iron horse, which fed on fire,
+rushed, snorting and shrieking, away from the depot. Dotty felt as if
+she had a pair of wings on her shoulders, or a pair of seven-league
+boots on her feet; at any rate, she was whirling through space without
+any will of her own. The trees nodded in a kindly way, and the grass in
+the fields seemed to say, as it waved, "Good by, Dotty, dear! good by!
+You'll have a splendid time out West! out West! out West!"
+
+It was not at all like going to Willowbrook. It seemed as if these
+Boston cars had a motion peculiar to themselves. It was a very small
+event just to take an afternoon's ride to Grandpa Parlin's; but when it
+came to whizzing out to Indiana, why, that was another affair! It wasn't
+every little girl who could be trusted so far without her mother.
+
+"If I was _some_ children," thought Dotty, "I shouldn't know how to part
+my hair in the middle. Then my papa wouldn't dare to take me; for _he_
+can't part my hair any mor'n a cat!"
+
+Dotty smiled loftily as she looked at her father reading a newspaper. He
+was only a man; and though intelligent enough to manage the trunks, and
+proceed in a straight line to Indiana, still he was incapable of
+understanding when a young lady's hat was put on straight, and had once
+made the rosette come behind!
+
+In view of these short-comings of her parent and her own adroitness at
+the toilet, Dotty came to the conclusion that she was not, strictly
+speaking, under any one's charge, but was taking care of herself.
+
+"I wonder," thought she, "how many people there are in this car that
+know I'm going out West!"
+
+She sat up very primly, and looked around. The faces were nearly all new
+to her.
+
+"That woman in the next seat, how homely her little girl is, with
+freckles all over her face! Perhaps her mother wishes she was as white
+as I am. Why, who is that pretty little girl close to my father?"
+
+Dotty was looking straight forward, and had accidentally caught a peep
+at her own face in the mirror.
+
+"Why, it's me! How nice I look!" smiling and nodding at the pleasant
+picture.
+
+"Sit up like a lady, Dotty, and you'll look very polite, and very
+_style_ too."
+
+Florence Eastman said so much about "style" that Miss Dimple had adopted
+the word, though she was never know to use it correctly. I am sorry to
+say there was a deal of foolish vanity in the child's heart. Thoughtless
+people had so often spoken to her of her beauty, that she was inclined
+to dwell upon the theme secretly, and to admire her bright eyes in the
+glass.
+
+"Yes, I do look very _style_," she decided, after another self-satisfied
+nod. "Now I'd just like to know who that boy is, older'n I am, not half
+so pretty. I don't believe but somebody's been sitting down on his hat.
+What has he got in his lap? Is it a kitten? White as snow. I wish it
+wasn't so far off. He's giving it something to eat. How its ears shake!
+Papa, papa, what's that boy got in his lap?"
+
+"What boy?"
+
+"The one next to that big man. See his ears shake! He's putting
+something in his mouth."
+
+"In whose mouth?"
+
+Mr. Parlin looked across the aisle.
+
+"That 'big man' is my old friend Captain Lally," said he quite pleased;
+and in a moment he was shaking hands with him. Presently the captain and
+his son Adolphus changed places with the woman and the freckled girl,
+and made themselves neighbors to the Parlins. The two seats were turned
+_vis-a-vis_, the gentlemen occupying one, the children the other.
+
+Now Dotty discovered what it was that Adolphus had in his lap; it was a
+Spanish rabbit; and if you never saw one, little reader, you have no
+idea how beautiful an animal can be. If there is any gem so soft and
+sparkling as his liquid Indian-red eyes, with the sunshine quivering in
+them as in dewdrops, then I should like to see that gem, and have it set
+in the finest gold, and send it to the most beautiful woman in the world
+to wear for a ring. This rabbit was white as a snowball, with ears as
+pink as blush roses, and a mouth that was always in motion, whether
+Adolphus put lumps of sugar in it or not.
+
+Dotty went into raptures. She forgot her "style" hat, and her new
+dignity, and had no greater ambition than to hold the lovely white ball
+in her arms. Adolphus allowed her to do so. He was very kind to answer
+all her questions, and always in the most sensible manner. If Dotty had
+been a little older, she would have seen that the captain's son was a
+remarkably intelligent boy, in spite of his smashed hat.
+
+After everything had been said that could possibly be thought of, in
+regard to rabbits and their ways, Dotty looked again, and very
+critically, at Adolphus. His collar was wrinkled, his necktie one-sided,
+he wore no gloves, and, on the whole, was not dressed ad well as Dotty,
+who had started from home that very morning, clean and fresh. He was
+every day as old as Susy; but Miss Dimple, as a traveller bound on a
+long journey, felt herself older and wiser still, and began to talk
+accordingly. Smoothing down the skirt of her dress with her
+neatly-gloved hands, she remarked:--
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE CAPTAIN'S SON.
+
+
+"Is your name Dollyphus?"
+
+"Yes, Adolphus Lally."
+
+"Well, my name is Alice. Nobody calls me by it but my papa and my
+grandmas. Dotty Dimple is my short name. There are a pair of dimples
+dotted into my cheek; don't, you see? That's what it's for. I was born
+so. My _other_ sisters haven't any at all."
+
+Adolphus smiled quietly; he had seen dimples before.
+
+"You didn't ever know till just now there was any such girl as _me_, I
+s'pose."
+
+"No, I never did."
+
+"I live in the city of Portland," pursued Dotty, with a grand air, "and
+my papa and mamma, and two sisters, and a Quaker grandma (only you must
+say 'Friend') with a white handkerchief on. Have you any grandma like
+that?"
+
+"No, my grandmother is dead."
+
+"Why, there's two of mine alive, and one grandpa. Just as nice! They
+don't scold. They let you do everything. I wouldn't _not_ have
+grandmothers and fathers for anything! But _you_ can't help it. Did you
+ever have your house burnt up?"
+
+"No, indeed."
+
+"Well, ours did; the chambers, and the cellar, and the windows and
+doors. We hadn't any place to stay. My sister Susy! You ought to heard
+her cry! I lost the beautifulest tea-set; but I didn't say much about
+it."
+
+"Where do you live now?"
+
+"O, there was a man let us have another house. It isn't so handsome as
+our house was; for the man can't make things so nice as my father can.
+We live in it now. Can you play the piano?"
+
+"No, not at all."
+
+"Don't you, honestly; Why, I do. Susy's given me five lessons. You have
+to sit up as straight as a pin, and count your fingers, one, two, three,
+four. X is your thumb."
+
+Dotty believed she was imparting valuable information. She felt great
+pleasure in having found a travelling companion to whom she could make
+herself useful.
+
+"I'm going to tell you something. Did you ever go to Indiana?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Didn't you? They call it Out West. I'm going there. Yes, I started
+to-day. The people are called Hoojers. They don't spect me, but I'm
+going. Did you ever hear of a girl that travelled out West?"
+
+"O, yes; ever so many."
+
+"I mean a girl as little as me, 'thout anybody but my papa; and he don't
+know how to part my hair in the middle. I have to take all the care of
+myself."
+
+Dotty had been trying all the while to call forth some exclamation of
+awe, or at least surprise. She was sure Adolphus would be impressed now.
+
+"All the whole care of myself," repeated she. "My papa has one of the
+_highest_ 'pinions of me; and he says I'm as good as a lady when I try.
+Were you ever in the cars before, Dollyphus?"
+
+"O, yes," was the demure reply, "a great many times. I've been round the
+world."
+
+Dotty started suddenly, dropping her porte-monnaie on the floor.
+
+"Round the world! The whole round world?" gasped she, feeling as
+insignificant as a "Catharine wheel," which, having "gone up like a
+rocket," has come down "like a stick."
+
+"You didn't say round the _whole_ world?" repeated she, looking very
+flat indeed.
+
+"O, yes, in my father's ship."
+
+His "father's ship." Dotty's look of superiority was quenched entirely.
+Even her jaunty hat seemed to humble itself, and her haughty head sink
+with it.
+
+Adolphus stooped and restored the porte-monnaie, which, in her surprise,
+she had quite forgotten.
+
+"Does your father keep a ship?" asked she, reverently.
+
+"Yes; and mother often makes voyages with him. Once they took me; and
+that was the time I went round the world. We were gone two years."
+
+"Weren't you afraid?"
+
+"No, I'm never afraid where my father is."
+
+"Just a little afraid, I mean, when you found the ship was going
+tip-side up?"
+
+"Tip-side up?" said Adolphus. "I don't understand you."
+
+"Why, when you got to the other side of the world, then of course the
+ship turned right over, you know. Didn't you want to catch hold of
+something, for fear you'd fall into the sky?"
+
+Adolphus laughed; he could not very well help it; but, observing the
+mortification expressed in his companion's face, he sobered himself
+instantly, and replied,--
+
+"No, Dotty; the world is round, but you wouldn't know it by the looks of
+it. Wherever I've been, the land seems flat, except the hills, and so
+does the water, all but the waves."
+
+As the captain's son said this, he looked pityingly at his little
+companion, wondering how she happened to be so silly as to suppose a
+ship ever went "tip-side up." But he was mistaken if he considered Dotty
+a simpleton. The child had never gone to school. Her parents believed
+there would be time enough yet for her to learn a great many things; and
+her ignorance had never distressed them half so much as her faults of
+temper.
+
+"Did you ever go as far as Boston before?" pursued Adolphus, rather
+grandly, in his turn.
+
+"No, I never," replied Dotty, meekly; "but Prudy has."
+
+"So I presume you haven't been in Spain? It was there I bought my
+beautiful rabbit. Were you ever in the Straits of Malacca?" continued
+he, roguishly.
+
+"No--o. I didn't know I was."
+
+"Indeed? Nor in the Bay of Palermo? The Italians call it the Golden
+Shell."
+
+"I don't _s'pose_ I ever," replied Dotty, with a faint effort to keep up
+appearances; "but I went to _Quoddy_ Bay once!"
+
+"So you haven't seen the _loory_? It is a beautiful bird, and talks
+better than a parrot. I have one at home."
+
+"O, have you?" said Dotty, in a tone of the deepest respect.
+
+"Yes; then there is the _mina_, a brown bird, larger than a crow;
+converses quite fluently. You have heard of a mina, I dare say."
+
+Dotty shook her head in despair. She was so overwhelmed by this time,
+that, if Adolphus had told of going with Captain Lally to the moon in a
+balloon, she would not have been greatly surprised.
+
+A humorous smile played around the boy's mouth. Observing his little
+companion's extreme simplicity, he was tempted to invent some marvellous
+stories for the sake of seeing her eyes shine.
+
+"I can explain it to her afterwards," said he to his conscience.
+
+"Did you ever hear of the Great Dipper, Dotty?"
+
+"I don't know's I did. No."
+
+"You don't say so! Never heard of the Great Dipper! Your sister Prudy
+has, I'm sure. It is tied to the north pole, and you can dip water with
+it."
+
+"Is it big?"
+
+"No, not very. About the size of a tub."
+
+"A dipper as big as a tub?" repeated Dotty, slowly.
+
+"Yes, with the longest kind of handle."
+
+"I couldn't lift it?"
+
+"No, I should judge not."
+
+"Who tied it to the north pole?"
+
+"I don't know. Columbus, perhaps. You remember he discovered the world?"
+
+Dotty brightened.
+
+"O, yes, I've heard about that! Susy read it in a book."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you how it was. There had been a world, you see; but
+people had lost the run of it, and didn't know where it was, after the
+flood. And then Columbus went in a ship and discovered it."
+
+"He did?"
+
+Dotty looked keenly at the captain's son. He was certainly in earnest;
+but there was something about it she did not exactly understand.
+
+"Why, if there wasn't any world all the time, where did _C'lumbus_ come
+from?" faltered she, at last.
+
+"It is not generally known," replied Adolphus, taking off his hat, and
+hiding his face in it.
+
+Dolly sat for some time lost in thought.
+
+"O, I forgot to say," resumed Adolphus, "the north pole isn't driven in
+so hard as it ought to be. It is so cold up there that the frost
+'heaves' it. You know what 'heaves' means? The ground freezes and then
+thaws, and that loosens the pole. Somebody has to pound it down, and
+that makes the noise we call thunder."
+
+Dotty said nothing to this; but her youthful face expressed surprise,
+largely mingled with doubt.
+
+"You have heard of the _axes_ of the earth? That is what they pound the
+pole with. Queer--isn't it? But not so queer to me as the Red Sea."
+
+Adolphus paused, expecting to be questioned; but Dotty maintained a
+discreet silence.
+
+"The water is a very bright red, I know; but I never _could_ believe
+that story about the giant's having the nose-bleed, and coloring the
+whole sea with blood. Did you ever hear of that?"
+
+"No, I never," replied Dotty, gravely. "You needn't tell it, Dollyphus.
+I'm too tired to talk."
+
+Adolphus felt rather piqued as the little girl turned away her head and
+steadily gazed out of the window at the trees and houses flying by. It
+appeared very much as if she suspected he had been making sport of her.
+
+"She isn't a perfect ignoramus, after all." he thought; "that last lie
+was a little too big."
+
+After this he sat for some time watching his little companion, anxious
+for an opportunity to assure her that these absurd stories had been spun
+out of his own brain. But Dotty never once turned her face towards him.
+She was thinking,--
+
+"P'rhaps he's a good boy; p'rhaps he's a naughty boy: but I shan't
+believe him till I ask my father."
+
+At Portsmouth, Captain Lally and son left the cars, much to Dotty's
+relief, though they did carry away the beautiful Spanish rabbit; and it
+seemed to the child as if a piece of her heart went with it.
+
+"Is my little girl tired?" said Mr. Parlin, putting an arm around Dotty.
+
+"No, papa, only I'm thinking. The north pole is top of the world--isn'
+it? As much as five hundred miles off?"
+
+"A great deal farther than that, my dear."
+
+"There, I thought so! And we couldn't hear 'em pound it down with an
+axe--could we? That isn't what makes thunder? O, what a boy!"
+
+Mr. Parlin laughed heartily.
+
+"Did Adolphus tell you such a story as that?"
+
+"Yes, sir, he did," cried Dotty, indignantly, "and said there was a
+dipper to it, with a handle on, as large as a tub. And a man tied it
+that came from I-don't-know-where, and found this world. I know _that_
+wasn't true, for he didn't say anything about Adam and Eve. What an
+awful boy!"
+
+"What did you say to Adolphus?" said Mr. Parlin, still laughing. "Hadn't
+you been putting on airs? And wasn't that the reason he made sport of
+you?"
+
+"I don't know what 'airs' are, papa."
+
+"Perhaps you told him, for instance, that you were travelling out West,
+and asked him if _he_ ever went so far as that."
+
+"Perhaps I did," stammered Dotty.
+
+"And it is very likely you made the remark that you had the whole care
+of yourself, and know how to part your hair in the middle. I did not
+listen; but it is possible you told him you could play on the piano."
+
+Dotty looked quite ashamed.
+
+"This is what we call 'putting on airs.' Adolphus was at first rather
+quiet and unpretending. Didn't you think he might be a little stupid?
+And didn't you wish to give him the idea that you yourself were
+something of a fine lady?"
+
+How very strange it was to Dotty that her father could read the secret
+thoughts which she herself could hardly have told! She felt supremely
+wretched, and crept into his bosom to hide her blushing face.
+
+"I didn't say Adolphus did right to tease you," said Mr. Parlin, gently.
