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authorRoger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>2025-10-15 04:55:17 -0700
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Dotty Dimple's Flyaway, 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's Flyaway
+
+Author: Sophie May
+
+Release Date: September 11, 2006 [EBook #19247]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DOTTY DIMPLE'S FLYAWAY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sigal Alon, La Monte H.P. Yarroll, Sankar
+Viswanathan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ [Illustration: "WHAT FOR YOU LOOK THAT WAY TO ME?"]
+
+
+
+ DOTTY DIMPLE STORIES.
+
+
+
+ DOTTY DIMPLE'S FLYAWAY.
+
+
+
+
+ By SOPHIE MAY,
+
+ AUTHOR OF "LITTLE PRUDY STORIES."
+
+
+ Illustrated.
+
+
+
+ BOSTON:
+ LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS.
+ NEW YORK:
+ LEE, SHEPARD AND DILLINGHAM.
+ 1871.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+TO THE
+
+LITTLE LINDSAYS.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+I. BEGINNING TO REMEMBER.
+
+II. RUNNING AWAY TO CHURCH.
+
+III. RUNNING AWAY TO HEAVEN.
+
+IV. A RAILROAD SAVAGE.
+
+V. EAST AGAIN.
+
+VI. THE RAG-BAG.
+
+VII. THE WICKED GIRL.
+
+VIII. "WHEELBARROWING."
+
+IX. TIN-TYPES.
+
+X. WAKING.
+
+XI. AUNT POLLY'S STORY.
+
+XII. FULL NIPPERKIN.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+DOTTY DIMPLE'S FLYAWAY.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+BEGINNING TO REMEMBER.
+
+
+Katie Clifford was a very bright child. She almost knew enough to keep
+out of fire and water, but not quite. She looked like other little
+girls, only so wise,--O, so very wise!--that you couldn't tell her any
+news about the earth, or the sun, moon, and stars, for she knew all
+about it "byfore."
+
+Her hair was soft and flying like corn-silk, and when the wind took it
+you would think it meant to blow it off like a dandelion top. She was
+so light and breezy, and so little for her age, that her father said
+"they must put a cent in her pocket to keep her from flying away;" so,
+after that, the family began to call her _Flyaway_. She thought it was
+her name, and that when people said "Katie," it was a gentle way they
+had of scolding.
+
+Everybody petted her. Her brother Horace put his heart right under her
+feet, and she danced over it. Her "uncle Eddard" said "she drove round
+the world in a little chariot, and all her friends were harnessed to
+it, only they didn't know it."
+
+Her shoulders were very little, but they bore a crushing weight of
+care. From the time she began to talk, she took upon herself the
+burden of the whole family. When Mrs. Clifford had a headache, Flyaway
+was so full of pity that nothing could keep her from climbing upon
+the sufferer, stroking her face, and saying, "O, my _dee_ mamma," or
+perhaps breaking the camphor bottle over her nose.
+
+She sat at table in a high chair beside her father, and might have
+learned good manners if it had not been for the care she felt of
+Horace. She could scarcely attend to her own little knife and fork,
+because she was so busy watching her brother. She wished to see for
+herself that he was sitting straight, and not leaning his elbows on
+the table. If he made any mistake she cried, "Hollis!" in a tone as
+sweet as a wind-harp, though she meant it to be terribly severe,
+adding to the effect by shaking the corn-silk on her head in high
+displeasure. If she could correct him she thought she had done as much
+good in the family as if she had behaved well herself. He received all
+rebukes very meekly, with a "Thank you, little Topknot. What would be
+done here without you to preserve order?"
+
+Flyaway could remember as far back as the beginning of the
+world,--that is to say, she could remember when _her_ world began.
+
+It is strange to think of, but the first thing she really knew for a
+certainty, she was standing in a yellow chair, in her grandmother
+Parlin's kitchen! It was as if she had always been asleep till that
+minute. People did say she had once been a baby, but she could not
+recollect that, "it was so MANY years ago."
+
+Her mind, you see, had always been as soft as a bag of feathers; and
+nothing that she did, or that any one else did, made much impression.
+But now something remarkable was taking place, and she would never
+forget it.
+
+It was this: she was grinding coffee. How prettily it pattered down on
+the floor! What did it look like? O, like snuff, that people sneezed
+with. This was housework. Next thing they would ask her to wash dishes
+and set the table. She would grow larger and larger, and Gracie would
+grow littler and littler; and O, how nice it would be when she could
+do all the work, and Gracie had to sit in mamma's lap and be rocked!
+
+"Flywer'll do some help," said she. "Flywer'll take 'are of g'amma's
+things."
+
+While she stood musing thus, with a dreamy smile, and turning the
+handle of the mill as fast as it would go round, somebody sprang at
+her very unexpectedly. It was Ruth, the kitchen-girl. She seized Katie
+by the shoulders, carried her through the air, and set her on her feet
+in the sink.
+
+"There, little Mischief," said she, "you'll stay there one while!
+We'll see if we can't put a stop to this coffee-grinding! Why, you're
+enough to wear out the patience of Job!"
+
+Katie had often heard about Job; she supposed it was something
+dreadful, like a lion, or a whale. She looked up at Ruth, and saw her
+black eyes flashing and the rosy color trembling in her cheeks. Cruel
+Ruth! She did not know Katie was her best friend, working and helping
+get dinner as fast as she could. "Ruthie," sobbed she, "you didn't ask
+please."
+
+"Well, well, child, I'm in a hurry; and when you set things to flying,
+you're enough to wear out the patience of Job."
+
+Job again.
+
+"You've said so two times, Ruthie! Now I don't like you tall, tenny
+rate."
+
+This was as harsh language as Katie dared use; but she frowned
+fearfully, and a tuft of hair, rising from her head like a waterspout,
+made her look so fierce that Ruth seemed to be frightened, and ran
+away with her apron up to her face.
+
+The sink was so high that Katie could not get out of it
+alone,--"course _indeed_ she couldn't."
+
+"It most makes me 'fraid," said she to herself: "Ruthie's a big woman,
+I's a little woman. When I's the biggest I'll put Ruthie in _my_
+sink."
+
+Very much comforted by this resolve, she dried her eyes and began to
+look about her for more housework. "Let's me see; I'll pump a bushel
+o' water."
+
+There was a pail in the sink; so, what should she do but jump into
+that, and then jerk the pump-handle up and down, till a fine stream
+poured out and sprinkled her all over!
+
+"Sing a song, O sink-spout," sang she, catching her breath: but
+presently she began to feel cold.
+
+"O, how it makes me _shivvle_!" said she.
+
+"Katie!" called out a voice.
+
+"Here me are!" gurgled the little one, her mouth under the pump-nose.
+
+When Horace came in she was standing in water up to the tops of her
+long white stockings. He took her out, wrung her a little, and set her
+on a shelf in the pantry to dry.
+
+"Oho!" said she, shaking her wet plumage, like a duckling; "what for
+you look that way to me? I didn't do nuffin,--not the leastest nuffin!
+The water kep' a comin' and a comin'."
+
+"Yes, you little naughty girl, and you kept pumping and pumping."
+
+"I'm isn't little naughty goorl," thought Katie, indignantly; "but
+Ruthie's naughty goorl, and Hollis _velly_ naughty goorl."
+
+"O, here you are, you little Hop-o'-my-thumb," said Mrs. Clifford,
+coming into the pantry; "a baby with a cough in her throat and pills
+in her pocket musn't get wet."
+
+Flyaway thrust her hand into her wet pocket to make sure the wee vial
+of white dots was still there.
+
+"I fished her out of a pail of water," said Horace; "to-morrow I shall
+find her in a bird's nest."
+
+Mrs. Clifford sent for some fresh stockings and shoes. Her
+baby-daughter was so often falling into mischief that she thought very
+little about it. She did not know this was a remarkable occasion, and
+the baby had to-day begun to remember. She did not know that if
+Flyaway should live to be an old lady, she would sometimes say to her
+grandchildren,--
+
+"The very first thing I have any recollection of, dears, is grinding
+coffee in your great-grandmamma's kitchen at Willowbrook. The girl,
+Ruth Dillon, took me up by the shoulders, carried me through the air,
+and set me in the sink, and then I pumped water over myself."
+
+This is about the way little Flyaway would be likely to talk, sixty
+years from now, adding, as she polished her spectacles,--
+
+"And after that, children, things went into a mist, and I don't
+remember anything else that happened for some time."
+
+Why was it that things "went into a mist"? Why didn't she keep on
+remembering every day? I don't know.
+
+But the next thing that really did happen to Miss Thistleblow Flyaway,
+though she went right off and forgot it, was this: She persuaded her
+mother to write a letter for her to "Dotty Dimpwill." As it was her
+first letter, I will copy it.
+
+ "MY DEAR DOTTY DIMPWILL first, then MY PRUDY:
+
+ "I'm going to say that I dink milk, and that girl lost my
+ pills.
+
+ "I see a hop-toad. He hopped. Jennie took _her_ up in _his_
+ dress.
+
+ "And 'bout we put hop-toad in wash-dish. He put his foots
+ out, _stwetched_, honest! He was a slippy fellow. First
+ thing we knowed it, he hopped on to her dress. Isn't that
+ funny?
+
+ "Now 'bout the chickens; they are trottin' round on the
+ grass: they didn't be dead. _We_ haven't got any only but
+ dead ones; but Mis' Gray has.
+
+ "I like Dr. Gray ever so much!
+
+ "Mis' Gray gave me the kitty to play with. I bundled it all
+ up in my dress, 'cause I didn't want the cat to get it. When
+ I went home I gave it to the cat. [You got that _wroten_?]
+
+ "There wasn't any _dead_ little kittens. She gave me a
+ cookie, and I eated it, and I told her to give me another to
+ bring home, 'cause I liked her cookies; they was curly
+ cookies. [Got it wroted, mamma?]
+
+ "Now 'bout I pumped full a pail full o' water.
+
+ "[She _knows_ we've got a house?]