+
+He thought the little girl's lesson had been quite severe enough; for,
+after all, she had done nothing very wrong: she had only been a little
+foolish.
+
+"Upon my word, chincapin," said he, "we haven't opened that basket yet!
+What do you say to a lunch, with the Boston Journal for a table-cloth?
+And here comes a boy with some apples."
+
+In two minutes Dotty had buried her chagrin in a sandwich.
+
+And all the while the cars were racketing along towards Boston.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+A BABY IN A BLUE CLOAK.
+
+
+Dotty had begun to smile again, and was talking pleasantly with
+her father, when there was a sudden rocking of the cars, or, as Prudy
+had called it, a "car-quake." Dotty would have been greatly alarmed if
+she had not looked up in her father's face and seen that it was
+perfectly tranquil. They had run over a cow.
+
+This little accident gave a new turn to the child's thoughts. She gazed
+at the conductor with some distrust. If he did not take care of the
+cars, what made him wear that printed hat-band? She supposed that in
+some mysterious way he drove or guided the furious iron horse; and when
+she saw him sitting at ease, conversing with the passengers, she was not
+satisfied; she thought he was neglecting his duty.
+
+"I s'pose," mused she, finishing the final crumb of her sandwich,--"I
+s'pose there are two kinds of conductors in cars, same as in thunder.
+One is a _non_, and the other isn't. I'm afraid this man is a _non_; if
+he is, he will conduct us all to pieces."
+
+Still her fear was not very active; it did not prevent her having a good
+time. She saw that her father was comfortable, and this fact reassured
+her somewhat. If they were going to meet with a dreadful accident,
+wouldn't he be likely to know it?
+
+She began to look about her for something diverting. At no great
+distance was a little baby in a blue cloak. Not a very attractive baby,
+but a great deal better than none.
+
+"Papa, there's more room on the seat by that lady's bandbox. Mayn't I
+ask to take care of her baby?"
+
+"Yes, dear, if she is willing."
+
+Dotty danced down the aisle, thinking as she went,--
+
+"My father lets me do every single thing. If we had mamma with us,
+_sometimes_ she'd say, No."
+
+The tired woman greeted Miss Dimple cordially. She was not only willing,
+but very well pleased to have the uneasy baby taken out of her arms.
+Dotty drew off her gloves, and laid the little one's head tenderly
+against her cheek. Baby looked wonderingly into the bright eyes bending
+above him, reached up a chubby hand, caught Dotty's hat, and twitched it
+towards the left ear.
+
+"Sweetest cherub!" said the fond mother, as if the child had done a
+good deed, "Take off your hat, little girl. I'll hang it in the rack."
+
+Dotty was glad to obey. But baby was just as well satisfied with his new
+friend's hair as he had been with the hat. It was capable of being
+pulled; and that is a quality which delights the heart of infancy. Dotty
+bore the pain heroically, till she bethought herself of appearances;
+for, being among so many people, she did not wish to look like a gypsy.
+She smoothed back her tangled locks as well as she could, and tried
+every art of fascination to attract the baby's attention to something
+else.
+
+"You are a pretty little girl, and a nice little girl," said the
+gratified mother. "You have a wonderful faculty for 'tending babies.
+Now, do you think, darling, you could take care of him a few minutes
+alone, and let me try to get a nap? I am very tired, for I got up this
+morning before sunrise, and had baking to do."
+
+"O, yes'm," replied Dotty, overflowing with good nature; "you can go to
+sleep just as well as not. Baby likes me--don't you, baby? And we'll
+play pat-a-cake all so nice!"
+
+"It isn't every day I see such a handsome, obliging little dear,"
+remarked the oily-tongued woman, as she folded up a green and yellow
+plaid shawl, and put it on the arm of the seat for a pillow. "I should
+like to know what your name is; and some time, perhaps, I can tell your
+mother how kind you were to my baby."
+
+"My name is Alice Parlin," replied our enraptured heroine, "and I live
+in Portland. I'm going out West, where the Hoojers live. I--"
+
+Dotty stopped herself just in time to avoid "putting on airs."
+
+"H--m! I _thought_ I had seen you before. Well, your mother is proud of
+you; I know she is," remarked the new acquaintance, settling herself for
+a nap.
+
+Dotty looked at her as she lay curled in an ungraceful heap, with her
+eyes closed. It was a hard, disagreeable face. Dotty did not know why it
+was unpleasing. She only compared it with the child's usual standard,
+and thought, "She is not so handsome as my mamma," and went on making
+great eyes at the baby.
+
+She was not aware that the person she was obliging was Mrs. Lovejoy, an
+old neighbor of the Parlins, who had once been very angry with Susy,
+saying sarcastic words to her, which even now Susy could not recall
+without a quiver of pain.
+
+For some time Dotty danced the lumpish baby up and down, sustained in
+her tedious task by remembering the honeyed compliments its mother had
+given her.
+
+"I should think they _would_ be proud of me at home; but nobody ever
+said so before. O, dear, what a homely baby! Little bits of eyes, like
+huckleberries. 'Twill have to wear a head-dress when it grows up, for it
+hasn't any hair. I'm glad it isn't my brother, for then I should have to
+hold him the whole time, and he weighs more'n I do."
+
+Dotty sighed heavily.
+
+"That woman's gone to sleep. She'll dream it's night, and p'rhaps she
+won't wake up till we get to Boston. Hush-a-by, baby, your cradle is
+green! O, dear, my arms'll ache off."
+
+A boy approached with a basket of pop-corn and other refreshments.
+Dotty remembered that she had in her pocket the means to purchase very
+many such luxuries. But how was she to find the way to her pocket? Baby
+required both hands, and undivided attention. Dotty looked at the boy
+imploringly. He snapped his fingers at her little charge, and passed on.
+She looked around for her father. He was at the other end of the car,
+talking politics with a group of gentlemen.
+
+"Please stop," said she, faintly, and the boy came to her elbow again.
+"I want some of that pop-corn so much!" was the plaintive request. "I
+could buy it if you'd hold this baby till I put my hand in my pocket."
+
+The youth laughed, but, for the sake of "making a trade," set down his
+basket and took the "infant terrible." There was an instant attack upon
+his hair, which was so long and straggling as to prove an easy prey to
+the enemy.
+
+[Illustration: DOTTY IN THE CARS. Page 44.]
+
+"Hurry, you!" said he to Dotty, with juvenile impatience. "I can't stand
+any more of this nonsense."
+
+Dotty did hurry; but before she received the baby again he had been well
+shaken, and his temper was aroused; he objected to being punished for
+such a harmless amusement as uprooting a little hair. There was one
+thing certain: if his eyes were small, his lungs were large enough, and
+perfectly sound.
+
+Startled by his lusty cries, his mamma opened one of her eyes, but
+immediately closed it again when she saw that Dotty was bending all the
+powers of her mind to the effort of soothing "the cherub."
+
+"I do wish my dear mamma _was_ travelling with us," thought the
+perplexed little girl. "She wouldn't 'low me to hold this naughty,
+naughty baby forever 'n' ever! Because, you know, she never'd go off to
+the other end of the car and talk pol'tics."
+
+The little girl chirruped, cooed, and sang; all in vain. She danced the
+baby "up, up, up, and down, down, downy," till its blue cloak was
+twisted like a shaving. Still it cried, and its unnatural mother refused
+to hear.
+
+"I never'll hold another baby as long's I live. When ladies come to our
+house, I'll look and see if they've brought one, and if they have I'll
+always run up stairs and hide."
+
+As a last resort, she gave the little screamer some pop-corn. Why not?
+It refused to be comforted with other devices. How should she know that
+it was unable to chew, and was in the habit of swallowing buttons,
+beads, and other small articles whole?
+
+Baby clutched at the puffy white kernels, and crowed. It knew now, for
+the first time, what it had been crying for. There was a moment of
+peace, during which Master Freddie pushed a handful of corn as far as
+the trap-door which opened into his throat. Then there was a struggle, a
+gasp, a throwing up of the little hands; the trap-door had opened, but
+the corn had not dropped through; there was not space enough. In other
+words, Freddy was choking.
+
+The young nurse was so frightened that she almost let the small sufferer
+slip out of her arms. She screamed so shrilly that half a dozen people
+started from their seats to see what was the matter. Of course the
+sleepy woman was awake in a moment. All she said, as she took the child
+out of Dotty's arms, was this:--
+
+"You good-for-nothing, careless little thing! Don't you know any better
+than to choke my baby?"
+
+As Dotty really supposed the little one's last hour had come, and she
+herself had been its murderess, her distress and terror are not to be
+told. She paced the aisle, wringing her hands, while Mrs. Lovejoy put
+her finger down Freddie's throat and patted his back.
+
+In a very short time the mischief was undone; the child caught its
+breath, and blinked its little watery eyes, while its face faded from
+deep magenta to its usual color of dough.
+
+Dotty was immensely relieved.
+
+"Bess its 'ittle heart," cried Mrs. Lovejoy, pressing it close to her
+travelling-cape, while several of the passengers looked on, quite
+interested in the scene. "Did the naughty, wicked girlie try to choke
+its muzzer's precious baby? We'll w'ip her; so we will! She shan't come
+near my lovey-dovey with her snarly hair."
+
+Mrs. Lovejoy's remarks pricked like a nosegay of thistles. They were not
+only sharp in themselves, but they were uttered with such evident
+displeasure that every word stung.
+
+Dotty was creeping away with her head down, her "snarly hair" veiling
+her sorrowful eyes, when she remembered her hat, and meekly asked Mrs.
+Lovejoy to restore it.
+
+"Take it," was the ungracious reply, "and don't you ever offer to hold
+another baby till you have a little common sense."
+
+Dotty walked away with her fingers in her mouth, more angry than
+grieved, and conscious that all eyes were upon her.
+
+"I didn't mean to scold you, child," called the woman after her; "only
+you might have killed my baby, and I think you're big enough to know
+better."
+
+This last sentence, spoken more gently, was intended to heal all wounds;
+but it had no such effect. Dotty was sure everybody had heard it, and
+was more ashamed than ever. She had never before met with any one so ill
+bred as Mrs. Lovejoy. She supposed her own conduct had been almost
+criminal, whereas Mrs. Lovejoy was really much more at fault than
+herself. A woman who has no tenderness for a well-meaning little girl,
+no forgiveness for her thoughtless mistakes, can never be regarded as a
+lady.
+
+Thus, for the second time that day, Dotty had met with misfortune.
+
+Her father knew nothing of what had occurred, and she had not much to
+say when he offered a penny for her thoughts.
+
+"I oughtn't to have given that baby any corn," said she, briefly; "but
+he didn't choke long."
+
+"Where are your gloves, child?"
+
+Dotty looked in her pocket, and shook her head.
+
+"You must have left them in the seat you were in. You'd better go after
+them, my daughter, and then come back and brush your hair."
+
+"O, papa, I'd rather go to Indiana with my hands naked. That woman
+doesn't like me."
+
+Mr. Parlin gave a glance at the wretched little face, and went for the
+gloves himself. They were not to be found, though Mrs. Lovejoy was very
+polite indeed to assist in the search. They had probably fallen out of
+the window.
+
+"Don't take it to heart, my little Alice," said Mr. Parlin, who was very
+sorry to see so many shadows on his young daughter's face so early in
+the day. "We'll buy a new pair in Boston. We will think of something
+pleasant. Let us see: when are you going to read your first letter?"
+
+"O, Susy said the very last thing before I got to Boston. You'll tell me
+when it's the very last thing? I'm so glad Susy wrote it! for now I can
+be 'expecting it all the rest of the way."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+"PIGEON PIE POSTPONED."
+
+
+This is Susy's letter, which lay in Mr. Parlin's pocket-book,
+and which he gave his impatient little daughter fifteen minutes before
+the cars stopped:--
+
+     "MY DEAR LITTLE SISTER: This is for you to read when you
+     have almost got to Boston; and it is a story, because I know you
+     will be tired.
+
+     "Once there was a wolf--I've forgotten what his name was. At the
+     same time there were some men, and they were monks. Monks have
+     their heads shaved. They found this wolf. They didn't see why he
+     wouldn't make as good a monk as anybody. They tied him and then
+     they wanted him to say his prayers, patter, patter, all in Latin.
+
+     "He opened his mouth, and then they thought it was coming; but what
+     do you think? All he said was, 'Lamb! lamb!' And he looked where
+     the woods were.
+
+     "So they couldn't make a monk of him, because he wanted to eat
+     lambs, and he wouldn't say his prayers.
+
+     "Mother read that to me out of a blue book.
+
+          "Good by, darling. From
+                         "SISTER SUSY."
+
+"What do you think of that?" said Mr. Parlin, as he finished reading the
+letter aloud.
+
+"It is so queer, papa. I don't think those monkeys were very bright."
+
+"Monks, my child."
+
+"O, I thought you said monkeys."
+
+"No, monks are men--Catholics."
+
+"Well, if they were men, I should think they'd know a wolf couldn't say
+his prayers. But I s'pose it isn't true."
+
+"No, indeed. It is a fable, written to show that it is of no use to
+expect people to do things which they have not the power to do. The wolf
+could catch lambs, but he could not learn his letters. So my little
+Alice can dress dollies, but she does not know how to take care of
+babies."
+
+"O, papa, I didn't choke him _very_ much."
+
+"I was only telling you I do not think you at all to blame. Little girls
+like you are not expected to have judgment like grown women. If you only
+do the best you know how, it is all that should be required of you."
+
+Dotty's face emerged from the cloud. She looked away down the aisle at
+Mrs. Lovejoy, who was patting the uninteresting baby to sleep.
+
+"Well," thought she, her self-esteem reviving, "I wish that woman only
+could know I wasn't to blame! I don't believe _she_ could have take care
+of that baby when she was six years old."
+
+"Here we are at Boston," said Mr. Parlin. "Is your hat tied on? Keep
+close to me, and don't be afraid of the crowd."
+
+Dotty was not in the least afraid. She was not like Prudy, who, on the
+same journey, had clung tremblingly to her father at every change of
+cars. In Dotty's case there was more danger of her being reckless than
+too timid.
+
+They went to a hotel. Mr. Parlin's business would detain him an hour or
+two, he said; after that he would take his little daughter to walk on
+the Common; and next morning, bright and early, they would proceed on
+their journey.
+
+It was the first time Dotty had ever dined at a public house. A bill of
+fare was something entirely new to her. She wondered how it happened
+that the Boston printers knew what the people in that hotel were about
+to have for dinner.
+
+Mr. Parlin looked with amusement at the demure little lady beside him.
+Not a sign of curiosity did she betray, except to gaze around her with
+keen eyes, which saw everything, even to the pattern of the napkins.
+Some time she would have questions to ask, but not now.
+
+"And what would you like for dinner, Alice?"
+
+Mr. Parlin said this as they were sipping their soup. Dotty glanced at
+the small table before them, which offered scarcely anything but
+salt-cellars and castors, and then at the paper her father held in his
+hand. She was about to reply that she would wait till the table was
+ready; but as there was one man seated opposite her, and another
+standing at the back of her chair, she merely said,--
+
+"I don't know, papa."
+
+"A-la-mode beef; fricasseed chicken; Calcutta curry," read her
+mischievous father from the bill, as fast as he could read; "macaroni;
+salsify; flummery; sirup of cream. You see it is hard to make a choice,
+dear. Escaloped oysters; pigeon pie postponed."
+
+"I'll take some of that, papa," broke in Dotty.