+
+ "Now say good by, and I kiss her a pretty little kiss. O,
+ no; I want her to come and see me,--her and Prudy,--_two_
+ of 'em! I's here yet. ['Haps she knows it!]
+
+ "That's all--I feel sleepy.
+
+ (Signed) "From
+
+ "DOTTY DIMPWILL TO FLYWER."
+
+This letter "went into a mist," and so did the next performance, which
+you will read in the following chapter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+RUNNING AWAY TO CHURCH.
+
+
+The little Parlins came the next week. One Sunday morning Dotty Dimple
+stood before the glass, putting on her hat for church. Katie came and
+peeped in with her, opening her small mouth and drawing her lips over
+her teeth, as her grandfather did when he shaved.
+
+"See, Flyaway, you haven't any dimples at all!" said Dotty, primping a
+little. "Your hair isn't smooth and curly like mine; it sticks up all
+over your head, like a little fan."
+
+"O, my shole!" sighed Flyaway, scowling at herself. She did not know
+how lovely she was, nor how
+
+ "The light of the heaven she came from
+ Still lingered and gleamed in her hair."
+
+"I wisht 'twouldn't get out," said she.
+
+"What do you mean by _out_?"
+
+"O, unwetted, and un-comb-bid, and un-parted."
+
+"That's because you fly about like such a little witch."
+
+"I doesn't do the leastest nuffin, Dotty Dimpwill! Folks ought to let
+me to go to churches."
+
+"I _should_ laugh, Fly Clifford, to see _you_ going to churches! All
+the ministers would come down out of the pulpits and ask what little
+mischief that was, and make aunt 'Ria carry you home!"
+
+"No, he wouldn't, too! I'd sit stiller'n two, free, five hundred
+mouses," pleaded Flyaway, climbing up the back of a chair to show how
+quiet she could be.
+
+"O, it's no use to talk about it, darling. Give me one kiss, and I'll
+go get my sun-shade."
+
+"Can't, Dotty Dimpwill! My mamma's kiss I'll keep; it's ahind my mouf;
+she's gone to 'Dusty.
+
+"Well, 'keep it ahind your mouf,' then; and here's another to put with
+it. What _do_ you s'pose makes me love to kiss you so?"
+
+"O, 'cause I so sweet," replied Flyaway, promptly; but she was not
+thinking of her own sweetness, just then; she was wondering if she
+could manage to run away to church.
+
+"I'se a-goin' there myse'f! Sit still's a--a--" She looked around for
+a comparison, and saw a grasshopper on the window-sill: "still's a
+_gas-papa_. Man won't say nuffin' to me, see 'f he does!"
+
+Strange such an innocent-looking child could be so sly! She ran down
+the path with Horace, kissing her little hand to everybody for good
+by, all the while thinking how she could steal off to church without
+being seen.
+
+"You may go up stairs and lie down with me on my bed," said grandma,
+who was not very well. So Katie climbed upon the bed.
+
+"My dee gamma, I so solly you's sick!" said she, stroking Mrs.
+Parlin's face, and picking open her eyelids. But after patting and
+"pooring" the dear lady for some time, she thought she had made her
+"all well," and then was anxious to get away. Mrs. Parlin wished to
+keep her up stairs as long as possible, because Ruth had a toothache.
+
+"Shan't I tell you a story, dear?" said she.
+
+"Yes, um; tell 'bout a long baby--no, a long story 'bout a short
+baby."
+
+"Well, once there was a king, and he had a daughter--"
+
+"O, no, gamma, not that! Tell me 'bout baby that _didn't_ be on the
+bul-yushes; I don't want to hear 'bout _Mosey_!"
+
+Grandma smiled, and wondered if people, in the good old Bible days,
+were in the habit of using pet names, and if Pharaoh's daughter ever
+called the Hebrew boy "Mosey." She was about to begin another story,
+when Flyaway said, "Guess I'll go out, now," and slid off the bed.
+There was an orange on the table. She took it, held it behind her, and
+walked quickly to the door. Looking back, she saw that her
+grandmother was watching her.
+
+"What you looking at, gamma? 'Cause I'm are goin' to bring the ollinge
+right back."
+
+And so she did, but not because it was wrong to keep it. Flyaway had
+no conscience, or, if she had any, it was very small, folded up out of
+sight, like a leaf-bud on a tree in the spring.
+
+"Ask Ruthie to wash your face and hands, and then come right back to
+grandma and hear the story."
+
+"Yes um."
+
+Down stairs she pattered. The moment Ruth had kissed her, and turned
+away to make a poultice, she crept into the nursery, and put on
+Horace's straw hat. Then she took from a corner an old cane of her
+grandfather's, and from the paper-rack a daily newspaper, and started
+out in great glee. The "Journal" she hugged to her heart, and her
+short dress she held up to her waist, "'Cause I s'pect I mus' keep it
+out o' the mud," said she, as anxiously as any lady with a train.
+
+She had no trouble in finding the church, for the road was straight,
+but the cane kept tripping her up.
+
+"Naughty fing! Wisht I hadn't took you, to-day, you act so bad!" said
+she, picking herself up for the fifth time, and slinging the "naughty
+fing" across her shoulder like a gun. When she came to the
+meeting-house there was not a soul to be seen. "Guess they's eatin'
+dinner in here," decided Flyaway, after looking about for a few
+seconds. "Guess I'll go up chamer, see where the folks is."
+
+[Illustration: RUNNING AWAY TO CHURCH.]
+
+Up stairs she clattered, hitting the balusters with her cane. Good Mr.
+Lee was preaching from the text, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it
+holy," and people could not imagine who was naughty enough to make
+such a noise outside--thump, thump, thump.
+
+"Who's that a-talkin'?" thought Flyaway, startled by Mr. Lee's voice.
+"O, ho! that's the _prayer-man_ a-talkin'. He makes me kind o'
+'fraid!"
+
+But just at that minute she had reached the top of the stairs, and was
+standing in the doorway.
+
+"O, my shole! so _many_ folks!"
+
+She trembled, and was about to run away with her newspaper and cane;
+but her eyes, in roving wildly about, fell upon grandpa Parlin and all
+the rest of them, in a pew very near the pulpit. Then she thought it
+must be all right, and, taking courage, she marched slowly up the
+aisle, swinging the cane right and left.
+
+Everybody looked up in surprise as the droll little figure crept by.
+Grandpa frowned through his spectacles, and aunt Louise shook her
+head; but Horace hid his face in a hymn-book and Dotty Dimple actually
+smiled.
+
+"They didn't know _I_ was a-comin'," thought Flyaway, "but I camed!"
+
+And with that she fluttered into the pew.
+
+"Naughty, naughty girl," said aunt Louise, in an awful whisper.
+
+She longed to take up the morsel of naughtiness, called Katie, in her
+thumb and finger, shake it, and carry it out. But there was a twinkle
+in the little one's eye that might mean mischief; she did not dare
+touch her.
+
+"O, what a child!" said aunt Louise, taking off the big hat and
+setting Flyaway down on the seat as hard as she could.
+
+Flyaway looked up, through her veil of flossy hair, at her pretty
+auntie with the roses round her face.
+
+"Nobody didn't take 'are o' me to my house," said she, in a loud
+whisper, "and _that's_ what is it!"
+
+"Hush!" said aunt Louise, giving Flyaway another shake, which
+frightened her so that she dropped her head on her brother's shoulder,
+and sat perfectly still for half a minute.
+
+Aunt Louise was sadly mortified, and so were Susy and Prudy. They
+dared not look up, for they thought everybody was gazing straight at
+the Parlin pew, and laughing at their crazy little relative. Horace
+and Dotty Dimple did not care in the least; they thought it very
+funny.
+
+"They shan't scold at my cunning little Topknot," whispered Horace,
+consolingly. "Sit still, darling, and when we get home I'll give you a
+cent."
+
+"Yes um, I will," replied poor brow-beaten Flyaway, and held up her
+head again with the best of them. Perhaps she had been naughty;
+perhaps folks were going to snip her fingers; but "Hollis" was on her
+side now and forever. She began to feel quite contented. She had got
+inside the church at last, and was very well pleased with it. It was
+even queerer than she had expected.
+
+"What was that high-up thing the prayer-man was a-standin' on?"
+
+Flyaway merely asked this of her own wise little brain. She concluded
+it must be "a chimley."
+
+"Great red curtains ahind him," added she, still conversing with her
+own little brain. "Lots o' great big bubbles on the walls all round.
+Big's a tea-kiddle! Lamps, I s'pose. There's that table. Where's the
+cups and saucers for the supper? And the tea-pot?
+
+"All the bodies everywhere had their bonnets on; why for? Didn't say a
+word, and the prayer-man kep' a-talkin' all the time; why for? Flywer
+didn't talk; no indeed. Folks mus'n't. If folks did, then the man
+would come down out the chimley and tell the other bodies to carry 'em
+home. 'Cause it's the holy Sabber-day,--and _that's_ what is it."
+
+Flyaway's airy brain went dancing round and round. She slid away from
+Horace's shoulder, spread her little length upon the seat, closed her
+wondering, tired eyes, and sailed off to Noddle's Island. A fly,
+buzzing in from out doors, had long been trying to settle on Flyaway's
+restless nose. He never did settle: Horace kept guard with a palm-leaf
+fan, and "all the other bodies" in the pew sat as still as if they had
+been nailed down; so anxious were they to keep the little sleeper
+safely harbored at Noddle's Island.
+
+"Such a relief!" thought aunt Louise, venturing to look up once more.
+
+Flyaway did not waken till the last prayer, when Horace held her fast,
+lest she should make a sudden rush upon a speckled dog, which came
+trotting up the aisle.
+
+On the steps they met Ruth, with wild eyes and face tied up in a
+scarf, hunting for Flyaway. Mrs. Parlin, she said, was going up the
+hill, so frightened that it would make her "down sick."
+
+When grandma got home, all out of breath, she found Flyaway looking
+very downcast. Her heart was heavy under so many scoldings. "O,
+Katie," said grandma, "how could you run away?"
+
+"I didn't yun away," replied Flyaway, thrusting her finger into her
+mouth; "I _walked_ away!"
+
+"There, if that isn't a cunning baby, where'll you find one?"
+whispered brother Horace to Prudy. "Grandmother can't punish her after
+such a 'cute speech."
+
+But grandmother could, and did. She took her by the little soft hand,
+led her to the china closet, and locked her in.
+
+"Half an hour you must stay there," said she, "and think what a
+naughty girl you've been!"
+
+"Yes um," said Flyaway, meekly, and wiped off a tear with the hem of
+her frock.
+
+But the moment she was left alone, her quick, observing eyes saw
+something which gave her a thrill of delight. It was a jar of quince
+jelly, which had been left by accident on the lower shelf.
+
+"'Cause I spect I likes um," said she, serenely, after eating all she
+possibly could.
+
+At the end of half an hour grandma came and turned the key.
+
+"Have you been thinking, dear, and are you sorry and ready to come
+out?"
+
+"Yes, um," replied the little culprit, with her mouth full, and
+feeling very brave as long as the door was shut between her and her
+jailer. "Yes, um, I've thought it all up,--defful solly. _But_ you
+won't never shut me up no more, gamma Parlin!"
+
+"Katie Clifford!" said grandma, sternly; and then she opened the door,
+and faced Flyaway.
+
+"'Cause--'cause--_'cause_," cried the little one, in great alarm; "you
+won't shut me up, 'cause I won't never walk away no more, gamma
+Parlin!"
+
+Mrs. Parlin tried hard not to smile; but the mixture on Flyaway's
+little face of naughtiness, jelly, and fright, was very funny to see.
+
+The child noticed that her grandmother's brows knit as if in
+displeasure, and then she remembered the jelly.
+
+"I hasn't been a-touchin' your 'serves, gamma," said she.
+
+Mrs. Parlin really did not know what to do,--Flyaway's conscience was
+_so_ little and folded away in so many thicknesses, like a tiny pearl
+in a whole box of cotton wool. How could anybody get at it?
+
+"Gamma, I hasn't been a-touchin' your 'serves," repeated the little
+thief.
+
+"Ah, don't tell me that," said grandma, sadly; "I see it in your eye!"
+
+"What, gamma, the _'serves_ in my eye?" said Flyaway, putting up her
+finger to find out for herself. "'Cause I put 'em in my _mouf_, I
+did."
+
+Mrs. Parlin washed the little pilferer's face and hands, took her in
+her lap, and tried to feel her way through the cotton wool to the tiny
+conscience.
+
+The child looked up and listened to all the good words, and when they
+had been spoken over and over, this was what she said:--
+
+"O, gamma, you's got such pitty little wrinkles!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+RUNNING AWAY TO HEAVEN.
+
+
+About ten o'clock one morning, Flyaway was sitting in the little green
+chamber with Dotty Dimple and Jennie Vance, bathing her doll's feet in
+a glass of water. Dinah had a dreadful headache, and her forehead was
+bandaged with a red ribbon.
+
+"_Does_ you feel any better?" asked Flyaway, tenderly, from time to
+time; but Dinah had such a habit of never answering, that it was of no
+use to ask her any questions.
+
+Dotty Dimple and Jennie were talking very earnestly.
+
+"I do wish I did know where Charlie Gray is!" said Dotty, looking
+through the open window at a bird flying far aloft into the blue sky.
+
+"You do know," answered Jennie, quickly; "he's in heaven."
+
+"Yes, of course; but so high up--O, so high up," sighed Dotty, "it
+makes you dizzy to think."
+
+"Can um see we?" struck in little Flyaway, holding to Dinah's flat
+nose a bottle of reviving soap suds.
+
+"Prudy says it's beautiful to be dead," added Dotty, without heeding
+the question; "beautiful to be dead."
+
+"Shtop!" cried Flyaway; "I's a-talkin'. Does um see _we_?"
+
+"O, I don' know, Fly Clifford; you'll have to ask the minister."
+
+Flyaway squeezed the water from Dinah's ragged feet, and dropped her
+under the table, headache and all. Then she tipped over the goblet,
+and flew to the window.
+
+"The Charlie boy likes canny seeds; I'll send him some," said she,
+pinning a paper of sugared spices to the window curtain, and drawing
+it up by means of the tassel. "O, dear, um don't go high enough.
+Charlie won't get 'em."
+
+"Why, what is that baby trying to do?" said Dotty Dimple.
+
+"Charlie's defful high up," murmured Flyaway, heaving a little sigh;
+"can't get the canny seeds."
+
+"O, what a Fly! How big do you s'pose her mind is, Jennie Vance?"
+
+"Big as a thimble, perhaps," replied Jennie, doubtfully.
+
+"Why, I shouldn't think, now, 'twas any larger than the head of a
+pin," said Dotty, with decision; "s'poses heaven is top o' this room!
+Why, Jennie Vance, I _persume_ it's ever so much further off 'n Mount
+Blue--don't you?"
+
+"O, yes, indeed! What queer ideas such children do have! Flyaway
+doesn't understand but very little we say, Dotty Dimple; not but very
+little."
+
+Flyaway turned round with one of her wise looks. She thought she did
+understand; at any rate she was catching every word, and stowing it
+away in her little bit of a brain for safe keeping. Heaven was on
+Mount Blue. She had learned so much.
+
+"But I knowed it by-fore," said she to herself, with a proud toss of
+the silky plume on the crown of her head.
+
+"Shall we take her with us?" asked Jennie Vance.
+
+Flyaway listened eagerly; she thought they were still talking of
+heaven, when in truth Jennie only meant a concert which was to be
+given that afternoon at the vestry.
+
+"Take _that_ little snip of a child!" replied Dotty; "O, no; she isn't
+big enough; 'twouldn't be any use to pay money for _her!_"
+
+With which very cutting remark Dotty swept out of the room, in her
+queenly way, followed by Jennie. Flyaway threw herself across a
+pillow, and moaned,--
+
+"O, dee, dee!"
+
+Her little heart was ready to bleed; and this wasn't the first time,
+either. Those great big girls were always running away from her, and
+calling her "goosies" and "snips;" and now they meant to climb to
+heaven, where Charlie was, and leave her behind.
+
+"But I won't stay down here in this place; I'll go to heaven too, now,
+_cerdily_!" She sprang from the pillow and stood on one foot, like a
+strong-minded little robin that will not be trifled with by a worm.
+"I'll go too, now, cerdily."
+
+Having made up her mind, she hurried as fast as she could, and tucked
+a stick of candy in her pocket, also the bottle of soap suds, and two
+thirds of a "curly cookie" shaped like a leaf. "Charlie would be so
+glad to see Fly-wer!" She purred like a contented kitten as she
+thought about it. "'Haps they've got a _bossy-cat_ up there, and a
+piggy, and a swing. O, my shole!"
+
+There was no time to be lost. Flyaway must overtake the girls, and, if
+possible, get to heaven before they did. She flew about like a
+distracted butterfly.
+
+"I must have some skipt; her said me's too little to pay for money;"
+and she curled her pretty red lip; "but I'm isn't much little; man'll
+_want_ some skipt."
+
+For she fancied somebody standing at the door of heaven holding out
+his hand like the ticket-man at the depot. She found her mother's
+purse in the writing-desk, and scattered its contents into the
+wash-bowl, then picked out the wettest "skipt," a five-dollar bill,
+and tucked it into her bosom. This would make it all right at the door
+of heaven.
+
+"Now my spetty-curls," she added, hunting in the "uppest drawer" till
+she found the eyeless spectacles used for playing "old lady." With
+these on, Flyaway thought she could see the way a great deal better.
+Horace's boots would help her up hill; so she jumped into those, and
+clattered down the back stairs with Dinah under her arm.
+
+There was nobody in the kitchen, for Ruthie was down cellar sweeping.
+Flyaway caught her shaker off the "short nail," and stole out without
+being seen. Sitting in the sun on the piazza was the "blue" kittie.
+"Finkin' 'bout a mouse, I spect," said little Flyaway, seizing her and
+blowing open her eyes like a couple of rosebuds.
+
+"Does you know where I's a-goin'? Up to heaven. We don't let tinty
+folks, like cats, go to heaven."
+
+Pussy winked sorrowfully at this, and baby's tender heart was touched.
+
+"Yes, we does," said she; "but you musn't scwatch the Charlie boy;"
+and she tucked the "tinty folks" under her left arm. Then all was
+ready, and the little pilgrim started for heaven.
+
+"Um's on the toppest hill," said she, looking at the far-off
+mountains, reaching up against the blue sky. One mountain was much
+higher than the others, and on that she fixed her eye. It was Mount
+Blue, and was really twenty miles away. If Flyaway should ever reach
+that cloud-capped peak, it was not her wee, wee feet which would carry
+her there. But the baby had no idea of distances. She went out of the
+yard as fast as the big boots would allow. She felt as brave as a
+little fly trying to walk the whole length of the Chinese Wall.
+
+Where were Dotty Dimple and Jennie Vance? O, they were half way to
+heaven by this time; she must "hurry quick."
+
+The fact was, they were "up in the Pines," picking strawberries.
+Nobody saw Flyaway but a caterpillar.
+
+"O, my shole! there's a _catty-pillow_--what he want, you fink?"
+
+Kitty winked and Dinah sulked, but there was no reply.
+
+The next thing they met was a grasshopper. "O, dee, a _gas-papa_!
+Where you s'pose um goin'?"
+
+Kitty winked again and Dinah sulked.
+
+Flyaway answered her own question. "Diny, dat worm gone see his
+mamma."
+
+Dinah did not care anything about the family feelings of the "worms;"
+so she kept her red silk mouth shut; but she grew very heavy--so
+heavy, indeed, that once her little mother dropped her in the sand,
+but picking her up, shook her and trudged on. Presently she dropped
+something else, and this time it was the kitty. Flyaway turned about
+in dismay.
+
+"Shtop," cried she, scowling through her "spetty-curls," as she saw
+three white paws and one blue one go tripping over the road. "Shtop!"