+
+"What, dear?"
+
+"Some of the pigeon pie 'sponed," answered Dotty, in a low voice,
+determined to come to a decision of some sort. It was not likely to make
+much difference what she should choose, when everything was alike
+wonderful and strange.
+
+"Pigeon pie postponed," said Mr. Parlin to the man at the back of
+Dotty's chair; "turkey with oysters for me."
+
+The polite waiter smiled so broadly that he showed two long rows of
+white teeth. It could not be Dotty who amused him. Her conduct was all
+that is prim and proper. She sat beside her papa as motionless as a
+waxen baby, her eyes rolling right and left, as if they were jerked by a
+secret wire. It certainly could not have been Dotty. Then what was it
+the man saw which was funny?
+
+"Only one pigeon pie in the house, sir," said he, trying to look very
+solemn, "and if the young lady will be pleased to wait, I'll bring it
+to her in a few minutes. No such dish on any of the other bills of fare.
+A rarity for this special day, sir. Anything else, miss, while you
+wait?"
+
+Mr. Parlin looked rather surprised. There had been no good reason given
+for not bringing the pie at once; however, he merely asked Dotty to
+choose again; and this time she chose "tomato steak," at a venture.
+
+There were two gentlemen at the opposite side of the table, and one of
+them watched Dotty with interest.
+
+"Her mother has taken great pains with her," he thought; "she handles
+her knife and fork very well. Where have I seen that child before?"
+
+While he was still calling to mind the faces of various little girls of
+his acquaintance, and trying to remember which face belonged to Dotty,
+the waiter arrived with the "pigeon pie postponed." He had chosen the
+time when most of the people had finished their first course, and the
+clinking of dishes was not quite so hurried as it had been a little
+while before. The table at which Mr. Parlin sat was nearly in the centre
+of the room. As the waiter approached with the pie, the same amused look
+passed over his face once more.
+
+He set the dish upon the table near Mr. Parlin, who proceeded to cut a
+piece for Miss Dimple. As the knife went into the pie, the crust seemed
+to move; and lo, "when the pie was opened," out flew a pigeon alive and
+well!
+
+The bird at first hopped about the table in a frightened way, a little
+blind and dizzy from being shut up in such a dark prison; but a few
+breaths of fresh air revived him, and he flew merrily around the room,
+to the surprise and amusement of the guests. It was a minute or two
+before any of them understood what it meant. Then they began to laugh
+and say they knew why the pie was "postponed:" it was because the pigeon
+was not willing to be eaten alive.
+
+It passed as a capital joke; but I doubt if Dotty Dimple appreciated it.
+She looked at the hollow crust, and then at the purple-crested dove, and
+thought a hotel dinner was even more peculiar than she had supposed. Did
+they have "live pies" every day? How did they bake them without even
+scorching the pigeons? But she busied herself with her nuts and raisins,
+and asked no questions.
+
+At four o'clock she went with, her father to see the Public Gardens and
+other places of interest, and to buy a pair of new gloves. On the
+Common they met one of the gentlemen who had sat opposite them at
+dinner. He bowed as they were passing, and said, with a smile,--
+
+"Can this be my little friend, Miss Prudy Parlin?"
+
+"It is her younger sister, Alice," replied her father.
+
+"And I am Major Benjamin Lazelle, of St. Louis," said the gentleman.
+
+After this introduction, the three walked along in company, and seemed
+to feel like old acquaintances; for Major Lazelle had once escorted Mrs.
+Clifford on a journey to Maine, and since that time had been well known
+to the Clifford family. Mr. Parlin was glad to learn that he would start
+for St. Louis on the next day, and travel with himself and daughter
+nearly as far as they went. Major Lazelle was also well pleased, and
+began at once to make friends with Miss Dimple. The little girl had
+recovered from her trials of the morning, and was so delighted with all
+she saw that she "couldn't walk on two feet." She preferred to hop,
+skip, and jump.
+
+"O, papa, papa, what _are_ those little dears, just the color of my kid
+gloves?"
+
+"Those are deer, my child."
+
+"Are they? I _said_ they were dears--didn't I? If they were _my_ dears,
+I'd keep them in a parlor, and let them lie on a silk quilt with a
+velvet pillow--wouldn't you?"
+
+"This little girl reminds me strikingly of my old friend Prudy," said
+Major Lazelle, taking her hand. "When I saw her across the table I
+thought, 'Ah, now, there is a sweet little child who makes me remember
+something pleasant.' After a while I knew what that pleasant thing
+was--it was little Prudy."
+
+Dotty looked up at Major Lazelle with a smile.
+
+"She came to see me when I was in a hospital in Indiana. At that time I
+was blind."
+
+"Blind, sir?"
+
+"Yes; but I see quite well now. Afterwards I met your sister on the
+street in Portland, and she spoke to me. I was very weak and miserable,
+for I had just been ill of a fever; but the sight of her bright face
+made me feel strong again."
+
+Dotty's fingers closed around Major Lazelle's with a firmer clasp. If he
+liked Prudy, then she should certainly like him.
+
+"Shall I tell you of some verses I repeated to myself when I looked at
+your dear little sister?"
+
+"Yes, sir, if you please."
+
+     "'Why, a stranger, when he sees her
+     In the street even, smileth stilly,
+     Just as you would at a lily.
+
+     "'And if any painter drew her,
+     He would paint her unaware,
+     With the halo round her hair.'
+
+"I dare say you do not understand poetry very well, Miss Alice?"
+
+"No, sir. I s'pose I should if I knew what the words meant."
+
+"Very likely. Is your sister Prudy well? and how do you two contrive to
+amuse yourselves all the day long?"
+
+"Yes, sir, she's well; and we don't amuse ourselves at all."
+
+"Indeed! But you play, I presume."
+
+"Yes, sir, we do."
+
+"I feel sure you are just such another dear little girl as Prudy is,
+and it gives me pleasure to know you."
+
+Dotty dropped her head. She was glad her father was too far off to hear
+this remark.
+
+"Just such another dear little girl as Prudy is!"
+
+Alas! Dotty knew better than that. She was not sure she ought not to
+tell Major Lazelle he had made a great mistake. But while she was
+pondering upon it, they met a blind man, a lame man, and a party of
+school-girls; and she had so much use for her eyes that she did not
+speak again for five minutes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE MAJOR'S JOKE.
+
+
+While Dotty was dressing next morning, she fell to thinking
+again of her own importance as a young lady travelling _almost_ all
+alone by herself; and then it occurred to her that Jennie Vance, the
+judge's daughter, had never been any farther than Boston.
+
+"When she comes to Portland next winter to see her aunties that live
+there, then I'll talk to her all about my travelling out West. But I
+needn't tell her how that baby choked, nor how that naughty Dollyphus
+made fun of me. No, indeed!"
+
+As she spoke she was pouring water into the wash-bowl; but her
+indignation towards Mrs. Lovejoy and "Dollyphus" made her hand unsteady;
+the pitcher came suddenly against the edge of the bowl, whereupon its
+nose and part of its body flew off into space. Dotty held the handle,
+and looked at the ruins in astonishment.
+
+"Did _I_ do that?"
+
+She had no time to spend in lamentation.
+
+"I don't want to let my papa know what I've done," thought she, giving
+the last hasty touches to her toilet: "he'll have to go and pay the man
+that keeps house; and then I'm afraid he'll think, if his little girl
+keeps choking folks and breaking things, I ought to stay at home."
+
+But Dotty was too well grounded in the "white truth" to hesitate long.
+She could not hide the accident and be happy. When she mentioned it to
+her father, he did not say, as some fathers might have done,--
+
+"You careless child! Your sister _Prudy_ didn't break a pitcher or lose
+a pair of gloves all the way to Indiana."
+
+He and Mrs. Parlin were both afraid that, if they spoke in this manner,
+their children might infer that carelessness is just as sinful as
+falsehood and ill temper; they wished them to know there is a vast
+difference. So Mr. Parlin only said,--
+
+"Broken the pitcher? I'm sorry; but you did right to tell me. Give me
+your hand, and let us go to breakfast."
+
+Major Lazelle was at table. He patted Dotty's head, and said she looked
+like "a sweet-pea on tiptoe for a flight." He seemed very fond of
+quoting poetry; and nothing could have been more pleasing to Dotty, who
+loved to hear high-sounding words, even if they did soar above her
+head.
+
+The party of three started in due time on their journey. It was very
+much the same thing it had been yesterday; boys with tea-kettles of
+ice-water, boys with baskets of fruit and lozenges, and boys with
+newspapers. There was a long train of cars, and every car was crowded.
+
+"O, papa," sighed Dotty, after she had tried to count the passengers,
+and had been obliged to give it up because there were so many stepping
+off at every station, and so many more stepping in. "O, papa, where are
+all these people going to?"
+
+And in the afternoon she repeated the question, adding,--
+
+"I shouldn't think there'd be anybody left in any of the houses."
+
+By the time they reached Albany, she had seen so much of the world that
+she felt fairly worn out, and her head hummed like a hive of bees.
+
+"I didn't know, papa,--I never knew,--there were so many folks!"
+
+The next letter Dotty had to read was from Prudy. It was merely a poem
+copied very carefully. You may skip it if you like; but the major said
+it was exquisite, and I think the major must have been a good judge, for
+I have the same opinion myself!
+
+     "LITTLE DANDELION.
+
+     "Gay little Dandelion
+       Lights up the meads,
+     Swings on her slender foot,
+       Telleth her beads;
+     Lists to the robin's note
+       Poured from above;
+     Wise little Dandelion
+       Cares not for love.
+
+     "Cold lie the daisy banks,
+       Clad but in green,
+     Where in the Mays agone
+       Bright hues were seen;
+     Wild pinks are slumbering,
+       Violets delay;
+     True little Dandelion
+       Greeteth the May.
+
+     "Brave little Dandelion!
+       Fast falls the snow,
+     Bending the daffodil's
+       Haughty head low.
+     Under that fleecy tent,
+       Careless of cold,
+     Blithe little Dandelion
+       Counteth her gold.
+
+     "Meek little Dandelion
+       Groweth more fair,
+     Till dies the amber dew
+       Out of her hair.
+     High rides the thirsty sun,
+       Fiercely and high;
+     Faint little Dandelion
+       Closeth her eye.
+
+     "Pale little Dandelion
+       In her white shroud,
+     Heareth the angel breeze
+       Call from the cloud.
+     Fairy plumes fluttering
+       Make no delay;
+     Little winged Dandelion
+       Soareth away."
+
+This night was spent at Albany; and, as the evening closed with a little
+adventure I will tell you about it; and that will be all that it is
+necessary to relate of Dotty's journey.
+
+Mr. Parlin, Major Lazelle, and our heroine were sitting, after their
+late tea, in a private parlor. It was time Dotty was asleep but, while
+she was waiting for her papa, Major Lazelle held her on his knee. Mr.
+Parlin was writing letters, and did not listen to the conversation going
+on between his little daughter and her friend. They commenced by talking
+about Zip. Dotty said he knew as much as a boy.
+
+"I did think once he was my brother. And now I'm glad I didn't have a
+real brother; for if he _had_ been, p'rhaps he'd have burned up our
+house with a cracker."
+
+"So you think little girls are nicer than little boys?"
+
+"O, yes, sir; don't you?"
+
+Dotty spoke as if there could be no doubt about it.
+
+"I like good little girls," said Major Lazelle, "such as can ride a
+whole day in the cars without growing cross."
+
+This compliment gratified Dotty. She felt that she deserved it, for she
+had kept her temper admirably ever since she left home.
+
+"I am sure you will grow up, one of these days, to be a very good
+woman," continued Major Lazelle, looking with an admiring smile at the
+graceful little girl seated on his knee. "You tell me you have never
+been at school. I hope you do not mean to frolic all your life? What
+were little girls made for, do you think?"
+
+Dotty reflected a moment.
+
+"What are little girls made for, sir? Why, they are made to play,
+'cause they can't play when they grow to be ladies."
+
+The major laughed.
+
+"Pretty well said! You're rather too shrewd for such an 'old mustache'
+as I. So little girls are made to play? Then suppose we two have a game.
+Let us play chip-chop."
+
+Dotty was becoming sleepy, but aroused herself, and patted her little
+soft hands as hard as she could, tossing them hither and thither,
+sometimes hitting her companion's thumb, sometimes his little finger.
+Major Lazelle laughed, and then she laughed too; for when he tried to
+strike her hands, he said it was like aiming at a pair of rose-leaves
+fluttering in the air.
+
+The chip-chop was a complete failure; but it had set them both in great
+glee. If truth be told, they became excessively rude.
+
+"Now, sir," said Dotty, as they ran across the room, playing a game of
+romps, "if you do catch me again, I'll--O, dear, I don't know what I'll
+do!"
+
+Mr. Parlin looked up from his letter a little annoyed, for the floor was
+shaking so that he could scarcely write.
+
+"Do not be rude, my daughter," said he, though he knew very well the
+major was really the one to be chided.
+
+But his warning came a minute too late. Major Lazelle had caught Dotty,
+and she had thrown up both hands to clutch at his hair. She meant to
+give it one desperate pulling; she did not care if she hurt him a
+little; she even hoped he might cry out and beg her to stop.
+
+But the oddest thing happened. If she had gone to bed at the usual time,
+and fallen asleep, then this would have been her dream. But no, she
+_supposed_ she was awake; and what now?
+
+As she seizes two locks of Major Lazelle's hair, one in each hand, and
+pulled them both as if she meant to draw them out by the roots, out they
+came! Yes, entirely out! And more than that, all the rest of the man's
+hair came too! His head was left as smooth as an apple.
+
+_You_ see at once how it was. He wore a wig, and just for play had slyly
+unfastened it, and allowed Miss Dotty to pull it off.
+
+The perfect despair on her little face amused him vastly; but he did not
+smile; he looked very severe.
+
+"See what you have done!" said he, rubbing his bald head as if it were
+just ready to bleed. "See what you have done to me, you cruel girl!"
+
+Major Lazelle's entire head of hair lay at her feet as brown and wavy
+as ever it was. Dotty looked at it with horror. The idea of scalping a
+man!
+
+For a whole minute she lost the power of speech. Then she gasped out,--
+
+"O, dear! dear! dear! I didn't know your hair was so tender!"
+
+The major had been crowding his handkerchief into his mouth; but at this
+he could no longer restrain himself, nor could Mr. Parlin help joining
+in the laugh.
+
+[Illustration: THE MAJOR'S JOKE. Page 78.]
+
+The little girl was more bewildered than ever. She put her hand to her
+own head, to make sure it was safe, for it felt as airy as a dandelion
+top.
+
+Then Major Lazelle explained to her in a few words what a wig is, and
+how it is fastened to the head. Dotty understood it all in a moment, but
+was too much chagrined to make any reply.
+
+"I am several years younger than your papa, my dear; so you think it
+strange to see me bald; but I have had two dreadful fevers, and they
+have run away with every bit of my hair."
+
+Dotty would not even look up to see Major Lazelle replace his wig. Her
+dignity had been wounded.
+
+"Come, sit on my knee, Pussy, and let me tell you some more about it."
+
+"No, I thank you, sir," replied she, walking the floor with the air of
+an injured princess. "No, I thank you, sir."
+
+"How, now, little one? You don't mean to be angry with me for a little
+joke?"
+
+"No, I thank you."
+
+And that was all Dotty would say. She was wise enough to know she was
+too angry to speak.