+But the paws kept on.
+
+"O, Diny," said Flyaway, as pussy's tail disappeared round a
+corner,--"O, Diny, her don't want to go to heaven!"
+
+Then Flyaway sat down in the sand, and pulled off one of the big
+boots.
+
+"Um won't walk," said she; but, before she had time to pull off the
+second one, a dog came along and frightened her so she tried to run,
+though she only hopped on one foot, and dragged the other. She did not
+know what the matter was till she fell down and the boot came off of
+itself, after which she could walk very well. What cared she that both
+"Hollis's" new boots were left in the road, ready to be crushed by
+wagon wheels?
+
+She kept on and kept on; but where was that blue hill going to? It
+moved faster than she did.
+
+"Makes me povokin'," said she, giving Dinah a shake. "Um runs away and
+away, and all off!"
+
+Sometimes she remembered she was going to heaven, and sometimes she
+forgot it. She was on the way to the "Pines," and many little flowers
+grew by the road-side. She began to pick a few, but the thorns on the
+raspberry bushes tore her tender hands, and one of the naughty
+branches caught Dinah by the frizzly hair, and carried her under. What
+did Flyaway spy behind the bushes? Dotty Dimple and Jennie Vance. They
+were eating wintergreen leaves; they did not see her. Flyaway kept as
+still as if she were sitting for a photograph, picked up Dinah, gave
+her a hug, and crept on.
+
+She went so quietly that nobody heard her. When she was out of sight
+she purred for joy. She had got ahead of the girls on the way to
+heaven! She took the stick of candy out of her pocket and nibbled it
+to celebrate the occasion. "A little hump-backed bumblebee" saw her do
+it. He wanted some too, and followed Flyaway as if she had been a
+moving honeysuckle. For half a mile or more she "gaed" and she "gaed,"
+all the while nibbling the candy; but now she was growing very tired,
+and did it to comfort herself. Suddenly she remembered it was
+Charlie's candy. She held it up to her tearful eyes.
+
+"O dee," said she, "it was big, but it keeps a-gettin' little!"
+
+The hungry bumblebee, who was just behind her, thought this was his
+last chance: so he pounced down upon Charlie's candy; and being
+cross, and not knowing Flyaway from any other little girl, he stung
+her on the thumb. Then how she cried, "'Orny 'ting me! 'Orny 'ting
+me!" for she had been treated just so before by a hornet. "O my dee
+mamma! My dee mamma!"
+
+But her "dee" mamma could not hear her; she was in the city of
+Augusta; and as for the rest of the family, they supposed Flyaway was
+playing "catch" with Dotty Dimple in the barn.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+"A RAILROAD SAVAGE."
+
+
+It now occurred to little Flyaway, with a sudden pang, that she must
+have come to the end of the world. "Yes, cerdily!" The world was full
+of folks and houses,--this place was nothing but trees. The world had
+horses and wagons in it,--this place hadn't. "O dee!"
+
+Where was the hill gone, on the top of which stood that big house they
+called heaven,--the house where Charlie lived and played in the
+garden? Why, that hill had just walked off, and the house too! She
+parted the bushes and peeped through. Nothing to be seen but trees.
+Flyaway began to cry from sheer fright, as well as pain. "'Tis a
+defful day! I can't _stay_ in this day!"
+
+More trouble had come to her than she knew how to bear; but worst of
+all was the cruel stab of the bumblebee. She pitied her aching "fum,"
+and kissed it herself to make it feel better; but all in vain; "the
+pain kept on and on;" the "fum" grew big as fast as the candy had
+grown little.
+
+"Somebody don't take 'are o' me," wailed she; "somebody gone off, lef'
+me alone!"
+
+She was dreadfully hungry. "When _was_ it be dinner time?" She would
+not have been in the least surprised, but very much pleased, if a bird
+had flown down with a plate of roast lamb in his bill, and set it on
+the ground before her. Simple little Flyaway! Or if her far-away
+mother had sprung out from behind a tree with a bed in her arms, the
+tired baby would have jumped into the bed and asked no questions.
+
+But nothing of the sort came to pass. Here she was, without any heaven
+or any mother; and the great yellow sun was creeping fast down the
+sky.
+
+"I'm tired out and sleepy out," wailed the young traveller, the tears
+rolling over the rims of her "spetty-curls,"--"all sleepy out; and I
+can't get rested 'thout--my--muvver!"
+
+She sat down and hid her head in her black dolly's bosom.
+
+"Diny, you got some ears? We wasn't here by-fore!"
+
+This was all the way she had of saying she was lost.
+
+The sky suddenly grew dark; a shower was coming up.
+
+"Where has the bwight sun gone?" said Flyaway, with a shudder.
+
+She was answered by a peal of thunder,--wagon-wheels, she supposed.
+
+"Here I is!" shouted she.
+
+Some one had come for her. Perhaps it was Charlie, and they meant to
+give her a ride up to heaven. A flash of light, and then another
+crash. Flyaway understood it then. It was logs. People were rolling
+logs up in the sky, on the blue floor. She had seen logs in a mill.
+Such a noise!
+
+Then she dropped fast asleep, and somebody came right down out of the
+clouds and gave her a peach turnover as big as a dinner basket, or so
+she thought. Just as she was about to cut it, she was awakened by the
+rain dripping into her eyes. She started up, exclaiming, "If you pees
+um, I want some cheese um."
+
+But the turnover had gone! Then the feeling of desolation swept over
+her again. She had come to the end of the world, and dinner, and
+mother, and heaven had all gone off and left her.
+
+"O, Diny," sobbed she, turning to her unfeeling dolly for sympathy.
+"I's free years old, and you's one years old. Don't you want to go to
+heaven, Diny, and sit in God's lap? What a great big lap he must
+have!"
+
+A gust of wind lifted the frizzles on Dinah's forehead, but that was
+all.
+
+"O dee, dee, dee! you don't hear nuffin 't all, Diny," said
+Flyaway--the only sensible remark she had made that day. It was of no
+use talking to Dinah; so she began to talk to herself.
+
+"What you matter, Flywer Clifford?" said she, scowling to keep her
+courage up. "What you matter?"
+
+And after she had said that, she cried harder than ever, and crept
+under the bushes, moaning like a wounded lamb.
+
+"I'm defful wetter, but I'm colder'n I's wetter; makes me shivvle!"
+
+After a while the clouds had poured out all the rain there was in
+them, and left the sky as clear as it was before; but by that time the
+sun had gone to bed, and the little birds too, sending out their good
+nights from tree to tree. Then the new moon came, and peeped over the
+shoulder of a hill at Flyaway. She sprang out from the bushes like a
+rabbit.
+
+"O, my shole!" cried she, clapping her hands, "the sun's camed again!
+A little bit o' sun. I sawed it!"
+
+[Illustration: LOST IN THE WOODS.]
+
+Inspired with new courage, she and Dinah concluded to start for
+home; that is to say, they turned round three or four times, and then
+struck off into the woods.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Now you may be sure all this could not happen without causing great
+alarm at grandpa Parlin's. When the dinner bell rang, everybody asked,
+twice over, "Why, where is little Fly?" and Dotty Dimple answered, as
+innocently as if it were none of her affairs,--
+
+"Why, isn't she in the house? We s'posed she was. Jennie Vance and I
+have just been out in the garden, under your little _crying willow_,
+making a wreath. Thought she was in the barn, or somewhere."
+
+"But you haven't been in the garden all the while?"
+
+"No'm; once we went up in the Pines,--grandma, you said we might,--but
+we haven't seen Fly,--why, we haven't seen her for the longest while!"
+
+Grace had dropped her knife and fork and was looking pale.
+
+"It was Susy and I that had the care of her, grandma; when you went
+out to see the sick lady, you charged us, and we forgot all about it."
+
+"Pretty works, I should think!" cried Horace, springing out of his
+chair; "I wouldn't sell that baby for her weight in gold; but I reckon
+_you_ would, Grace Clifford, and be glad of it, too."
+
+Grandma held up a warning finger. "I declare," said aunt Louise, very
+much agitated, "I never shall consent to have Maria go out of town
+again, and leave Katie with us. If she will try to swim in the
+watering-trough, she is just as likely to take a walk on the
+ridgepole of the house."
+
+Horace darted out of the room with a ghastly face, but came back
+looking relieved. He had been up in the attic, and climbed through the
+scuttle, without finding any human Fly on the roof, or on the dizzy
+tops of the chimneys, either.
+
+But where was the child? Had Ruth seen her? Had Abner?
+
+No; the last that could be remembered, she had been playing by herself
+in the green chamber, soaking Dinah's feet in a glass of water. The
+"blue kitty," the only creature who had anything to tell, sat washing
+her face on the kitchen hearth, and yawning sleepily. Fly's shaker was
+gone from the "short nail," and aunt Louise discovered some bank-bills
+in a wash-bowl,--"Fly's work, of course." But this was all they knew.
+
+Grandpa searched the barn, Abner the fields, Ruth the cellar; aunt
+Louise and Horace ran down to the river. In half an hour several of
+the neighbors had joined in the search.
+
+"I always thought there would be a last time," said poor Mrs. Dr.
+Gray, putting on her black bonnet, and joining Grace and Susy. "That
+child seems to me like a little spirit, or a fairy, and I never
+thought she would live long. She and Charlie were too lovely for this
+world."
+
+"O, _don't_, Mrs. Gray," said Grace. "If you knew how often she'd been
+lost, you would not say so! We always find her, after a while,
+somewhere."
+
+Horace, who had gone on in advance, now came running back, swinging
+his boots in the air.
+
+"A trail!" cried he. "I've found a trail! Who planted these boots in
+the road, if it wasn't Fly Clifford?"
+
+"Perhaps she has gone to aunt Martha's," said Mrs. Parlin, "or tried
+to. Strange we did not think of that!"
+
+But aunt Martha had not seen her, nor had any one else. Horace and
+Abner went up to the Pines, but the forest beyond they never thought
+of exploring; it did not seem probable that such a small child could
+have strolled to such a distance as that.