+
+"Ah, ha! temper, I see!" thought Major Lazelle; "I did not suspect it
+from that quarter."
+
+If the young gentleman had only known how hard the little girl was
+struggling just then to control herself, he would have liked her better
+than ever.
+
+Her father chided her next morning for taking a joke so seriously. Dotty
+replied with a deep sigh,--
+
+"Papa, that major 'sposes I'm only five years old! That's what Dollyphus
+s'posed! I don't like it, papa, when I can travel so well; and how'd _I_
+know what a wig was, well; you and mamma never had any?"
+
+But Dotty smiled as benevolently as she could when she met the major
+again. He was a little afraid of her, however. He did not enjoy playing
+with her as he had enjoyed it before. He now felt obliged to be on his
+guard, lest she should take offence.
+
+The rest of her journey--though Dotty did not know it--was not quite so
+delightful as it might have been if she had only laughed with good humor
+when the lively major let her pull his hair out by the roots.
+
+But the cars went "singing through the forest, and rattling over
+ridges," till it was time to part from the pleasant man with a wig. Then
+they went on, "shooting under arches, rambling over bridges," till Dotty
+and her papa had come to their journey's end. We will say it was the
+town of Quinn.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+NEW FACES.
+
+
+The Cliffords lived a little way out of town. Mr. Parlin took a
+carriage at the depot, and he and Dotty had a very pleasant drive to
+"Aunt 'Ria's."
+
+The little girl was rather travel-stained. Her gloves were somewhat
+ragged at the tips, from her habit of twitching them so much; and they
+were also badly soiled with fruit and candy. Her hair was as smooth as
+hands could make it; but alas for the "style" hat which had left
+Portland in triumph! It had reached Indiana in disgrace. Its tipsy
+appearance was due to getting stepped on, and being caught in showers.
+Dotty's neat travelling dress was defaced by six large grease spots.
+Where they had come from Dotty could not conjecture, unless "that sick
+lady with a bottle had spilled some of her cod-oil on it out of a
+spoon."
+
+The child had intended to astonish her relatives by her tidy array; but,
+after all her pains, she had arrived out West in a very sorry plight.
+
+"Now, which side must I look for the house, papa?"
+
+"At your right hand, my dear. The first thing you will see is the
+conservatory, and then a stone house."
+
+"My right hand," thought Dotty; "that's east; but which is my right
+hand?"
+
+She always knew after she had thought a moment. It was the one which did
+not have the "shapest thumb;" that is, the _misshapen_ one she had
+pounded once by mistake, instead of an oilnut.
+
+"O, yes, papa! See the flowers! the flowers! And only to think they
+don't know who's coming! P'rhaps they're drinking tea, or gone visiting,
+or something."
+
+The Cliffords were not at tea. Grace and Cassy were reading "Our Boys
+and Girls" in the summer-house, with their heads close together; Horace
+was in the woods fishing; Mr. Clifford at his office; his wife in her
+chamber, ruffling a pink cambric frock for wee Katie, rocking as she
+sewed.
+
+As for Katie, she was marching about the grounds under an old umbrella.
+It was only the skeleton of an umbrella--dry bones, wires, and a crooked
+handle. Through the open sides the little one was plainly to be seen;
+and Mr. Parlin thought she looked like that flower we have in our
+gardens, which peeps out from a host of little tendrils, and is called
+the "lady in the bower."
+
+Hearing a carriage coming, the "lady in the bower" rushed to the gate,
+flourishing the black bones of the umbrella directly in the horse's
+face.
+
+"Dotty has camed! She has camed!" shouted the little creature, dropping
+the umbrella, falling over it, springing up again, and running with
+flying feet to spread the news.
+
+Nobody believed Dotty had "camed;" it seemed an improbable story; but
+Grace and Cassy had heard the wheels, and they ran through the avenue
+into the house to make sure it was nobody but one of the neighbors.
+
+"Why, indeed, and indeed, it _is_ Dotty; and if here isn't Uncle Edward
+too!" cried Grace, tossing back her curls, and dancing down the front
+steps. "Ma, ma, here is Uncle Edward Parlin!"
+
+"I sawed um first! I sawed um first!" screamed little Flyaway, thrusting
+the point of the umbrella between Dotty's feet, and throwing her over.
+
+"Can I believe my eyes!" said Mrs. Clifford's voice from the head of the
+stairs; and down she rushed, with open arms, to greet her guests.
+
+Then there was so much kissing, and so much talking, that nobody exactly
+knew what anybody else said; and Katie added to the confusion by
+fluttering in and out, and every now and then breaking into a musical
+laugh, which the mocking-bird, not to be outdone, caught up and echoed.
+It was a merry, merry meeting.
+
+"You dee papa bringed you--didn't him, Dotty?" said Katie, flying at her
+cousin with the feather duster, as soon as Grace had taken away the
+umbrella, and pointing her remarks with the end of the handle.
+
+"You's Uncle Eddard's baby--that's what is it."
+
+"O, you darling Flyaway!" said Dotty, "if you _wouldn't_ stick that
+handle right _into_ my eyes!"
+
+"I's going to give you sumpin!" returned Katie, putting her hand in her
+pocket, and producing a very soft orange, which had been used for a
+football. "It's a ollinge. _You_ can eat um, 'cause I gived um to you."
+
+"Thank you, O, thank you. Flyaway: how glad I am to see you! You look
+just the same, and no different."
+
+"O, no, I'm is growin' homely," replied the baby, cheerfully, "velly
+homely; Hollis said so."
+
+By the time Dotty's crushed hat was off, and she had made herself ready
+for tea, trying to hide three of the six grease-spots with her hands,
+Horace appeared with a little birch switch across his shoulder, strung
+with fish. The fish were few and small; but Horace was just as tired, he
+said, as if he had caught a whale. He did not say he was glad to see his
+young cousin; but joy shone all over his face.
+
+"We'll have times--won't we, little Topknot?" said he, taking Katie up
+between his fingers, as if she had been a pinch of snuff.
+
+"Is you _found_ of ollinges, Dotty?" asked Flyaway, with an anxious
+glance at the yellow fruit in Dotty's hand, still untasted.
+
+After tea the orange lay on the lounge.
+
+"I's goin' to give you a ollinge," said Katie, presenting it again, as
+if it were a new one. But after she had given it away three times, she
+thought her duty was done.
+
+"If you please um," said she, coaxingly, "I dess _I'll_ eat a slice o'
+that ollinge."
+
+So she had the whole.
+
+"Dotty, have you seen Phebe?" asked Horace.
+
+"No; where does she live?"
+
+"O, out in the kitchen. Prudy saw her when she was here, ever so long
+ago. She hasn't faded any since."
+
+"O, now I remember, she's a niggro, as black as a _sip_."
+
+"Yes; come out and see her. She's famous for making candy. She learned
+that of Barby."
+
+"Who is Barby?"
+
+"The Dutch girl we had before Katinka came."
+
+Dotty went into the kitchen with Horace to watch the candy-making. This
+was a favorite method with him of entertaining visitors.
+
+[Illustration: MAKING MOLASSES CANDY.--Page 92.]
+
+Phebe Dolan was a young colored girl, who had a very desirable home at
+Mrs. Clifford's, but who always persisted in going about the house in a
+dejected manner, as if some one had treated her unkindly. For all that,
+she was very happy; and under her solemn face was a deal of quiet fun.
+
+Katinka Dinkelspiel was a good-natured German girl, with a face as round
+as a full moon, and eyes as expressive as two blots of blue paint. She
+wore her fair hair rolled in front on each side into a puff like a
+capital O. Dotty looked at her in surprise. She was very unlike Norah,
+who wore bright ribbons on her head. And Katinka talked broken English,
+stirring up her words in such a way that the sentences were like
+Chinese puzzles; they needed to be taken apart and put together
+differently.
+
+"Please to make the door too," she said to Horace; and it was half a
+minute before Dotty understood that she was asking him to shut it.
+
+"This is my cousin Dotty Dimple, girls; the handsomest of the family;
+but not the best one--are you, though?" at the same time giving Miss
+Dimple a chair.
+
+"How d'ye, miss?" said Phebe, mournfully.
+
+Katinka said nothing, but patted the letter O on the right side of her
+head.
+
+"O, Phib, my mother says if you are not too tired, you may make some
+candy; she said so, candidly."
+
+Horace was just old enough to delight in puns.
+
+Now, this was a pleasant message to Phebe; she would have been glad to
+keep her fingers in molasses half the time. Still it seemed to Dotty, as
+she saw the rolling of the black eyes, that Phebe was quite discouraged.
+
+"I s'pose she doesn't like candy," thought she; "I heard of a girl once
+that didn't."
+
+Rolling her sad eyes again and again, Phebe went to draw the molasses,
+and soon had it boiling on the stove.
+
+"There," said Horace, rubbing his hands, "I told Dotty if anybody knew
+how to make candy 'twas Phebe Dolan. Give us the nut-cracker, and I'll
+have the pecans ready in no time."
+
+This time Phebe's eyes twinkled. As soon as the molasses would pour from
+the spoon in just the right way, with little films like spiders' webs
+floating from it, then Phebe said it was done, and Horace called Grace
+and Cassy. Phebe stirred in some soda with an air of solemnity, then
+poured half the contents of the kettle into a buttered platter, and the
+other half into a second platter lined with pecan-meats. Then she took
+the whole out of doors to cool.
+
+"I'll tell you what I'm thinking about," said Dotty, as the girl left
+the room;--"what has she got on her head?"
+
+"Why, hair, to be sure," replied Grace.
+
+"Wool, I should call it," corrected Horace.
+
+"Because I didn't know," faltered Dotty,--"I didn't know but 'twas a
+wig."
+
+"What made you think 'twas a wig, Dotty?"
+
+"O, there was a man wore one in the cars; it looked just like anybody's
+hair, only he tied it on with a button. He knew you and Horace."
+
+"Me and Horace? Who could it have been?"
+
+"He's the major; his name is Lazelle."
+
+"O, I remember him," said Grace and Horace together. "Does he wear a
+wig? He isn't old at all."
+
+"He _calls_ himself 'an old mustache,'" returned Dotty, "for he said so
+to me. He wears one of those _hair-lips_, and a wig."
+
+"And he's as blind as a post?"
+
+"O, no, he can see things now. I liked him, for he gave me all the
+apples and peaches I could eat."
+
+"I reckon it did him good to go to the war," exclaimed Horace, "for I
+remember, when I was a little fellow, how he boxed my ears!"
+
+"He has suffered a great deal since then," said the gentle Cassy,
+thoughtfully. "You know people generally grow better by suffering."
+
+"Dotty dear, you can't keep your eyes open," said Grace, after the
+candy had been pulled. "I don't believe it will make _you_ any better to
+suffer. I'm going to put you to bed."
+
+"And here I am," thought Dotty, as she laid her tired head on the
+pillow, "out West, under a sketo bar. Got here safe. I ought to have
+thanked God a little harder in my prayer."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+WAKING UP OUT WEST.
+
+
+Dotty was wakened next morning by a variety of sounds. The
+mocking-bird, the canary, the hens, and Horace's guinea pig were astir,
+and wished their little world to be aware of it. Flyaway was dressed and
+running about, making herself generally useful.
+
+Before the tired young traveller knew where she was, a little hand was
+busy at the door knob, and a baby voice called out,--
+
+"Dottee, Dottee, is you waked up?"
+
+"O, now I know where I am! This is Aunt 'Ria's house, and that little
+snip of a Flyaway is trying to get in. O, dear, dear, how far off I am!
+Prudy Parlin, I wonder if you're thinking about me?"
+
+"Dottee! Dottee!" called the small voice again.
+
+"O, I s'pose that baby'll stand at the door all day."
+
+But just then the knob turned, and in rushed Flyaway out of breath.
+
+"Good-morning, Miss Topknot," said Dotty, addressing her by one of the
+dove-names Horace was so fond of using.
+
+"O, I's pitty well," replied Flyaway, dancing across the room. "I didn't
+sleep any till las' night. I d'eamed awtul d'eams; so I kep' awake, and
+wouldn't go to sleep."
+
+And into bed climbed the little one, laying her head, with its tangled
+floss, right across Dotty's face.
+
+"Dear me!" sighed Dotty, rubbing the floss out of her eyes. "Such hair!
+I should think _you_ wore a wig! I'm sleepy; can't you let me be?"
+
+"You mus' wake up, Dottee! _I_ love to wake up; I can do it velly easy."
+
+Dotty, losing her patience, moved forward, pushing Katie towards the
+edge of the bed.
+
+"O, ho! what a little bedstick! I'll yole out!"
+
+"I wish you would, Flyaway Clifford!"
+
+No sooner said than done. Off rolled Flyaway, but alighted on her feet.
+
+"O, my shole," cried she, scrambling in again; "I fell down backboards.
+O, ho!"
+
+Such good nature was not to be resisted. Sleepy Dotty waked up and smiled
+in spite of herself; and next minute her persecutor was skipping down
+stairs.
+
+"Glad she's gone. Now I'll put on my pretty morning dress; Aunt 'Ria
+hung it up in the closet. I'm going to be a little lady all the time I'm
+out West, and not jump off of things and tear my clothes."
+
+Then Dotty's mind strayed to a very different subject.
+
+"It is so queer God is in this country just the same as He is in the
+State of Maine! I said my prayers to Him before I started, and there He
+was and heard; and now He's here and hears too; I don't see how. You
+can't think without He sees your thoughts."
+
+Dotty, brushing her hair, looked in the glass so intently that she did
+not observe her Aunt Maria, who had quietly entered the room. Mrs.
+Clifford was a wise woman, but she could not look into her niece's
+heart. She thought Dotty was admiring her own beauty in the mirror,
+whereas the child was not thinking of it at all.
+
+What Mr. Beecher once said of little folks is very true:--
+
+"Ah, well, there is a world of things in children's minds that grown-up
+people do not understand, though they too once were young."
+
+Mrs. Clifford went up to Dotty and kissed her. Then the little girl was
+startled from her musings, and passing down stairs with her hand in Mrs.
+Clifford's, thought she should be perfectly happy if dear Prudy were
+only on the other side of her.
+
+Everything she saw that was new or strange she had to stop and admire,
+thinking it was an article that could only belong out West.
+
+"O, auntie, what is this queer little thing with doors?"
+
+"Grace's cabinet, dear."
+
+"Her _cabijen_," exclaimed Flyaway, darting in from the next room.
+
+"Good morning, Dotty Dimple," said Horace: "did my Guinea pig wake you?
+I lost him out. What a noise he made! I wish he was in Guinea, where he
+came from."
+
+Dotty had never seen a Guinea pig. It was another curiosity, which
+promised to be more remarkable than Phebe or Katinka. She began to think
+coming West was like having one long play-day. Even the dining-room was
+a novelty, with the swinging fan suspended over the table to keep off
+flies.
+
+"I have been wondering," said Mrs. Clifford, as she urned the coffee,
+"how we shall amuse our little Dotty while she is here."
+
+"Fishing," suggested Horace.
+
+"Nutting," said Grace.
+
+"_Prudy_ went to a _wedding_ when she was in Indiana," remarked Dotty,
+in a low voice.
+
+"We will try to get up a wedding then," said Horace; "but they are a
+little out of fashion now."
+
+"We have been thinking," observed Mrs. Clifford, "of a nutting excursion
+for to-day. How would you like it, Edward?"
+
+"Very much," replied Mr. Parlin. "I can spend but one day with you, and
+I would as lief spend it nutting as in any other way."
+
+"Only one day, Uncle Edward!" cried Grace and Horace.
+
+"Only one day, papa!" stammered Dotty, feeling like a little kitten who
+_did_ have her paw on a mouse, but sees the mouse disappear down a hole.
+
+"O, I shall leave you, my daughter. You will stay here a week or two,
+and meet me in Indianapolis."
+
+Dotty was able to eat once more.
+
+"Father, what are we to do for horses to go nutting with?" spoke up
+Horace. "Robin raked this part of town yesterday with a fine-tooth
+comb, and couldn't find anything but an old clothes' horse, and that was
+past travelling."
+
+"My son!"
+
+Mr. Clifford's face said very plainly,--
+
+"Not so flippant, my child!"
+
+But the only remark he made was to the effect that there were doubtless
+horses to be found in the city at the stables.
+
+"What about the infant, mamma?" said Grace. "Is she to be one of the
+party?"
+
+When Katie was present she was sometimes mysteriously mentioned as "the
+infant." It was quite an undertaking to allow her to go; but Mrs.
+Clifford had yielded the point an hour or two before, out of regard to
+Horace's feelings. She knew the nutting party would be spoiled for him
+if his beloved little Topknot were left out.
+
+"Is I goin'?" asked she, when she heard the joyful news. "Yes, I'm _are_
+goin' to get some horse."
+
+"No, some pecans, you little Brown-brimmer."
+
+Katie had a dim suspicion that she owed this pleasure to her brother's
+influence.
+
+"Hollis," said she, eagerly,--"Hollis, you may have the red part o' my
+apple."
+
+This sounded like the very fulness of generosity, but was a hollow
+mockery; for by the "red part" she only meant the skin.
+
+Mr. Clifford had one horse, and while Robin Sherwood was going to the
+city for another, Mrs. Clifford made ready the lunch.
+
+Happy Dotty walked about, twirling a lock of her front hair, and watched
+Katinka cleaning the already nice paint, spilling here and there "little
+drops of water, little grains of sand." She also observed the solemn yet
+dextrous manner in which Phebe washed the breakfast dishes, and looked
+on with peculiar interest as Aunt Maria filled the basket.
+
+First there were custards to be baked in little cups and freckled with
+nutmeg, to please Uncle Edward. Then there was a quantity of eggs to be
+boiled hard. As Mrs. Clifford dropped these one by one into a kettle of
+water, Katie ran to the back door, and cried out to the noisy hens,--
+
+"Stop cacklerin', chickie; we've got 'em."
+
+Then, fearing she had not made herself understood, she added,--
+
+"We've found your _aigs_, chickie; they was ror, but we's goin' to bake
+'em."
+
+Dotty was impressed with the beauty of the picnic basket and the
+delicacy of the food. Everything she saw was rose-colored to-day.
+
+"O, Aunt 'Ria, I should think you'd like to live out West! Such splendid
+fruit cake!"
+
+"I saw Fibby and my mamma make that," said Flyaway, "out o' cindamon and
+little clovers."
+
+"Clovers in cake?"
+
+"Not red and white clovers; them little bitter kinds you know," added
+the child, with a wry face.
+
+There were four for each carriage. Dotty rode with her father, Mrs.
+Clifford, and Katie. Little Flyaway looked at the hired phaeton with
+contempt.
+
+"It hasn't any cap on, like my papa's," said she; but she was prevailed
+upon to ride in it because her mamma did.
+
+Horace went with his father and the "cup and saucer," as he called Grace
+and Cassy. He was in a state of irritation because his idolized Topknot
+was in the other carriage.
+
+"You can't separate that cup and saucer," growled he to himself.
+"They'll sit and talk privacy, I suppose; and I might have had
+Brown-brimmer if it hadn't been for Cassy."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+GOING NUTTING.
+
+
+As they drove along "the plank road," farther and farther away
+from the city, Dotty saw more clearly than ever the wide difference
+between Indiana and Maine.
+
+"Why, papa," said she, "did you ever breathe such a dust? It seems like
+snuff."
+
+"It makes us almost as invisible as the 'tarn cap' we read of in German
+fairy tales," said Mrs. Clifford, tucking her brown veil under her chin.
+
+She and Mr. Parlin both encouraged Dotty to talk; for they liked to hear
+her exclamations of wonder at things which to them seemed common-place
+enough.
+
+"What did you call this road, Aunt 'Ria? Didn't you say it was made of
+boards? I don't see any boards."
+
+"The planks were put down so long ago, Dotty, that they are overlaid
+with earth."
+
+"But what did they put them down for?"
+
+"You musser ask so many kestions, Dotty," said Flyaway, severely; "you
+say 'what' too many times."
+
+"The planks were laid down, Dotty, on account of the depth of the mud."
+
+"Mud, Aunt 'Ria?"
+
+"Yes, dear, dusty as it is now, at some seasons of the year the roads
+are so muddy that you might lose off your overshoes if it were not for
+the large beams which bridge over the crossings."
+
+"That reminds me," said Mr. Parlin, "of the man who was seen sinking in
+the mud, and, when some one offered to help him out, he replied,
+cheerfully, 'O, I shall get through; I have a horse under me.'"
+
+"Why, was the horse 'way down out of sight, papa?"
+
+"Where was the hossy, Uncle Eddard?"
+
+"It was only a story, children. If the man said there was a horse under
+him, it was a figure of speech, which we call hyperbole; he only meant
+to state in a funny way that the mud was excessively deep."
+
+"Is it right to tell hyperblees, papa? Because Jennie Vance tells them a
+great deal. I didn't know the name of them before."
+
+"No, Alice, it is not right to tell untrue things expecting to be
+believed--of course not."
+
+"Well, _she_ isn't believed. Nobody s'poses her mamma made a bushel of
+currant wine last summer, unless it's a baby, that doesn't know any
+better."
+
+"_I_ knows better. I'se a goorl, and can walk," said little Katie,
+bridling.
+
+"I didn't say you _were_ a baby, you precious Flyaway! Who's cunning?"
+
+"_I'm_ is," replied the child, settling back upon the seat with a sigh
+of relief. She was very sensitive on the point of age, and, like Dotty,
+could not abide the idea of being thought young.
+
+"How far are we going?" asked Mr. Parlin.
+
+"I do not know exactly," replied Mrs. Clifford; "but I will tell you how
+far Mr. Skeels, one of our oldest natives, calls it. He says 'he reckons
+it is three screeches.'"
+
+"How far is a 'screech,' pray?"
+
+"The distance a human voice can be heard, I presume."
+
+"Let us try it," said Dotty Dimple; and she instantly set up a scream so
+loud that the birds in the trees took to their wings in alarm. Katie
+chimed in with a succession of little shrieks about as powerful as the
+peep of a little chicken.
+
+"I have heard that they once measured distances by 'shoots,'" said Mrs.
+Clifford, laughing; "but I hope it will not be necessary to illustrate
+_them_ by firing a gun."
+
+They next passed on old and weatherworn graveyard.
+
+"This," said Mrs. Clifford, "was once known, in the choice language of
+the backwoodsmen, as a 'briar-patch;' and when people died, it was said
+they 'winked out.'"
+
+"'Winked out,' Aunt 'Ria? how dreadful!"
+
+"Wing tout," echoed Katie; "how defful!"
+
+"O, what beautiful, beautiful grass we're riding by, auntie! When the
+wind blows it, it _winks_ so softly! Why, it looks like a green river
+running ever so fast."
+
+"That is a sort of prairie land, dear, and very rich. Look on the other
+side of the road, and tell me what you think of those trees."
+
+"O, Aunt 'Ria, I couldn't climb up there, nor a boy either! It would
+take a pretty spry squirrel--wouldn't it, though?"
+
+"A pitty sp'y squirrel, I fink," remarked Katie, who did not consider
+any of Dotty's sentences complete until she herself had added a
+finishing touch.
+
+"They are larger than our trees, Alice."
+
+"O, yes, papa. They look as if they grew, and grew, and forgot to stop."
+
+"Velly long trees, tenny rate," said Katie, throwing up her arms in
+imitation of branches, and jumping so high that her mother was obliged
+to take her in her lap in order to keep her in the carriage.
+
+"And, O, papa, it is so smooth between the trees, we can peep like a
+spy-glass, right through! Why, it seems like a church."
+
+"_I_ don't see um," said Katie, stretching her neck and looking in vain
+for a church.
+
+"'The groves were God's first temples,'" repeated Mr. Parlin,
+reverently. "These trees have no undergrowth of shrubs, like our New
+England trees."
+
+"But, O, look! look, papa! What is that long green _dangle_, dripping
+down from up high? No, swinging up from down low?'
+
+"Yes, what is um, Uncle Eddard?"
+
+"That is a mistletoe-vine embracing a hickory tree. It is called a
+'tree-thief,' because it steals its food from the tree it grows upon."
+
+"Why, papa, I shouldn't think 'twas a thief, for the tree knows it. A
+thief comes in the night, when there doesn't anybody know it. _I_ should
+think 'twas a _beggar_."
+
+"_I_ fink so too," said Flyaway, straining her eyes to look at she knew
+not what. "I fink um ought to ask _pease_."
+
+"All this tract of country where we are riding now," said Mrs. Clifford,
+"was overflowed last spring by the river. It is called 'bottom land,'
+and is extremely rich."
+
+"I never thought the Hoojers had a very clean, blue, pretty river," said
+Dotty, thoughtfully; "it looks some like a mud-puddle. Perhaps it
+carried off too much of this dirt."
+
+"Muddy-puddil," replied Katie, "full of dirt."
+
+As they rode they passed houses whose chimneys were inhospitably left
+out of doors.
+
+"Why, look, auntie," said Dotty; "theres a house turned wrong side out!"
+
+These buildings had no cellars, but were propped upon logs, leaving room
+for the air to pass under the floor, and for other things to pass
+under, such as cats, dogs, and chickens.
+
+"Why, where _do_ the people go to when they want to go down cellar?"
+asked Dotty, in a maze.
+
+Near one of these houses she was seized with an irresistible thirst. Mr.
+Parlin gave the reins to Mrs. Clifford, and stepped out of the carriage,
+then helped Dotty and Katie to alight.
+
+They found a sharp-nosed woman cooking corn-dodgers for a family of nine
+children. Whether it was their breakfast or dinner hour, it was hard to
+tell. When Mr. Parlin asked for water, the woman wiped her forehead with
+her apron, and replied, "O, yes, stranger," and one of the little girls,
+whose face was stained with something besides the kisses of the sun,
+brought some water from the spring in a gourd.
+
+"Well, Dotty Dimple," said Mrs. Clifford, when they were all on their
+way again, "what did you see in the house?"
+
+"O, I saw a woman with a whittled nose, and a box of flowers in the
+window."
+
+"And children," said Katie; "four, five hunnerd chillen."
+
+"The box was labelled 'Assorted Lozenges,'" said Mr. Parlin; "but I
+observed that it contained a black imperial rose; so the occupants have
+an eye for beauty, after all. I presume they cannot trust their flowers
+out of doors on account of the pigs."
+
+"They brought me water in a squash-shell," cried Dotty; "it _is_ so
+funny out West!"
+
+"_I_ dinked in a skosh-shell, too; and I fink it's _velly_ funny out
+West!" said little Echo.
+
+They were riding behind the other carriage, and at some distance, in
+order to avoid the dust from its wheels.
+
+"Henry has stopped," said Mrs. Clifford. "We have reached 'Small's
+Enlargement,' and cannot comfortably ride any farther. The lot next to
+this is ours, and it is there we are going for the pecans."
+
+Dotty could hardly wait to be lifted out, so eager was she to walk on
+the "Small Enlargement." She spoke of it afterwards as an "ensmallment;"
+and the confusion of ideas was very natural. It was the place where
+Grace and the "Princess of the Ruby Seal" had gone, some years before,
+to have their fortunes told. It was a wild picturesque region, overgrown
+with tulip trees, Judas trees, and scrub oaks.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+IN THE WOODS.
+
+
+The party walked leisurely along till they came to a log
+church, which Mr. Parlin paused to admire. It was in harmony, he said,
+with the roughness of the landscape.
+
+"I should like to attend service here by moonlight; I think it would be
+very sweet and solemn in such a lonely place. There would be no sound
+outside; and as you looked through the open door, you would only see a
+few quiet trees listening to the words of praise."
+
+"The evenings here must seem like something holy," said Mrs. Clifford,
+"'the nun-like evenings, telling dew-beads as they go.'"
+
+"O, my shole!" cried Katie, dancing before the church door, and clapping
+her hands; "that's the bear's house, the _bear's_ house! Little boy went
+in there, drank some of the old bear's podge, so _sour_ he couldn't
+drink it." Here she looked disgusted, but added with a honeyed smile,
+"Then bimeby drank some o' _little_ bear's podge, and '_twas_ so sweet
+he drank it aw--all up!"
+
+Everybody laughed, it was so absurd to think of looking for bears and
+porridge in a building where people met to worship. Dotty had just been
+saying to herself, "How strange that God is in this mizzable house out
+West, just as if it was in Portland!" But Katie had rudely broken in
+upon her meditations.
+
+"O, what a Flyaway!" said she; "you don't do any good."
+
+"Yes, I does."
+
+"Well, what?"
+
+"O, I tell 'tories."
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"I p'ay with little goorls; and then I p'ay some more; and I wash de
+dishes. I'll tell _you_ a 'tory," added she, balancing herself on a
+stump, and making wild gestures with her arms, somewhat as she had seen
+Horace do.
+
+     "'Woe to de Dotties and sons 'o men,
+     Woe to 'em all when I yoam again!'"
+
+One wee forefinger pointed up to the sky; the right hand, doubled to a
+threatening little fist, was shaken at Dotty, while the young orator's
+face was so wrinkled with scowls that Dotty laughed outright.
+
+"Do speak that again," she said. "You are the cunningest baby!"
+
+'"Woe to de Dotties--!' No, I can't tell it 'thout I have sumpin to
+stan' on!" sighed Miss Flyaway, falling off the stump directly against
+Dotty.
+
+"I believe you've broken me," cried Dotty; for, though Katie was small,
+her weight pressed heavily.
+
+"Well, Fibby's broke sumpin too," replied she, calmly. "What does lamps
+wear?"
+
+"I s'pose you mean chimneys."
+
+"Yes, Fibby has did it; she's broke a chimley."
+
+"Look up here, little Ruffleneck; you're an honor to the state," said
+brother Horace, proudly. "You don't find such a 'cute child as this in
+Yankee land, Dotty Dimple."
+
+"You musn't call me a Yankee," said Dotty, who never liked Horace's tone
+when he used the word. "I'm not a Yankee; I'm a 'Publican!"
+
+"Hurrah for you!" shouted Horace, swinging his hat; "hurrah for Miss
+Parlin Number Three!"
+
+"Dear, dear! what have I said now? I don't want him to hurrah for me,"
+thought Dotty.
+
+Horace returned to his manners.
+
+"She's such a firebrand that I like to make her eyes flash; but we must
+be polite to visitors; so here goes."
+
+"Cousin Dotty," said he aloud, dropping his mocking tones, and speaking
+very respectfully, "if you are a true Republican, I honor you as such,
+and I'll never call you a Yankee again."
+
+"Well, I _am_ a 'Publican to the white bone!"