+
+Supper time came and went. There was a short thunder-shower. The
+Parlins shuddered at every flash of lightning, and shivered at every
+drop of rain; for where was delicate, lost little Fly?
+
+Abner and Horace were out during the shower. Horace would have braved
+hurricanes and avalanches in the cause of his dear little Topknot.
+
+"There's one thing we haven't thought of," said Abner, shaking the
+drops from his hat and looking up at the sky, which had cleared again;
+"we haven't thought of the railroad surveyors! They are round the town
+everywhere with their compasses and spy-glasses."
+
+It was not a bad idea of Abner's. He and Horace went to the hotel
+where the railroad men boarded. The engineer's face lighted at once.
+
+"I wish I had known before there was a child missing," he said. "I saw
+the figure of a little girl, through my glass, not an hour ago. It was
+a long way beyond the Pines, and I wondered how such a baby happened
+up there; but I had so much else to think of that it passed out of my
+mind."
+
+About eight o'clock, Flyaway was found in the woods, sound asleep,
+under a hemlock tree, her faithful Dinah hugged close to her heart.
+
+There was a shout from a dozen mouths. Horace's eyes overflowed. He
+caught his beloved pet in his arms.
+
+"O, little Topknot!" he cried. "Who's got you? Look up, look up,
+little Brown-brimmer."
+
+All Flyaway could do was to sob gently, and then curl her head down on
+her brother's shoulder, saying, sleepily, "Cold, ou' doors stayin'."
+
+"Why did our darling run away?"
+
+"Didn't yun away; I's goin' up to heaven see Charlie," replied
+Flyaway, suddenly remembering the object of her journey, and gazing
+around at Abner, Dr. Gray, and the other people, with eyes full of
+wonder. "Where's the toppest hill? I's goin' up, carry Charlie some
+canny."
+
+The people formed a line, and, as Prudy said, "processed" behind Katie
+all the way to the village.
+
+"Is we goin' to heaven?" said the child, still bewildered. "It yunned
+away and away, and all off!"
+
+"No, you blessed baby, you are not going to heaven just yet, if we can
+help it," answered Dr. Gray, leaning over Horace's shoulder to kiss
+the child.
+
+Flyaway was too tired to ask any more questions. She let first one
+person carry her, and then another, sometimes holding up her swollen
+thumb, and murmuring, "'Orny 'ting me--tell my mamma." And after that
+she was asleep again.
+
+Dotty Dimple, Susy, and Prudy were pacing the piazza when the party
+arrived, but poor grandma was on the sofa in the parlor, quite
+overcome with anxiety and fatigue, and Miss Polly Whiting was
+mournfully fanning her with a black feather fan. The sound of voices
+roused Mrs. Parlin. "Safe! safe!" was the cry. Dotty Dimple rushed in,
+shouting, "A railroad savage found her! a railroad savage found her!"
+
+In another moment the runaway was in her grandmother's lap. All she
+could say was, "'Orny 'ting me on my fum! 'Orny 'ting me on my fum!"
+For this one little bite of a bee seemed greater to Flyaway Clifford
+than all the dangers she had passed. If grandma would only kiss her
+"fum," it was no matter about going to heaven, or even being
+undressed.
+
+But after she had had a bowl of bread and milk, and been nicely
+bathed, she forgot her sufferings, and laughed in her sleep. She was
+dreaming how Charlie came to the door of heaven and helped her up the
+steps.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+EAST AGAIN.
+
+
+A whole year passed. Dotty Dimple became a school-girl, with a "bosom
+friend" and a pearl ring. Prudy, who called herself "the middle-aged
+sister," grew tall and slender. Katie was four years old, and just a
+little heavier, so she no longer needed a cent in her pocket to keep
+her from blowing away.
+
+The Parlins had been at Willowbrook a week before the Cliffords
+arrived. There was a great sensation over Katie. She was delighted to
+hear that she had grown more than any of the others.
+
+"I'm gettin' old all over!" said she, gayly. "Four--goin' to be five!
+Wish I was most six. Dotty Dimpul, don't you wish _you's_ most a
+_hunderd_?"
+
+"O, you cunning little cousin!" said Dotty, embracing her rapturously;
+"I wish you loved me half as well as I love you; that's what I wish. I
+told Tate Penny you were prettier than Tid; and so you are. Such red
+cheeks! But what makes one cheek redder than the other?"
+
+"O, I eat my bread 'n' milk that side o' my mouf," replied Flyaway;
+"and that's why."
+
+"What an idea! And your hair is just as fine as ever it was; the color
+of my ring--isn't it, Prudy?"
+
+Flyaway put her little hand to her head, and felt the floss flying
+about as usual.
+
+"My hair comes all to pieces," explained she; "_or nelse_ I have a
+ribbon to tie it up with."
+
+"Are you glad to come back to Willowbrook, you precious little dear?"
+asked two or three voices.
+
+"Yes 'm," said Flyaway, doubtfully; "Y--es--um."
+
+"She doesn't remember anything about it, I guess," said Prudy,
+kneeling before the little one, and kissing the sweet place in her
+neck.
+
+"Yes, I do," said Flyaway, winking hard and breathing quick in the
+effort to recall the very dim and very distant past; "yes, I 'member."
+
+"Well, what do you 'member?"
+
+"O, once I was grindin' coffee out there in a yellow chair, and
+somebody she came and put me in the sink."
+
+"She does know--doesn't she?" said Dotty. "That was Ruthie; come out
+in the kitchen and see her."
+
+But when Flyaway first looked into Ruth's smiling face, with its black
+eyes and sharp nose, she could not remember that she had ever seen it
+before. Abner, too, was strange to her.
+
+"Come here," said he, "and I can tell in a minute if you are a good
+little girl."
+
+Flyaway cast down her soft eyes, and sidled along to Abner.
+
+"Here, touch this watch," said he, "and if you are a good little girl
+it will fly open; if you are naughty it will stay shut."
+
+Flyaway looked askance at Abner, her finger in her mouth, but dared
+not touch the watch.
+
+"Who'd 'a thought it, now?" said Abner, pretending to be shocked.
+"Looks to be a nice child; but of course she isn't, or she'd come
+right up and open the watch."
+
+Flyaway thrust another finger in her mouth, and pressed her eyelids
+slowly together. Abner did not understand this, but it meant that he
+had not treated her with proper respect.
+
+"Here, Ruth," said he, in a low tone, "hand me one of your plum tarts;
+that'll fetch her.--Come here, my pretty one, and see what's inside of
+this little pie."
+
+Flyaway was very hungry. She took a step forward, and held her hand
+out, though rather timidly.
+
+"But she mustn't eat it without asking her mamma," said Ruth.
+
+"Yes; O, yes," cried Miss Flyaway, opening her little mouth for the
+first time, and shutting it again over a big bite of tart; "I want to
+eat it and _s'prise_ my mamma."
+
+Abner laughed in his hearty fashion. "Some of the old mischief left
+there yet," said he, catching Flyaway and tossing her to the ceiling.
+"Have you come here this summer to keep the whole house in commotion?
+Remember the Charlie boy--don't you--that had the meal-bags tied to
+his feet?"
+
+"Did he? What for?"
+
+Flyaway had not the least recollection of Charlie; but Horace had
+talked to her about him, and she said, after a moment's thought,--
+
+"Yes, he washed the pig. Me and Charlie, we played all everything what
+we thinked about."
+
+"So you did, surely," said a woman who had just come in at the back
+door, and begun to drop kisses, as sad as tears, on Flyaway's
+forehead. "Do you know who this is?" Flyaway looked up with a sweet
+smile, but her mind had lost all impression of her melancholy friend,
+Miss Whiting. "Look again," said the sad-eyed stranger, who did not
+like to have even a little child forget her; "you used to call me the
+'Polly woman.'"
+
+Katie looked again, and this time very closely.
+
+"There's a great deal o' yellowness in your face," exclaimed she,
+after a careful survey; "but you was made so!"
+
+Miss Polly laughed drearily. "So you don't remember how I took you out
+of the watering-trough, you sweet lamb! 'I's tryin' to swim,' you
+said; 'and _that's_ what is it.' Here's a summer-sweeting for you,
+dear; do you like them?"
+
+"Yes'm, thank you," said Flyaway, "but I like summer-_sourings_ the
+best."
+
+At the same time she allowed herself to be taken in Miss Polly's lap,
+and won that tender-hearted woman's love by putting her arms round her
+neck, and saying, "Let me kiss you so you'll feel all better. What
+makes you have tears in your eyes?--tell me."
+
+"We're good friends--I knew we should be," said Miss Polly, quite
+cheerily. "Look out of the window, and see that swing. How many times
+I've pushed you and Dotty in that swing when it seemed as if it would
+break my back!"
+
+Flyaway looked out. There stood the two trees, and between them hung
+the old swing; but the charm was forgotten. In the field beyond, her
+eye fell on an object more interesting to her.
+
+"O, O," said she, "I don't see how God _could_ make a man so homebly
+as that!"
+
+"So homely as what?"
+
+"Why," laughed Dotty, "she means that scarecrow."
+
+The corn was up long ago, but one direful image had still been left to
+flaunt in the sunlight and soak in the rain.
+
+"That isn't a man," said Prudy; "it's only a great monstrous rag baby,
+with a coat on."
+
+"Put there to frighten away the crows," added Miss Polly. "When Abner
+dropped corn in the ground, the great black crows wanted to come and
+pick it out, and eat it up."
+
+Flyaway frowned in token of strong dislike to the crows. "I wouldn't
+eat gampa's corn for anything in this world," said she,--"'thout it's
+popped! 'Cause I don't like it."
+
+Miss Polly laughed quite merrily.
+
+"There," said she, "I've dropped a stitch in my side; it never agrees
+with me to laugh. I must be going right home, too; but there is one
+thing more I want to ask you, Katie; do you remember how you ran away,
+one day, and frightened the whole house, trying to climb up to
+heaven?"
+
+Katie's face was blank; she had forgotten the journey.
+
+"You passed Jennie Vance and me in the Pines," said Dotty, "and went
+deep into the woods, and a bee stung you."
+
+"O, now I 'member," said Katie, suddenly. "I 'member the bee as plain
+as 'tever 'twas!" And she curled her lip with contempt for that small
+Flyaway, of long ago--that silly baby who had thought heaven was on a
+hill.
+
+"_I_ went up on a ladder when I was three years old," said Prudy.
+
+"Did you?" said Flyaway. This was a consolation. "Well, I was three
+years old, too; I didn't know 'bout angels--didn't know they had to
+have wings on."
+
+Here Flyaway curled her lip again and smiled.
+
+"You are wiser now," sighed Miss Polly. "You and I won't try to go to
+heaven till our time comes--will we, dear?"
+
+Katie took Miss Polly's large, thin hand, and measured it beside her
+own tiny one.
+
+"Miss Polly," said she, with one of her extremely wise looks, "when
+you go up to God you'll be a very little girl!"
+
+"Ah, indeed!" said Miss Polly, weaving the third pin into her shawl;
+"how do you make that out?"
+
+"Your body'll all be cut off," replied Katie, making the motion of a
+pair of scissors with her fingers; "all be cut right straight off;
+there won't be nuffin' left but just your little spirit!"
+
+"Since you know so much, dear, how large is my spirit?"
+
+Katie put her hand on the left side of the belt of her apron.
+
+"Don't you call that small, right under my hand a-beatin'?" said she.
+"'Bout's big as a bird, Miss Polly. Little round ball for a head,
+little mites o' eyes; but you won't care--you can see _just_ as well."
+
+"It does beat all where children get such queer ideas--doesn't it,
+Ruth?" said Miss Whiting.
+
+"Didn't you know it?" cried Katie, finding she had startled Miss
+Polly. "Didn't you know you's goin' to be little, and fly in the air
+just so?" throwing up her arms. "I want to go dreffully, for there's a
+gold harp o' music up there, and I'll play on it: it'll be mine."
+
+"You don't feel in a hurry to die, I hope," said Miss Polly,
+anxiously.
+
+Katie's eager face clouded. "No," said she, sorrowfully; "I want to,
+but I hate to go up to God and leave my pink dress. I can't go into it
+then, I'll be so little."
+
+"You'll be just big enough to go into the pocket," laughed Dotty.
+
+"Hush!" said Miss Polly, gravely; "you shouldn't joke upon such
+serious subjects. Good by, children. Your house is full of company,
+and I didn't come to stay. Here's a bag of thoroughwort I've been
+picking for your grandmother; you may give it to her with my love, and
+tell her my side is worse. I shall be in to-morrow."
+
+So saying, Miss Polly went away, seeming to be wafted out of the room
+on a sigh.
+
+The high-chair was brought down from the attic for Flyaway, who sat
+in it that evening at the tea-table, and smiled round upon her friends
+in the most benevolent manner.
+
+"I's growing so big now, mamma," said she, coaxingly, "don't you spect
+I must have some tea?"
+
+Grandmother pleaded for the youngest, too. "Let me give her some just
+this once, Maria."
+
+"Well, _white_ tea, then," returned Mrs. Clifford, smiling; "and will
+Flyaway remember not to ask for it again? Mamma thinks little girls
+should drink milk."
+
+"Yes'm, I won't never. She gives it to me _this_ night, 'cause I's her
+little _grand-girl_. Mayn't Hollis have it too, 'cause he's her little
+grand-_boy_?"
+
+"Cunning as ever, you see," whispered the admiring Horace to cousin
+Susy, who replied, rather indifferently,--
+
+"No cunninger than our Prudy used to be."
+
+Flyaway made quick work of drinking her white tea, and when she came
+to the last few drops she swung her cup round and round, saying,--
+
+"Didn't you know, Hollis, that's the way gampa does, when _he_ gets
+most froo, to make it sweet?"
+
+No, Horace had not noticed; it was "Fly, with her little eye," who saw
+everything, and made remarks about it.
+
+"O, O," cried Grace, dropping her knife and fork, and patting her
+hands softly under the table, "isn't it so nice to be at Willowbrook
+again, taking supper together? Doesn't it remind you of pleasant
+things, Susy, to eat grandma's cream toast?"
+
+"Reminds me," said Susy, after reflecting, "of jumping on the hay."
+
+"'Minds me of--of--" remarked Flyaway; and there she fell into a brown
+study, with her head swaying from side to side.
+
+"I don't know why it is," said Prudy, "but since you spoke, this cream
+toast makes me think of the rag-bag. Excuse me for being impolite,
+grandma, but where _is_ the rag-bag?"
+
+"In the back room, dear, where it always is; and you may wheel it off
+to-morrow."
+
+It had been Mrs. Parlin's custom, once or twice every summer, to allow
+the children to take the large, heavy rag-bag to the store, and sell
+its contents for little articles, which they divided among themselves.
+Sometimes the price of the rags amounted to half or three quarters of
+a dollar, and there was a regular carnival of figs, candy, and
+fire-crackers.
+
+Horace was so much older now, that he did not fancy the idea of being
+seen in the street, trundling a wheelbarrow; but he went on with his
+cream toast and made no remark.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE RAG-BAG.
+
+
+Next morning there was a loud call from the three Parlins for the
+rag-bag, in which Flyaway joined, though she hardly knew the
+difference between a rag-bag and a paper of pins.
+
+"I wish you to understand, girls," said Horace, flourishing his hat,
+"that I'm not going to cart round any such trash for you this summer."
+
+"Now, Horace!"
+
+"You know, Gracie, you belong to a Girls' Rights' Society. Do you
+suppose I want to interfere with your privileges?"
+
+"Why, Horace Clifford, you wouldn't see your own sister trundling a
+wheelbarrow?"
+
+"O, no; I shan't be there," said Horace, coolly; "I shan't see you. I
+promised to weed the verbena bed for your aunt Louise. Good by, girls.
+Success to the rag-bag!"
+
+"Let's catch him!" cried Susy, darting after her ungallant cousin; but
+he ran so fast, and flourished his garden hoe so recklessly, that she
+gave up the chase.
+
+"Let him go," said Grace, with a fine-lady air: "who cares about
+rag-bags? We've outgrown that sort of thing, you and I, Susy; let the
+little girls have our share."
+
+"Yes, to be sure," replied Susy, faintly, though not without a pang,
+for she still retained a childish fondness for jujube paste, and was
+not allowed a great abundance of pocket-money. "Yes, to be sure, let
+the _little_ girls have our share."
+
+"Then may we three youngest have the whole rag-bag?" said Prudy,
+brightly. "Dotty, you and I will trundle the wheelbarrow, and Fly
+shall go behind."
+
+"What an idea!" exclaimed Grace. "I've seen little beggar children
+drawing a dog-cart. Grandma'll never allow such a thing."
+
+"Indeed I will," said grandma, tying on her checked apron. "Dog-carts
+or wheel-barrows, so they only take care not to be rude. In a city it
+is different."
+
+"Yes, grandma," said Dotty, twisting her front hair joyfully; "but
+here in the country they want little girls to have good times--don't
+they? Why don't everybody move into the country, do you s'pose? Lots
+of bare spots round here,--nothing on 'em but cows."
+
+"Yes, nuffin' but gampa's cows," chimed in Flyaway, twisting _her_
+front hair.
+
+"Louisa," said Mrs. Parlin, "you may help me about this loaf of 'Maine
+plum cake,' and while you are beating the butter and sugar I will look
+over the rag-bag. Dotty, please run for my spectacles."
+
+When Dotty returned with the spectacles, Jennie Vance came with her,
+pouting a little at the cool reception she had met, and thinking Miss
+Dimple hardly polite because she was too much interested in an old
+rag-bag to pay proper attention to visitors.
+
+"Grandma, what makes you pick over these rags? We can take them just
+as they are."
+
+"I always do so, my dear, and for several reasons. One is, that
+woollen pieces may have crept in by mistake. As we profess to sell
+cotton rags, it would be dishonest to mix them with woollen."
+
+"Yes'm, I understand," said Jennie, who often spoke when it was quite
+as well to keep silent; "it's always best to be honest--isn't it, Mrs.
+Parlin?"
+
+The rags were spread out upon the table, giving Flyaway a fine
+opportunity to scatter them right and left.
+
+"O, here's a splendid piece of blue ribbon to make my doll a bonnet,"
+said Dotty.
+
+"That's another reason why she picks 'em over," remarked Jennie; "so
+she won't waste things. Only, Dotty, that has got an awful
+grease-spot."
+
+"There, children," said Mrs. Parlin, presently, "I have taken out a
+card of hooks and eyes, a flannel bandage, and a shoe-string. You may
+have everything else."
+
+Dotty caught her grandmother's arm. "Please, grandma, don't sweep 'em
+into the bag; let us look some more. I've just found a big Lisle
+glove; if I can find another, then Abner can go blackberrying; he says
+his hands are ever so tender."
+
+"And you thought he was in earnest," said Prudy. "While you are
+looking, I'll go into the nursery and finish that holder."
+
+Flyaway, having climbed upon the table, had rolled herself into some
+mosquito netting, like a caterpillar in a cocoon. They were all so
+much interested, that grandma, in the kindness of her heart, did not
+like to disturb them.
+
+"You are welcome to all the treasures you can find, but as soon as the
+cake is made I shall want the table; so be quick," said she, looking
+out from the pantry, where she was beating eggs.
+
+"Yes, indeed, grandma, we'll hurry; and may we have every single thing
+we like the looks of? now, honest."
+
+"Yes, Dotty."
+
+Then Mrs. Parlin and Miss Louise talked about currants, and citron,
+and quite forgot such trifles as rag-bags.
+
+"Here's another big glove," said Dotty, "not the same color, but no
+matter; and here are some saddle-bags, Jennie. I'm going to be a
+doctor."
+
+"Saddle-bags, Dotty! those are pockets." Jennie took them from Miss
+Dimple's hands. They were held together by a narrow strip of brown
+linen, and had once belonged to a pair of pantaloons.