+
+What Dotty meant by the "white bone" was rather uncertain, it being one
+of those little figures of speech which will not bear criticism.
+
+"Then you believe in universal suffering?"
+
+"O, yes," answered Dotty, quickly.
+
+"And the black walnut bureau?"
+
+Dotty hesitated.
+
+"If the 'Publicans do, and my father does."
+
+"O, yes; everybody believes in the black walnut bureau--that ever saw
+one."
+
+Dotty glanced at Horace stealthily; but his face was so serious that she
+was sure he could not be making sport of her. They were walking a little
+in advance of the others, Horace dragging Flyaway, who was intent upon
+digging her little heels into the ground.
+
+"This place is sometimes called Goblin Valley," said the boy. "A goblin
+means a sort of ghost; but nobody but simpletons believe in such
+things," added he, quickly, for he was too high-minded to wish to
+frighten his little cousin.
+
+"O, I'm not at all afraid of such things," said Dotty quietly; "I've got
+all over it. I know what ghosts are now; they are pumpkins."
+
+"Excuse my smiling," said Horace, laughing uproariously.
+
+"You may laugh, cousin Horace, but I've seen them. They have a candle
+inside; and that's why my father brought me out West, because the doctor
+said it frightened me so. Why, they had to pour water over me and drown
+me almost to death, or I'd have died!"
+
+"I wonder!"
+
+"Yes, 'twas Johnny Eastman; but his mamma gave me a beautiful little
+tea-set, with _golder_ rims than the one that was burnt up; and Johnny
+and Percy both felt dreadfully."
+
+"Wanted the tea-set themselves--did they?"
+
+"O, no; _they_ never play tea. That isn't why they feel dreadfully; it's
+because, if they ever frighten me again, the Mayor'll have them put in
+the _penitential_, and they know it."
+
+"They were mean fellows; that's a fact," said Horace, with genuine
+indignation. "I used to be full of mischief when I was small; but I
+never frightened a little girl in my life; and no boy would do it that
+thinks anything of himself."
+
+Dotty looked up admiringly at the youth of twelve years, liking him all
+the better for his chivalry, as any of you little girls would have done.
+
+"Boy-cousins are not always alike," said she, as if the idea was quite
+new; "some are good, and some are naugh--"
+
+The word was cut in two by a scream. A large and very handsome snake was
+gliding gracefully across her path. The like of it for size and
+brilliancy, she had never seen before.
+
+"O, how boo-ful!" cried Katie, darting after it. Horace held her back.
+Dotty trembled violently.
+
+"Kill it," she screamed; "throw stones at it; take me away! take me
+away!"
+
+"Poh, Dotty; nothing but an innocent snake; he's more afraid of you than
+you are of him."
+
+"You told him take you away two times," exclaimed Katie, "and he didn't,
+and he didn't."
+
+"I never knew you had such awful things out West," said Dotty
+shuddering. "And I don't think _now_ there's _any_ difference in
+boy-cousins! They never take you away, nor do anything you ask 'em
+to--so there!"
+
+"Why, Dotty, he was hurrying as fast as he could to get out of our
+sight; there was no need of taking you away."
+
+"She needn't be 'fraid," observed Flyaway, soothingly; "if I had a
+sidders, I could ha' cutted him in two."
+
+By this time the rest of the party had arrived. Grace and Cassy walked
+together very confidentially under the same umbrella which had sheltered
+them years ago--a black one marked with white paint, "Stolen from H.S.
+Clifford." "Bold thieves" Horace called them; but they deigned no notice
+of his remark.
+
+"I'll get an answer," murmured Horace, repeating aloud,--
+
+     "'Hey for the apple and ho for the pear,
+     But give me the girl with the red hair.'"
+
+At this Grace turned around sharply, and shook her bare head, which
+gleamed in the sun like burnt gold.
+
+"Panoria Swan has red hair," said she,--"fire-red; but mine is auburn."
+
+"O, I only wanted to make you speak, Grace; that will do."
+
+"Here we are at the woods," said Mr. Clifford. He had once owned a
+neighboring lot, and his pecan trees had been fenced around to protect
+them from the impertinent swine; but now the party were going into the
+heart of the forest.
+
+The pecan trees were tall, somewhat like maples, with the nuts growing
+on them in shucks, after the manner of walnuts. These shucks, if left
+till the coming of frost, would have opened of themselves, and scattered
+the nuts to the ground; but our friends preferred to gather a few
+bushels before they were perfectly ripened, rather than lose them
+altogether.
+
+As the easiest method, Mr. Clifford said they might as well fell a
+tree, for he had a right to do so. He had brought an axe in his
+carriage; and Mr. Parlin, whose good right arm had never been injured in
+the war, soon brought a noble tree to the ground.
+
+Then there was a scrambling to see which should break off the most
+shucks. Dotty sat down on a log, half afraid there might be a snake
+lurking under it, and picked with all her might.
+
+[Illustration: GOING NUTTING.--Page 131.]
+
+"We don't have any pecans at Deering's Oaks," she thought, "and nothing
+but shells at the Islands. I only wish Prudy was here. Prudy would think
+I had a little temper at Horace just now; I wonder if he did. I will
+show him I am sorry; for he _is_ a good boy, and a great deal more
+'style' and polite than Percy."
+
+"What makes our little darling look so dismal?" said Cassy, taking a
+seat beside Dotty Dimple.
+
+"O, I was thinking a great _many_ things! I'm so far off, Cassy! When I
+think of that, I want to scream right out. Prudy's at home, and I'm
+here! I don't want to be so far off".
+
+"But only think, dear, how much you will have to tell when you get home;
+and in such a little while too."
+
+Dotty was instantly consoled, for a crowd of recollections rushed into
+her mind of wonderful events which had occurred since she parted from
+Prudy. The "far off" feeling left her as she thought of the stories she
+should have to tell to admiring listeners one of these days.
+
+When it was time for dinner, Mrs. Clifford spread a table-cloth on the
+ground, and covered it with the nice food she had brought. It was a
+delightful entertainment. Flyaway was so nearly wild with the new
+experience of eating in the woods, among the toads and squirrels, that
+she required constant watching to keep her within bounds. She wanted to
+run after all the little creeping things she saw, and give them part of
+her dinner. Horace gladly assumed the care of her. He did not mean that
+his mother should regret having brought little Topknot.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+SURPRISES.
+
+
+After a very happy day in the woods, the Cliffords started for
+home with as many nuts as they could carry.
+
+Dotty said she had had a nice time; but for some reason she could not go
+to sleep that night. There was a burning sensation in her right side,
+and she had a horrible fancy that a snake had bitten her. She could not
+endure the thought of lying and listening to the strokes of the clock.
+
+"I'll go find my father," thought she, with that "far-off" feeling at
+her heart again.
+
+But which way to go? She had not yet learned the plan of the house, but
+had no doubt she could find her father's room. She pattered about the
+chambers with her little bare feet, and at last waked Horace by
+overturning a chair near his bed.
+
+"Why, who is there? And what's wanted?"
+
+"It's me, and I want my father."
+
+By this time Aunt Maria, hearing a noise, had come in with a light.
+
+"Are you sick, dear child?"
+
+"No, auntie; I don't know what's the matter; I 'spect it's the blues. I
+had 'em you know, when the beer came to an end--I mean the world--I mean
+that night Polly Whiting called me up."
+
+Horace used all his self-control to keep from laughing.
+
+"Well, Cousin Dotty, you do look blue, I declare; as blue as the
+skimmiest milk of the cheatiest milkman. Mother, isn't there
+something in the medicine chest that is good for the blues?"
+
+"They are in my side--I mean _it_," said Dotty, dismally. "I'm afraid
+it's a--snake?"
+
+Mrs. Clifford took the afflicted child in her arms, and began to
+question her with regard to the exact spot where she felt the "blues,"
+assuring her that some relief might be afforded if the nature of the
+trouble could only be discovered.
+
+"O, ho," cried Horace, suddenly; "I know what it is; it's a jigger."
+
+Upon reflection, it was decided that Horace might be right. A little
+creature called the _chegre_, had perhaps made its way out of some
+decayed log and crept in under Dotty's skin, causing all this heat and
+irritation. There was a small, hard swelling on her side, which appeared
+to move. Her father asked her if she was willing to have him cut it out
+with his penknife.
+
+Dotty hesitated; her nerves quivered at sight of the sharp blade.
+
+"But that cruel little _chegre_ is drinking your blood, my daughter. The
+more he drinks, the larger he will grow, and the harder it will be to
+cut him out."
+
+"That's so," said Horace. "I could preach, with jigger for a text. Ahem!
+He is like sin--the more you let him stay, the more you'll wish you
+hadn't. Come, Dotty, be brave, and out with him!"
+
+"You can talk to _me_," said Dotty, bitterly; "but if it was _your_ side
+that had a _jiggle_ in, perhaps you'd feel as bad's I do."
+
+Horace was prepared for this.
+
+"But I've had them cut out twice, miss. Being a boy, I could bear it!"
+
+This settled the question.
+
+"Girls are just as brave as boys," said Dotty; and submitted to the
+knife without a murmur.
+
+The next day she was regarded as something of an invalid. She had lost
+so much sleep that she did not rise until her father was far away on his
+journey. Aunt Maria gave her a late breakfast, which was also to serve
+for an early dinner. It was an oyster-stew; and Dotty enjoyed eating it
+in Mrs. Clifford's room on the lounge. Katie sat beside her, watching
+every mouthful, and begging for it the moment it entered the spoon.
+
+"Don't tease so," said Dotty; "your poor cousin is sick; you don't want
+to take away her soup?"
+
+"Yes, I does," replied Katie, coolly; "I likes it myself," opening her
+mouth for more.
+
+Dotty gave her an oyster. The next moment something grated against
+Katie's teeth, and she picked out the hard substance with her fingers.
+Mrs. Clifford happened to see it.
+
+"That is a pearl," said she.
+
+"A pearl, auntie? Why, isn't that something precious? Mamma has pearls
+in a ring."
+
+"I will show it to your uncle," replied Mrs. Clifford, turning it over
+in her hand; "but I think it is a true pearl, only a little discolored
+by the heat it has undergone in being cooked."
+
+"O, I'll have a ring made of it! What funny oysters you do have out
+West!"
+
+"The pyurl is mine," said Katie; "I finded it in my toof."
+
+"No, it's mine, darling, for 'twas in my stew."
+
+"Well, tenny rate, I want um," said Katie, dancing around the sofa,
+"_if_ you pees um."
+
+"O, no; little bits of girlies don't need it--do they, auntie?"
+
+"I hope," said Mrs. Clifford, smiling, "it will not cost either of you
+any of those 'falling pearls which men call tears.' It isn't worth
+crying about."
+
+Katie was easily persuaded to give it up.
+
+"You may keep um if you'll let me have two poun's of gold; _two_ poun's
+to make me a ying."
+
+Dotty could not promise the gold; but said Katie should have the next
+pickled lime she bought with her money; and this answered quite as well.
+
+Just as Dotty was going to her room to put away the choice pearl in a
+box which stood in her trunk, there was a loud noise. Phebe, coming up
+stairs with a pail of water in each hand, had stumbled and fallen. The
+water was pouring down in a cataract, and after it rattled the pails
+Mrs. Clifford ran to the rescue. Phebe was looking aghast, making a wild
+gesture with one hand, and rubbing her nose with the other.
+
+"You didn't fall on your _nose_, Phebe?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am," sobbed the poor girl; "and I believe it's broke; I heard
+it crack!"
+
+Mrs. Clifford might have upbraided Phebe for carrying two buckets up
+stairs at once, contrary to orders; but she did nothing of the sort; she
+kindly sent for the surgeon, who set the two fragments of nose together
+as well as he could.
+
+"Never mind it, child," remarked he, facetiously, to the disconsolate
+Phebe; "you have only been beautifying your countenance. Hereafter you
+will not be taken for one of the flat-nosed race."
+
+The young African saw no amusement in the joke, and left the room with
+her handkerchief at her eyes.
+
+"Doctor," said Mrs. Clifford, "how could you speak so to that poor
+child? She has just as much regard for her personal appearance as you
+and I have for ours. You never use such language to one of my family;
+and please remember I would not have the feelings of my servants
+unnecessarily wounded any sooner than those of my children."
+
+"I stand rebuked, my dear madam," replied the family physician,
+respectfully.
+
+"I wish there were more such women as Mrs. Clifford," mused he, as he
+drove home; "she lives up to the Golden Rule; and if there's any better
+prescription than the Golden Rule for making a lady, I haven't seen it
+yet; that's all."
+
+It was one of those days when strange things seem ready to happen, one
+after another. Dotty, whose little head was rather unsettled by seeing
+and hearing so many new things, had an impression that such events as
+these were always occurring out West, and that they would never have
+happened anywhere else.
+
+_Chegres_ in logs, pearls in oysters; and now somebody had fallen up
+stairs and broken her nose. In Maine who ever heard the like?
+
+Dotty twirled her hair, in a state of wonder as to what would come next.
+It came before bedtime.
+
+She and Grace had been marching about the dining-room, singing martial
+songs. They went into the darkened parlor, still promenading, Grace's
+arm about her little cousin's waist.
+
+Suddenly Grace stopped, and whispered,--
+
+"What's that?"
+
+Dotty listened. It was a groan. It must proceed from a human throat; but
+there was no one in the room but their two selves.
+
+"I think there is _something_ in the hall," whispered Grace; "I must go
+tell papa."
+
+Mr. Clifford immediately took a lamp, and went to investigate the
+mystery. Dotty insisted upon going too, though she hardly knew why,
+except that the prospect of some unknown horror fascinated her. She
+clung to the skirt of her uncle's coat, though he would have preferred
+not to be hindered. No one else, not even Horace, cared to follow.
+
+As they entered the parlor there was the same sound from the hall, even
+more unearthly than ever. Dotty had entire faith in her uncle, and was
+not at all alarmed till they passed through the parlor doorway, and she
+saw the finger-prints of blood on the panels. Then she did tremble, and
+she had half a mind to draw back; but curiosity was stronger than fear.
+
+What _could_ it be that walked into people's houses _Out West_, and
+groaned so in their front halls? She must see the whole thing for
+herself, and be prepared to describe it to Prudy.
+
+She soon knew what it meant. There was a poor intoxicated man lying on
+the mat. Seeing the door open, he had staggered in while the family were
+at tea. In some way he had hurt his hand, and stained the door with
+blood. So there was nothing at all mysterious or supernatural in the
+affair, when it was once explained.
+
+The poor creature was too helpless to be sent into the street; and Mr.
+Clifford and Katinka carried him into the stable, and laid him upon a
+bed of sweet hay.
+
+"I'm glad not to be a Hoojer," said Dotty, with a severe look at her
+Cousin Horace. "You don't ever see such bad men in the State of Maine.
+The whiskey is locked up; and I don't know as there _is_ any whiskey."
+
+"Down East is a great place, Dotty! Don't I wish I was a Yankee--I mean
+a 'Publican?"
+
+"But you can't be, Horace," returned little Dotty, looking up at him
+with deep pity in her bright eyes; "you weren't born there. You're a
+Hoojer, and you'll have to _stay_ a Hoojer."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+SNIGGLING FOR EELS.