+
+"I'm going to see if there isn't something inside," said Jennie. "Why,
+yes, here's a raisin, true's you live. And here, in the other one,--O,
+Dotty!"
+
+But Dotty had run into the nursery to show Prudy a muslin cap.
+
+"A wad of--"
+
+Jennie was determined to see what; so she unrolled it.
+
+"Scrip," cried she, holding up some greenbacks.
+
+"Skipt," echoed Flyaway, who had come out of the cocoon and gone into
+the form of a mop, her head adorned with cotton fringe.
+
+Yes; a two dollar bill and a one dollar bill, as green as lettuce
+leaves. This was a great marvel. Columbus was not half so much
+surprised when he discovered America.
+
+"Mrs. Parlin, do you hear?"
+
+But Mrs. Parlin heard nothing, for the din of the egg-beating drowned
+both the shrill little voices.
+
+A sudden idea came to Jennie. Whose money was this? Mrs. Parlin's? No;
+hadn't Mrs. Parlin looked over the rags once, and said the children
+might have what was left? "'You are welcome to all the treasures you
+can find;' that was what she said," repeated Jennie to herself. "I'm
+the one that found this treasure,--not Dotty, not Flyaway. This is
+honest, and I do not lie when I say it."
+
+Jennie began to tremble, and a hot color flew into her cheeks, and
+added new lustre to her black eyes. "If I could only make Flyaway
+forget it," thought she, with a whirling sensation of anger towards
+the innocent child, who knew no better than to proclaim aloud every
+piece of news she heard. "I'll make her forget it." Jenny hastily
+concealed the money in the neck of her dress.
+
+"Where's that skipt? that skipt?" said Flyaway.
+
+"Fly Clifford," said Jennie, severely, "you've climbed on the table!
+Just think of it! Your grandmother doesn't allow you on her table.
+What made you get up here."
+
+"'Cause," replied Flyaway, seizing the kitty by the tail, and
+thrusting her into a cabbage-net, "'cause I fought best."
+
+"But you must get right down, this minute."
+
+"No," said Flyaway, shaking her head-dress of white fringe with great
+solemnity; "I isn't goin' to get down."
+
+"Ah, but you must."
+
+Flyaway opened and shut her eyes slowly, in token of deep displeasure.
+"I don't never 'low little girls to scold to me," said she. "You'd
+better call grandma; 'haps _she_ can make me get down."
+
+But it was not Jennie's purpose to wait for that; she seized the
+little one roughly by the arms, pulled her from the table, and hurried
+her into the parlor.
+
+Flyaway was indignant. "Does you--feel happy?" said she, with a
+reproachful glance at Jennie.
+
+"There, look out of the window, Flyaway, darling, and watch to see if
+Horace isn't coming in from the garden."
+
+"Can't Hollis come, 'thout me watching him?" returned Flyaway, winking
+slowly again, for her sweet little soul was stirred with wrath. The
+memory of the "skipt" had indeed been driven away, and she could only
+think,--
+
+"Isn't Jennie so easy fretted! I wasn't doin' nuffin'; and then she
+jumped me right down. Unpolite gell! that's one thing."
+
+And Jennie was thinking, "She never'll remember the money now, or, if
+she does, I don't believe Mrs. Parlin will pay any attention to what
+she says." Jennie was still very much excited, and wondered why she
+trembled so.
+
+"I don't mean to keep it unless it's perfectly proper," thought she;
+"I guess I know the eighth commandment fast enough. I shan't keep it
+unless Dotty thinks best. I'll tell her, and see what she says."
+
+Jennie had often pilfered little things from her mother's cupboard,
+such as cake and raisins; but a piece of money of the most trifling
+value she had never thought of taking before.
+
+Leaving Flyaway busy with block houses, she ran to the nursery door,
+and motioned with her finger for Dotty to come out.
+
+"What is it?" said Dotty, when they were both shut into the china
+closet; "don't you want my sister Prudy to know?"
+
+Jennie replied, in a great flutter, "No, no, no. You musn't tell a
+single soul, Dotty Dimple, as long as you live, and I'll give you
+half."
+
+"Half what?"
+
+Jennie produced the money from her bosom, feeling, I am glad to say,
+very guilty. "Out o' those saddle-bag pockets out there," added she,
+breathlessly; "true's the world."
+
+"Why, Jennie Vance!"
+
+"One had a raisin in and a button, and nobody but me would have
+thought of looking. You wouldn't--now would you? My father says I've
+got such sharp eyes!"
+
+"H'm!" said Dotty, who considered her own eyes as bright as any
+diamonds; "you took the saddle-bag right out of my hand. How do you
+know I shouldn't have peeked in?"
+
+Jennie did not reply, but smoothed out the wrinkled notes with many a
+loving pat.
+
+"What did grandma say?" asked Dotty; "wasn't she pleased?"
+
+"Your grandmother doesn't know anything about it, Dotty Dimple; what
+business is it to her?"
+
+Jennie's tone was defiant. She assumed a courage she was far from
+feeling.
+
+Dotty was speechless with surprise, but her eyes grew as round as
+soap-bubbles.
+
+"The pockets don't belong to her, Dotty, and never did. They never
+came out of any of her dresses--now did they?"
+
+Dotty's eyes swelled like a couple of bubbles ready to burst.
+
+"Jennie Vance, I didn't know you's a thief."
+
+"You stop talking so, Dotty. She was going to sweep everything into
+the rag-bag--now wasn't she? And this money would have gone in too, if
+it hadn't been for my sharp eyes--now wouldn't it?"
+
+"But it isn't yours, Jennie Vance--because it don't belong to you."
+
+"Now, Dotty--"
+
+"You go right off, Jennie Vance, and carry it to my grandma this
+minute."
+
+The tone of command irritated Jennie. She had not felt at all decided
+about keeping the money, but opposition gave her courage. Her temper
+and Dotty's were always meeting and striking fire.
+
+"It isn't your grandma's pockets, Miss Parlin. If it was the last word
+I was to speak, it isn't your grandmother's pockets!"
+
+"Jane Sidney Vance!"
+
+"You needn't call me by my middle name, and stare so at me, Dotty
+Dimple. I was going to give you half!"
+
+"What do I want of half, when it isn't yours to give?" said Dotty,
+gazing regretfully at the money, nevertheless. Three dollars! Why, it
+was a small fortune! If it only did really belong to Jenny!
+
+"Your grandmother said everything we liked the looks of, Dotty. Don't
+you like the looks of this?"
+
+"But you know, Jennie--"
+
+"O, you needn't preach to me. You wasn't the one that found it. If I'd
+truly been a thief, or if I hadn't been a thief, it would have been
+right for me to keep it, and perfectly proper, and not said a word to
+you, either; so there."
+
+"Jennie Vance, I'm going right out of this closet, and tell my grandma
+what you've said."
+
+"Wait, Dotty Dimple; let me get through talking. I meant to buy things
+for your grandmother with it. O, yes, I did--a silk dress, and cap,
+and shoes."
+
+Dotty twirled her hair, and looked thoughtful.
+
+"Of course I did. Wouldn't it surprise her, when she wasn't expecting
+it? And Flyaway, too,--something for her. We wouldn't keep anything
+for ourselves, only just enough to buy clothes and such things as we
+really need."
+
+Before Dotty had time to reply there was a loud scream from the
+parlor.
+
+"Fly is killed--she is killed!" cried Dotty; but Jennie had presence
+of mind enough to tuck the bills into the neck of her dress.
+
+"Don't you tell anybody a word about it, Dotty. If you tell I'll do
+something awful to you. Do you hear?"
+
+Dotty heard, but did not answer. The fate of her cousin Flyaway seemed
+more important to her just then than all the bank-bills in the world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE WICKED GIRL.
+
+
+Flyaway had only been climbing the outside of the staircase, and would
+have done very well, if some one had not rung the door-bell, and
+startled her so that she fell from the very top stair to the floor. It
+was feared, at first, that several bones were broken and her intellect
+injured for life; but after crying fifteen minutes, she seemed to feel
+nearly as well as before.
+
+"If ever a child was made of thistle-down it is Flyaway Clifford,"
+said aunt Louise.
+
+Still it was not thought best for her to fatigue herself that day by
+selling rags, and the wheelbarrow enterprise was put off until the
+next morning.
+
+The person who rang the door-bell was Mrs. Vance's girl Susan, who
+called for Jennie to go home and try on a frock. Jennie did not
+return, and Dotty had a sense of uneasiness all day. The guilty secret
+of the three dollars weighed upon her mind. Should she, or should she
+not, tell her grandmother?
+
+"I don't know but Jennie would do something to my things if I told,"
+thought she; "but then I never promised a word. Here it is four
+o'clock. Who knows but she's gone and spent that money, and my
+grandmother never'll know what's 'come of it?"
+
+This possibility was very alarming. "Jennie Vance doesn't seem to have
+any little whisper inside of _her_ heart, that ticks like a watch;
+but _I_ have. _My_ conscience pricks; so I know that perhaps it's my
+duty to go and tell."
+
+Dotty drew herself up virtuously and looked in the glass. There she
+seemed to see an angelic little girl, whose only wish was to do just
+right--a little girl as much purer than Jennie Vance, as a lily is
+purer than a very ugly toadstool.
+
+Well, Miss Dotty, there is some truth in the picture. Jennie is not a
+good child; but neither are you an angel. There is more wickedness in
+your proud little heart than you will ever begin to find out. And wait
+a minute. Who teaches you all you know of right and wrong? Is it your
+mother? Suppose she had died, as did Jennie's mamma, when you were a
+toddling baby?
+
+There, that's all; you do not hear a word I say; and if you did, you
+would not heed, O, self-righteous Dotty Dimple!
+
+Dotty ran up stairs to find her grandmother.
+
+"Grandma," whispered she, though there was no one else in the room;
+"something dreadful has happened. You've lost three dollars!"
+
+"What, dear?"
+
+"O, you needn't look in your pocket. Jennie found 'em in the rag-bag,
+and tried to make me take half; but of course I never; and now she's
+run off with 'em!"