+
+
+Next day Mr. Clifford said he would take all the children,
+except Miss Flyaway, to see a coal mine. It was nothing new to Horace,
+who was in the habit of exploring his native town as critically as a
+regularly employed surveyor. You could hardly show him anything which he
+had not already seen and examined carefully, from a steamboat to a dish
+of "sour-krout." Grace and Cassy were by no means as learned, and had
+never ventured under ground. They feared, yet longed, to make the
+experiment.
+
+As for Dotty, she knew Jennie Vance's ring had been found in a mine.
+She had a vague notion that strange, half-human creatures were at work
+in the bowels of the earth, hunting for similar bits of jewelry. She had
+a secret hope that, if she went down there, she might herself see
+something shining in a dark corner; and what if it should be a piece of
+yellow gold, just suitable to be made into a ring to contain the oyster
+pearl!
+
+How surprised Jennie Vance would be to see such a precious treasure on
+her little friend's finger!
+
+"She didn't find her ring herself, and it isn't a pearl. But I shan't
+give mine away, and shan't promise to, and then tell that I never.
+That's a _hyper'blee_!"
+
+Dotty had found a new name for white lies.
+
+"It is so nice," said Grace, as they started from the door, "to have a
+little cousin visiting us! for it makes us think of going to a great
+many places where we never went before."
+
+"Then I'm glad there _is_ a little cousin, and _very_ glad it's me."
+
+"They like to have me here," she thought, "almost as much as if I was
+Prudy."
+
+Horace enjoyed the distinction of walking with the handsome Miss Dimple.
+When they met one of the boys of his acquaintance, he found an
+opportunity to whisper in his ear,--
+
+"This is our little cousin from Down East. Isn't she a beauty? She can
+climb a tree as well as you can."
+
+Dotty heard the whisper, and unconsciously tossed her head a little. She
+could not but conclude that she was becoming a personage of some
+consequence.
+
+"I'm a beauty; and now I'm growing pleasant, too. I don't have any
+temper, and haven't had any for a great while."
+
+Dotty did not reflect that there had been no occasion for anger. If one
+cannot be amiable when one is visiting, and is treated with every
+possible attention, then one must be ill-natured indeed! Dotty deceived
+herself. The lion was still there; he was curled up, and out of sight in
+his den.
+
+They passed several lager-beer saloons and candy shops; saw Dutchmen
+smoking meerschaums under broad awnings; and heard them talking in the
+guttural German language, as if--so Dotty thought--they had something in
+their throats which they could not swallow.
+
+After walking a long distance on a level road, and seeing nothing which
+looked like a hill, they came to the coal mines. Such a dirty spot!
+There were men standing about with faces as black as night, and out of
+the blackness gleamed the whites of their eyes like bits of white paper
+surrounded by pools of ink.
+
+Dotty stood still and gazed.
+
+"Horace," she whispered, "my conscience tells me they are niggroes."
+
+"Then, dear, your conscience has made a mistake; they are white men when
+they are clean."
+
+Mr. Clifford went up to one of the men, and asked if himself and the
+little people, might have an inside view of the mine. The man smiled a
+black and white smile, which Dotty thought was horrible, and said,--
+
+"O, yes, sir; come on."
+
+There was a large platform lying over the top like a trap-door, and
+through this platform was drawn a large rope. Grace and Cassy both
+screamed as they stood upon the planks, and caught Mr. Clifford by the
+arms.
+
+Dotty was not afraid; she liked the excitement. The men said it was as
+safe as going down cellar, and she believed them.
+
+But she was not exactly prepared for the strange, wild, dizzy sensation
+in her head when they began to sink down, down into the earth. It was
+delightful. "It seemed like being swung very high in the air," she said,
+"only it was just as _different_, too, as it could be."
+
+The men had live torches in their caps, which startled the dark mine
+with gleams of light and strange black shadows.
+
+"I don't feel as if I was in this world," cried Dotty, with a sensation
+of awe, and catching Grace by the arm to make sure she was near some one
+who had warm flesh and blood. After this emotion had passed, she went
+around by herself, and explored the mine carefully, telling no one what
+she was seeking. There was the blackest of coal and the darkest of earth
+in abundance; but Dotty Dimple did not find a gold ring, nor anything
+which looked more like it than two blind mules. These poor animals lived
+in the mines, and hauled coal. They had once possessed as good eyes as
+mules need ask for; but, living where there was nothing but darkness to
+be seen, and no sunlight to see it by, pray what did they need of
+eyesight?
+
+"Cassy," said Grace, "don't you remember, when we were children, we used
+to say we meant some time to live together and keep house? Suppose we
+try it here. We might have gas-light, you know, and all our food could
+be brought down on a dumb waiter."
+
+"Yes," said Cassy, who was very fond of sleep; "and we needn't ever get
+up in the morning."
+
+"No skeetos," suggested Dotty.
+
+"Men have lived in the earth sometimes," said Horace. "There was St.
+Dunstan; his cell was hardly large enough to stand in--was it, father?
+And sometimes he stood in water all night, and sang psalms."
+
+"What was that for, Uncle Edward?"
+
+"He was trying to please God."
+
+"But uncle, I don't believe God liked it."
+
+"The man was, no doubt, insane, dear. But his perseverance in doing what
+he thought right was something grand. Now suppose, children, we ascend
+and see what is going on atop of the earth."
+
+"I'm glad we didn't always have to stay in that black hole," said Dotty,
+catching her breath as they were drawn up.
+
+Then the thought occurred to her that the One who had made the sunlight
+and the soft green earth was kinder than she had ever supposed.
+
+"Well," said cousin Horace, "now we've done the mine; and this evening,
+Dotty, you and I will go and sniggle for eels."
+
+Dotty dared not tell any one that she had expected to find gold, and had
+been disappointed.
+
+Her first act, after reaching Aunt 'Ria's was to look in the little box
+for her precious pearl. It was gone! No doubt Flyaway had taken it.
+Dotty mourned over her own carelessness in leaving her treasure where
+the roguish little one could reach it. Instead of finding gold, she had
+lost something she supposed was more precious than gold. But she bore up
+as bravely as possible, and said to Mrs. Clifford,--
+
+"You needn't punish the baby, Aunt 'Ria; she didn't know she was
+stealing."
+
+Dotty had never seen an eel. Like a coal mine, a pearl, a Guinea pig, a
+drunken man, and a _chegre_, she supposed an eel was peculiar to the
+climate, and could be found nowhere but out West. As it had been
+described as being "really a fish, but looking more like a snake," she
+did not expect to be very much charmed with its personal appearance. She
+wished to catch one, or see one caught, because it would be something to
+tell Prudy.
+
+There was no moon, and the night was cloudy.
+
+"My son, be sure you take good care of your cousin," said Mrs. Clifford,
+the last thing.
+
+"So funny!" Dotty thought. "They don't seem to think there's anybody
+else in this world but just _me_!"
+
+Horace carried with him some light wood, and, when they reached the
+river bank, kindled a bright fire.
+
+"We'll make things look friendly and pleasant," said he; "and by and by
+Mr. Eel will walk along to the fire, and ask if we entertain travellers.
+'If so,' says he, 'you may count me in.'"
+
+"How dried up the river looks!" said Dotty.
+
+"That is because the draymen have taken so much water out of it, little
+cousin. Haven't you seen them going by with barrels?"
+
+"I shouldn't think the mayor'd 'low them to do it, Horace; for some time
+there won't be any river left."
+
+"It's too bad to impose upon you," said Horace, laughing; "I was only
+joking." Dotty drew herself up with so much dignity that she nearly
+fell backward into the fire.
+
+Good-natured Horace repented him of his trifling.
+
+"Look down in the water, Dotty, and see if there is anything there that
+looks like an eel?"
+
+Dotty did not move.
+
+"Don't go to being vexed, chickie; you're as bright as anybody, after
+all."
+
+Dotty smiled again.
+
+"There," said Horace, "now we'll begin not to talk. We'll not say a
+word, and next thing we know, we'll catch that eel."
+
+But he was mistaken. They knew several other things before they knew
+they had caught an eel. Horace knew it was growing late, and Dotty knew
+it made her sleepy to sit without speaking.
+
+"Enough of this," cried Horace, breaking the spell of silence at last.
+"You may talk now as much as you please. I've had my line out two hours.
+They say 'in mud eel is;' but I don't believe it."
+
+"Nor I either."
+
+But at that very moment an eel bit. Horace drew him in with great
+satisfaction.
+
+Dotty gave a little start of disgust, but had the presence of mind not
+to scream at sight of the ugly creature, because she had heard Horace
+say girls always did scream at eels.
+
+"He will know now I _am_ as bright as anybody; as bright as a boy."
+
+They started for home, well pleased with their evening's work.
+
+"Did you notice," asked Dotty, "how I acted? I never screamed at that
+eel once."
+
+"You're a lady, Dotty. I don't know but you might be trusted to go
+trouting. I never dared take Prudy, she is troubled so with palpitation
+of the tongue."
+
+A proud moment this for Dotty. More discreet than Sister Prudy. Praise
+could no farther go!
+
+An agreeable surprise awaited her at Aunt Maria's.
+
+"Please accept with my love," said Grace, giving her a tiny box.
+
+Dotty opened the box, and found, enveloped in rose-colored cotton, a
+beautiful gold ring, dotted with a pearl.
+
+"I was the thief, Cousin Dotty. I hope you will excuse the liberty I
+took in going to your trunk."
+
+"So it is my own oyster pearl," cried Dotty. "O, I never was so glad in
+my life."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+"A POST OFFICE LETTER."
+
+
+The "far-off" feeling rather increased upon Dotty. It seemed to
+her that she had never before reflected upon the immense distance which
+lay between her and home. The house might burn up before ever she got
+back. Prudy might have a lung fever, and mamma the "typo." It was
+possible for Zip to choke with a bone, and for a thousand other dreadful
+things to happen. And if Dotty were needed ever so much, she could not
+reach home without travelling all those miles.
+
+Then, what if one of the conductors should prove to be a "_non,_" and
+she should never reach home at all, but, instead of that, should be
+found lying in little pieces under a railroad bridge?
+
+Sister Prudy had never troubled her head with such fancies. The dear God
+would attend to her, she knew. He cared just as much about her one
+little self as if she had been the whole United States. But Dotty did
+not understand how this could be.
+
+"I wish I hadn't come out West at all," thought she. "They're going to
+take me up to Indi'nap'lis; and there I'll have to stay, p'raps a week;
+for my father always has such long business! Dear, dear! and I don't
+know but everybody's dead!"
+
+Just as she had drawn a curtain of gloom over her bright little face,
+and had buried both her dimples under it, and all her smiles, Uncle
+Henry came home from his office, looking very roguish.
+
+"Well, little miss, and what do you suppose I've brought you from up
+town? Put on your thinking-cap, and tell me."
+
+"Bananas? papaws? 'simmons? lemons? Dear me, what is it? Is it to eat or
+wear? And have you got it in your pocket?"
+
+Uncle Henry, who had had his hand behind him, now held it out with a
+letter in it--a letter in a white envelope, directed, in clear, elegant
+writing, to "Miss Alice B. Parlin, care of H.S. Clifford, Esq., Quinn,
+Indiana."
+
+There could be no mistake about it; the letter was intended for Dotty
+Dimple, and had travelled all the way by mail. But then that title,
+Miss, before the name! It was more than probable that the people all
+along the road had supposed it was intended for a young lady!
+
+[Illustration: DOTTY'S FIRST POST-OFFICE LETTER. _Page 162_.]
+
+When the wonderful thing was given her, her "first post-office letter,"
+she clapped her hands for joy.
+
+"Miss? Miss?" repeated she, as Horace re-read the direction; for she was
+not learned in the mysteries of writing, and could not read it for
+herself.
+
+"O, yes. _Miss_, certainly! If it was to me, it would be Mr."
+
+"_Master_, you mean," corrected Grace.
+
+"No, Horace, you are not Mr. yet!" said Dotty, confidently; "you've
+never been married."
+
+The next thing in order was the reading of the letter. Dotty tore it
+open with a trembling hand. I should like to see another letter that
+would make a child so happy as that one did! It was written by three
+different people, and all to the same little girl. Not a line to Uncle
+Henry or Aunt Maria, or Horace or Grace. All to Dotty's self, as if she
+were a personage of the first importance.
+
+Mamma began it. How charming to see "My dear little daughter," traced so
+carefully in printed capitals! Then it was such a satisfaction to be
+informed, in the sweetest language, that this same "dear little
+daughter" was sadly missed. Dotty was so glad to be missed!
+
+There was a present waiting for her at home. Mrs. Parlin was not willing
+to say what it was; but it had been sent by Aunt Madge from the city of
+New York, and must be something fine.
+
+There were two whole pages of the clear, fair writing, signed at the
+close, "Your affectionate mother, Mary L. Parlin."
+
+Just as if Dotty didn't know what mother's name was!
+
+Then Susy followed with a short account of Zip, and how he had stuck
+himself full of burs. (He wasn't choked yet, thought Dotty; and that was
+a comfort.) Then a longer account of the children's picnic at Deering's
+Oaks.
+
+Dotty sighed, and felt that fate had been rather cruel in depriving her
+of that picnic.
+
+"But I have had something better than that," said she, brightening;
+"I've walked on an Ensmallment, and I have picked pecans."
+
+But the best was to come. It was from Prudy.
+
+     "MY DEAR LITTLE DARLING SISTER: I want to see you more
+     than tongue can tell. Norah let Susy bake some biscuits last night,
+     because there wasn't anybody at home but mother, and grandma, and
+     Susy, and Norah, and me. But they were as tough as _sew leather_.
+     Susy forgot the creamor tartar, and soda, and salt. She wasn't to
+     blame.
+
+     "I'm so lonesome I can't wait to see my darling sister.
+
+     "Now I have some news to tell:--
+
+     "Mother is going to be married!
+
+     "You will think that is funny; but she is going to be married to
+     the same husband she was before.
+
+     "It will be a Crystal Wedding, because it is fifteen years.
+
+     "She invites you and father to come home to it; she couldn't have
+     it without father.
+
+     "You are going to be the bridesmaid! How queer! Mamma didn't think,
+     the first time she was married, that ever it would be _you_ that
+     would be her bridesmaid!
+
+     "From your dear, dear
+
+     "PRUDY."
+
+     "P.S. There will be wedding cake."
+
+     "P.S. No. 2. Johnny Eastman is going to be _bridegroom_, to stand
+     up, if he doesn't do anything naughty before.               P.P."
+
+The look of "mouldy melancholy" disappeared from Dotty's face entirely.
+
+"A wedding! A _crystal_ wedding! What can that be? I didn't know my
+father and mother would ever be married any more. Aunt 'Ria, were you
+and Uncle Henry ever married any more?"
+
+"This is a sort of make-believe wedding," replied Mrs. Clifford; "that
+is all. And since you are to be bridesmaid, Dotty, I wonder if I cannot
+find a pair of white slippers for you. I remember Grace had a pair some
+years ago, which she has never worn."
+
+[Illustration: THE WHITE SLIPPERS.--Page 167.]
+
+The slippers were produced, and fitted perfectly. Dotty danced about,
+embraced her auntie, made a great many wild speeches, and finally found
+herself in her uncle's lap, kissing him and laughing aloud.
+
+"I suppose now," said Mr. Clifford, "we cannot keep you much longer and
+I am sorry, for it is very pleasant to have our little cousin here to
+talk with us."
+
+"I don't wan't um go 'way, I don't want um go 'way," spoke up little
+Katie.
+
+"But I _must_ go to meet my papa," returned Dotty, with a business air.
+"I have to be at home to get ready for the wedding."
+
+It was very pleasant to know people liked her to stay. She ran into the
+kitchen, and said to Katinka,--
+
+"O, Katinka, my papa and mamma are going to be married again! Do you
+know I've got to start day after to-morrow?"
+
+"So?" replied Katinka, not very much impressed. "I'm going to a party.
+I must up stairs go, and make my hairs and shut my dress. Gute Nacht."
+
+"I'm only going to stay one more day; aren't you sorry?" said Dotty to
+broken-nosed Phebe, who came in from the pantry with a long face.
+
+"Why, I reckoned you was going _to-morrow_," was Phebe's cool reply,
+rolling the whites of her eyes to hide a twinkle of fun. She knew Dotty
+expected her to say, "I am sorry;" but, though she really was sorry, she
+would not confess it just then, because she was an inveterate tease.
+
+Dotty felt a little chilled. She could not look into the future and see
+the tomato pincushion Phebe was to give her, with the assurance that
+"she liked her a heap; she was a right smart child, and not a bit stuck
+up."
+
+The day ended with Dotty's dear, dear letter under her pillow. She was
+going to be very happy by and by; but just now she thought she was so
+homesick that she should never go to sleep. She longed to see Prudy, and
+hear her say, "O, you darling sister!"
+
+Then that wedding! Those white slippers!
+
+How they did all miss her at home! Such dear friends as she had, and
+such beautiful things as were going to happen!
+
+"But they are so good to me here! I've behaved so well they love me
+dearly. If I go home, I can't stay here and have good times. I should be
+happy if I was at my mother's house and out West too! Every time I'm
+glad, then there's something else to make me sorry."
+
+So, between a smile and a tear, Dotty Dimple passed into the beautiful
+land of dreams; and the moon shone on a little face with a frown between
+the eyes and a dimple dancing in each cheek.
+
+What happened to her on her way home and afterward will be told in the
+story of Dotty Dimple at Play.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: SOPHIE MAY'S "LITTLE FOLKS" BOOKS.]
+
+"The authoress of THE LITTLE PRUDY STORIES would be
+elected Aunty-laureate if the children had an opportunity, for the
+wonderful books she writes for their amusement. She is the Dickens of
+the nursery, and we do not hesitate to say develops the rarest sort of
+genius in the specialty of depicting smart little children."--_Hartford
+Post_.
+
+_LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS, BOSTON_.
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1834, BY LEE & SHEPARD.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+[Illustration: Portrait of Sophie May (Rebecca Sophia Clarke)]
+
+The children will not be left without healthful entertainment and kindly
+instruction so long as SOPHIE MAY (Miss Rebecca S. Clarke)
+lives and wields her graceful pen in their behalf. MISS CLARKE
+has made a close and loving study of childhood, and she is almost
+idolized by the crowd of 'nephews and nieces' who claim her as aunt.
+Nothing to us can ever be quite so delightfully charming as were the
+'Dotty Dimple' and the 'Little Prudy' books to our youthful
+imaginations, but we have no doubt the little folks of to-day will find
+the story of 'Flaxie Frizzle' and her young friends just as fascinating.
+There is a sprightliness about all of MISS CLARKE'S books that
+attracts the young, and their purity, their absolute _cleanliness_,
+renders them invaluable in the eyes of parents and all who are
+interested in the welfare of children."--_Morning Star_.
+
+"Genius comes in with 'Little Prudy.' Compared with her, all other
+book-children are cold creations of literature; she alone is the real
+thing. All the quaintness of children, its originality, its tenderness
+and its teasing, is infinite uncommon drollery, the serious earnestness
+of its fun, the fun of its seriousness, the naturalness of its plays,
+and the delicious oddity of its progress, all these united for dear
+Little Prudy to embody them."--_North American Review_.
+
+
+
+
+SPECIMEN CUT TO "LITTLE PRUDY'S FLYAWAY SERIES."
+
+[Illustration: PRUDY KEEPING HOUSE.]
+
+"'My, what a fascinating creature,' said the Man in the Moon, making an
+eye-glass with his thumb and fore-finger, and gazing at the lady
+boarder. 'Are you a widow woman?'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+LITTLE GRANDMOTHER.
+
+"Grandmother Parlen when a little girl is the subject. Of course that
+was ever so long ago, when there were no lucifer matches, and steel and
+tinder were used to light fires; when soda and saleratus had never been
+heard of, but people made their pearl ash by soaking burnt crackers in
+water; when the dressmaker and the tailor and the shoemaker went from
+house to house twice a year to make the dresses and coats of the
+family."--_Transcript_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+LITTLE GRANDFATHER.
+
+"The story of Grandfather Parlen's little boy life, of the days of knee
+breeches and cocked hats, full of odd incidents, queer and quaint
+sayings, and the customs of 'ye olden time.' These stories of SOPHIE
+MAY'S are so charmingly written that older folks may well amuse
+themselves by reading them. The same warm sympathy with childhood, the
+earnest naturalness, the novel charm of the preceding volumes will be
+found in this."--_Christian Messenger_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MISS THISTLEDOWN.
+
+"One of the queerest of the Prudy family. Read the chapter heads and you
+will see just how much fun there must be in it. 'Fly's Heart,' 'Taking a
+Nap,' 'Going to the Fair,' 'The Dimple Dot,' 'The Hole in the Home,'
+'The Little Bachelor,' 'Fly's Bluebeard,' 'Playing Mamma,' 'Butter
+Spots,' 'Polly's Secret,' 'The Snow Man,' 'The Owl and the
+Humming-bird,' 'Tales of Hunting Deer,' and 'The Parlen Patchwork.'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ILLUSTRATION TO "LITTLE PRUDY'S FLYAWAY SERIES"
+
+[Illustration: LITTLE GRANDMOTHER.]
+
+"She played in the old garret, with Dr. Moses to attend her dolls when
+they were sick."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: SIX VOLUMES: PER VOLUME, 75 CENTS.]
+
+     FLAXIE FRIZZLE.       TWIN COUSINS.
+     DOCTOR PAPA.          FLAXIE'S KITTYLEEN.
+     LITTLE PITCHERS.      FLAXIE GROWING UP.
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ILLUSTRATION TO "FLAXIE FRIZZLE SERIES."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"The next day it rained so hard 'the water couldn't catch its breath'
+but the Little Pitchers were eager to go to school."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FLAXIE FRIZZLE.
+
+"FLAXIE FRIZZLE is the successor of the Dotty Dimple, Little
+Prudy, Flyaway, and the other charming child creations of that
+inimitable writer for children, SOPHIE MAY. There never was a
+healthy, fun-loving child born into this world that, at one stage of
+another of its growth, wouldn't be entertained with SOPHIE
+MAY'S books. For that matter, it is not safe for older folks to
+look into them, unless they intend to read them through. FLAXIE
+FRIZZLE will be found as bright and pleasant reading as the
+others."--_Boston Journal_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FLAXIE'S DOCTOR PAPA
+
+"SOPHIE MAY understands children. Her books are not books about
+them merely. She seems to know precisely how they feel, and she sets
+them before us, living and breathing in her pages. Flaxie Frizzle is a
+darling, and her sisters, brothers, and cousins are just the sort of
+little folks with whom careful mothers would like their boys and girls
+to associate. The story is a bright, breezy, wholesome narrative, and it
+is full of mirth and gayety, while its moral teaching is
+excellent."--_Sunday School Times_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FLAXIE'S LITTLE PITCHERS
+
+"Little Flaxie will secure a warm place in the hearts of all at once.
+Here is her little picture. Her name was Mary Gray, but they called her
+Flaxie Frizzle, because she had light curly hair that frizzled; and she
+had a curly nose,--that is, her nose curled up at the end a wee bit,
+just enough to make it look cunning. Her cheeks were rosy red, 'and she
+was so fat that when Mr. Snow, the postmaster, saw her, he said, "How
+d'ye do, Mother Bunch?"'"--_Boston Home Journal_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SPECIMEN OF CUT TO "FLAXIE FRIZZLE SERIES."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"By and by the colts came to the kitchen window, which was open, and put
+in their noses to ask for something to eat. Flaxie gave them pieces of
+bread."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FLAXIE'S TWIN COUSINS.
+
+"Another of those sweet, natural child-stories in which the heroine does
+and says just such things as actual, live, flesh children do, is the one
+before us. And what is still better, each incident points a moral. The
+Illustrations are a great addition to the delight of the youthful
+reader. It is just such beautiful books as this which bring to our
+minds, in severe contrast, the youth's literature of our early days--the
+good little boy who died young and the bad little boy who went fishing
+on Sunday and died in prison, etc., etc., to the end of the threadbare,
+improbable chapter."--_Rural New Yorker_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FLAXIE'S KITTYLEEN.
+
+"KITTYLEEN--one of the Flaxie Frizzle series--is a genuinely
+helpful as well as delightfully entertaining story: The nine-year-old
+Flaxie is worried, beloved, and disciplined by a bewitching
+three-year-old tormenter, whose accomplished mother allows her to prey
+upon the neighbors. 'Everybody felt the care of Mrs. Garland's children.
+There were six of them, and their mother was always painting china. She
+did it beautifully, with graceful vines trailing over it, and golden
+butterflies ready to alight on sprays of lovely flowers. Sometimes the
+neighbors thought it would be a fine thing if she would keep her little
+ones at home rather more; but, if she had done that, she could not have
+painted china.'"--_Chicago Tribune_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FLAXIE GROWING UP.
+
+"No more charming stories for the little ones were ever written than
+those comprised in the three series which have for several years past
+been from time to time added to juvenile literature by SOPHIE
+MAY. They have received the unqualified praise of many of the most
+practical scholars of New England for their charming simplicity and
+purity of sentiment. The delightful story shows the gradual improvement
+of dear little Flaxie's character under the various disciplines of
+child-life and the sweet influence of a good and happy home. The
+illustrations are charming pictures."--_Home Journal_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ILLUSTRATION TO "FLAXIE GROWING UP."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Laughing was the very mainspring of life at Camp Comfort; but the girls
+had never laughed yet as they did now, to see Buttons in full swing
+preparing to cook a pie."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PENN SHIRLEY'S STORIES
+
+FOR THE LITTLE ONES
+
+
+Miss Penn Shirley is a very graceful interpreter of child-life. She
+thoroughly understands how to reach out to the tender chord of the
+little one's feelings, and to interest her in the noble life of her
+young companions. Her stories are full of bright lessons, but they do
+not take on the character of moralizing sermons. Her keen observation
+and ready sympathy teach her how to deal with the little ones in helping
+them to understand the lessons of life. Her stories are simple and
+unaffected.--_Boston Herald_.
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE MISS WEEZY SERIES
+
+      Three volumes      Illustrated      Boxed, each 75 cents
+
+LITTLE MISS WEEZY
+
+One of the freshest and most delightful, because the most natural of the
+stories of the year for children, is "Little Miss Weezy," by Penn
+Shirley. It relates the oddities, the mischief, the adventures, and the
+misadventures of a tiny two-year-old maiden, full of life and spirit,
+and capable of the most unexpected freaks and pranks. The book is full
+of humor, and is written with a delicate sympathy with the feelings of
+children, which will make it pleasing to children and parents alike.
+Really good child literature is not over-plenty, despite the multitude
+of books that come daily from the press; and it is pleasing to welcome a
+new author whose first volume, like this one of Penn Shirley, adds
+promise of future good work to actual present merit.--_Boston Courier_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SPECIMEN ILLUSTRATION FROM "LITTLE MISS WEEZY."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Copyright, 1886, by LEE & SHEPARD.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+LITTLE MISS WEEZY'S BROTHER
+
+This is a good story for young children, bringing in the same characters
+as "Little Miss Weezy" of last year, and continuing the history of a
+very natural and wide-awake family of children. The doings and the
+various "scrapes" of Kirke, the brother, form a prominent feature of the
+books, and are such as we may see any day in the school or home life of
+a well-cared-for and good-intentioned little boy. There are several
+quite pleasing full-page illustrations.--_The Dial_.
+
+We should like to see the person who thinks it "easy enough to write for
+children," attempt a book like the "Miss Weezy" stories. Excepting
+Sophie May's childish classics, we don't know of anything published as
+bright as the sayings and doings of the little Louise and her friends.
+Their pranks and capers are no more like Dotty Dimple's than those of
+one bright child are like another's, but they are just as "cute" as
+those of the little folks that play in your yard or around your
+neighbor's doorsteps.--_Journal of Education_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+LITTLE MISS WEEZY'S SISTER
+
+"It is one of the best of the series, and will please every child who
+reads it. It is brought out just at the holiday time, and is brimful of
+good things. Every character in it is true to nature and the doings of a
+bright lot of children, in which Miss Mary Rowe figures conspicuously,
+will entertain grown folks as well as little ones."
+
+It is a thoroughly clever and delightful story of child life, gracefully
+told, and charming in its blending of humor and pathos. The children in
+the book are real children, and the pretty plot through which they move
+is fully in harmony with the characters. The young ones will find it a
+storehouse of pleasant things pleasantly related, and a book that will
+appeal at once to their sentiments and sympathies.--_Boston Gazette_.
+
+A book that will hold the place of honor on the nursery bookshelf until
+it falls to pieces from such handling is "Little Miss Weezy's Sister," a
+simple, yet absorbing story of children who are interesting because they
+are so real. It is doing scant justice to say for the author, Penn
+Shirley, that the annals of child-life have seldom been traced with more
+loving care.--_Boston Times_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SPECIMEN ILLUSTRATION FROM "LITTLE MISS WEEZY'S SISTER."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Copyright, 1830, by Lee and Shepard.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+SOPHIE MAY'S COMPLETE WORKS.
+
+
+[Illustration of books mentioned]
+
+Drone's Honey. A Novel. $1.50.
+
+_THE QUINNEBASSET SERIES_.
+
+6 Volumes. Illustrated. Per Vol. $1.50.
+
+  The Doctor's Daughter.    Our Helen.     The Asbury twins.
+        Quinnebasset Girls.    Janet; a Poor Heiress.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_LITTLE PRUDY STORIES_.
+
+6 Volumes. Illustrated. Per Vol. 75 cts.
+
+  Little Prudy.                    Little Prudy's Cousin Grace.
+  Little Prudy's Sister Susie.     Little Prudy's Story Book.
+  Little Prudy's Captain Horace.   Little Prudy's Dotty Dimple.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_DOTTY DIMPLE SERIES_.
+
+6 Volumes. Illustrated. Per Vol. 75 cts.
+
+  Dotty Dimple at Her Grandmother's.   Dotty Dimple at Home.
+  Dotty Dimple Out West.               Dotty Dimple at Play.
+  Dotty Dimple at School.              Dotty Dimple's Flyaway.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_LITTLE PRUDY FLYAWAY SERIES_
+
+6 Volumes. Illustrated. Per Vol. 75 cts.
+
+ Little Folks Astray.   Aunt Madge's Story.   Little Grandfather.
+ Prudy Keeping House.   Little Grandmother.   Miss Thistledown.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_FLAXIE FRIZZLE STORIES_
+
+6 Volumes. Illustrated. Per Vol. 75 cts.
+
+   Flaxie Frizzle.   Little Pitchers.   Flaxie's Kittyleen.
+   Doctor Papa.      Twin Cousins.      Flaxie Growing Up.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS, BOSTON.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Dotty Dimple Out West, by Sophie May
+
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