+
+"Found three dollars in the rag-bag? I guess not."
+
+"Yes, grandma; for I saw her just as she was going to find em', in a
+pair of pockets. I should have seen 'em myself if she hadn't looked
+first."
+
+"Indeed! Is this really so? But she ought to have come and given them
+to me."
+
+"That was just what I told her, over and over, grandma, and over
+again. But she's a dreadful naughty girl, Jennie Vance is. If there's
+anything bad she can do, she goes right off and does it."
+
+"Hush, my child."
+
+"Yes'm, I won't say any more, _only_ I don't think my mother would
+like to have me play with little girls that take money out of
+rag-bags."
+
+Dotty drew herself up again in a very stately way.
+
+"Jennie _said_ she was going to buy you a silk dress and so forth; but
+she does truly lie so, 'one to another,' that you can't believe her
+for certain, not half she says."
+
+Grandma looked over her spectacles and through the window, as if
+trying to see what ought to be done.
+
+[Illustration: "YOU CAN'T BELIEVE HER FOR CERTAIN."]
+
+"You did right to tell me this, my child," said she; "but I wish you
+to say nothing about it to any one else: will you remember?"
+
+"Yes'm," replied Dotty, trying to read her grandmother's face, and
+feeling a little alarmed by its solemnity. "What you going to do,
+grandma? Not put Jennie in the lockup--are you? 'Cause if you do--O,
+don't you! She said 'twas her sharp eyes, and she didn't mean to
+steal, and 'twasn't your pockets, and she promised she'd give me
+half--yes, she truly did, grandma."
+
+"Go, dear, and bring me my bonnet from the band-box in my bed-room
+closet."
+
+Then Mrs. Parlin folded the sheet she was making, put on her best
+shawl and bonnet, and kid gloves, and taking her sun umbrella, set out
+for a walk. There was a look in her face which made her little
+granddaughter think it would not be proper to ask any questions.
+
+Mrs. Parlin met Jennie Vance coming in at the gate.
+
+"O, dear," thought Dotty, "I don't want to see her. Grandma says I've
+done right, but Jennie'll call me a tell-tale. I'll go out in the barn
+and hide."
+
+The guilty secret had lain heavy at Jennie's heart all day. As soon as
+her dress-maker could spare her, and a troublesome little cousin had
+left, she asked permission to go to Mrs. Parlin's.
+
+"Dotty thinks I meant to keep it," she thought. "I never did see such
+a girl. You can't say the least little thing but she takes it sober
+earnest, and says she'll tell her grandmother."
+
+Jennie stole round by the back door, and timidly asked for Miss
+Dimple.
+
+"I'm sure I don't know where she is," answered Ruthie, with a pleasant
+smile; "nor Flyaway either. I have been living in peace for half an
+hour."
+
+Ruthie made you think of lemon candy; she was sweet and tart too.
+
+While Jennie, with the kind assistance of Prudy, was hunting for
+Dotty, Mrs. Parlin was in Judge Vance's parlor, talking with Jennie's
+step-mother. Mrs. Vance was shocked to hear of her daughter's conduct,
+for she loved her and wished her to do right.
+
+"My poor Jennie," said she; "from her little babyhood until she was
+six years old, there was no one to take care of her but a hired nurse,
+who neglected her sadly."
+
+"I know just what sort of training Jennie has had from Serena Pond,"
+said Mrs. Parlin; "it was most unfortunate. But you are so faithful
+with her, my dear Mrs. Vance, that I do believe she will outgrow all
+those early influences."
+
+"I keep hoping so," said Mrs. Vance, repressing a sigh; "I take it
+very kindly of you, Mrs. Parlin, that you should come to me with this
+affair. I shall not allow Jennie to go to your house very often. You
+do not like to wound my feelings, but I am sure you cannot wish to
+have your little granddaughter very intimate with a child who is sly
+and untruthful."
+
+"My dear lady," said grandma Parlin, taking Mrs. Vance's hand, and
+pressing it warmly; "since we are talking so freely together, and I
+know you are too generous to be offended, I will confess to you that
+if Jennie persists in concealing this money, I would prefer not to
+have Dotty play with her very much; at least while her mother is not
+here to have the care of her." It was hard for Mrs. Parlin to say
+this, and she added presently,--
+
+"Please let Jennie spend the night at our house. She may wish to talk
+with me; we will give her the opportunity."
+
+Mrs. Vance gladly consented. She had observed that Jennie seemed
+unhappy, and was very anxious to see Dotty again. She hoped she had
+gone to return the money of her own free will.
+
+When Mrs. Parlin opened the nursery door at home, she found Jennie
+building block houses, to Flyaway's great delight, while at the other
+end of the room sat Dotty Dimple, resolutely sewing patchwork.
+
+"O, grandma," spoke up Flyaway, "Jennie came to see me; she didn't
+come to see Dotty, 'cause Dotty don't want to talk. There, now,
+Jennie, make a rat to put in the cupboard. R goes first to rat."
+
+Innocent little Flyaway! She had long ago forgotten her pique against
+Jennie for being "so easy fretted," and jumping her down from the
+table.
+
+Wretched little Jennie! The new blue and white frock, just finished by
+her dress-maker, covered a heart filled with mortification. Dotty
+Dimple would not talk to her. It seemed as if Dotty had climbed to the
+top of a high mountain, and was looking down, down upon her.
+
+Dotty did feel very exalted to-day; but there was another reason why
+she would not talk with Jennie: she might have to confess that grandma
+knew about the money; and then what a scene there would be! So Dotty
+set her lips together, and sewed as if she was afraid somebody would
+freeze to death before she could finish her patchwork quilt.
+
+Mrs. Clifford, who did not understand the cause of Dotty's lofty mood,
+took pity on Jennie, and tried to amuse her. After a while, Dotty came
+softly along, and sat down close to her aunt Maria, ready to listen to
+the story of the "Pappoose," though she had heard it fifty times
+before.
+
+She did not see Jennie alone for one moment. Grandma Parlin did.
+"Jennie," said she, taking her into the parlor to show her a new
+shell, "are you going with our little girls, to-morrow, to sell rags?"
+
+"I don't know, ma'am, I'm sure," replied Jennie, looking hard at the
+sofa. She longed to make an open confession, and get rid of the
+troublesome money, but had not the courage to do it without some help
+from Dotty.
+
+"O, dear," thought she, "I feel just as wicked with that money in my
+bosom! Seems as if she could hear it crumple. If Dotty would only let
+me talk to her first!"
+
+But Dotty continued as unapproachable as the Pope of Rome. Eight
+o'clock came, and the two unhappy little girls went slowly up stairs
+to bed. Dotty, in her lofty pride, tried to make her little friend
+feel herself a sinner; while Jennie, ready to hide herself in the
+potato-bin for shame, was, at the same time, very angry with the
+self-satisfied Miss Dimple. She was awed by her superior goodness, but
+did not love her any the better for it. Why should she? Dotty's
+goodness lacked
+
+ "_Humility_, that low, sweet root,
+ From which all heavenly virtues shoot."
+
+"Here, Miss Parlin," said Jennie, angrily, as she took off her dress;
+"here it is, right in my neck. I should have gone and given it to your
+grandmother, ever so long ago, if you hadn't acted so!"
+
+Dotty pulled off her stockings.
+
+"I 'spose you thought I was going to keep it. Here, take your old
+money!"
+
+"You did mean to keep it, Jane Sidney Vance," retorted Dotty, as
+fierce as a thistle; and finished undressing at the top of her speed.
+
+The money lay on the floor, and neither of the proud girls would pick
+it up. Jennie, who always prayed at her mother's knee, forgot her
+prayer to-night, and climbed into bed without it. But Dotty, feeling
+more than ever how much better she was than her little friend, knelt
+beside a chair, and prayed in a loud voice. First, she repeated the
+"Lord's Prayer," then "Gentle Jesus, meek and mild," and "Now I lay
+me down to sleep." She was not talking to her heavenly Father, but to
+Jennie, and ended her petitions thus:--
+
+"O God, forgive me if I have done anything naughty to-day; and please
+forgive _Jennie Vance, the wickedest girl in this town_."
+
+Then the little Pharisee got into bed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+"WHEELBARROWING."
+
+
+"The wickedest girl in this town!" Jennie's eyes flashed in the dark
+like a couple of fireflies. At first she was too angry to speak; and
+when words did come, they were too weak. She wanted words that were so
+strong, and bitter, and fierce, that they would make Dotty quail. But
+all she could say was,--
+
+"O, dreadful good you are, Miss Parlin! Good's the minister! Ah! guess
+I'll get out and sleep on the floor!"
+
+Dotty made no reply, but rolled over to the front of the bed, and
+Jennie pushed herself to the back of it. There the little creatures
+lay in silence, each on an edge of the bedstead, and a whole mattress
+between. Sleep did not come at once.
+
+"She's left that money on the floor," thought Dotty; "what if a mouse
+should creep down the chimney, and gnaw it all up? But she must take
+care of it herself. _I_ shan't!"
+
+And Jennie thought, wrathfully, "Dotty says such long prayers she
+can't stop to pick up that scrip! If she expects me to get out of bed,
+she's made a mistake; I won't touch her old money."
+
+About nine o'clock grandma Parlin came quietly into the room with a
+lamp. A smile crept round the corners of her mouth, as she saw the
+little girls sleeping so widely apart, their faces turned away from
+each other.
+
+"How is this?" said she, as the two bills caught her eye. "Of all the
+foolish children! Dropping money about the room like waste paper!"
+
+The light awoke Jennie, who had only just fallen asleep. "Now is the
+time," said she to herself; and without waiting for a second thought,
+which would have been a worse one, she sprang out of bed, and caught
+Mrs. Parlin by the skirts.
+
+"That money is yours, Mrs. Parlin," said she, bravely. "Yours; I found
+it in the rag-bag. Something naughty came into me this morning, and
+made me want to keep it; but I'm ever so sorry, and never'll do it
+again. Will you forgive me?"
+
+Then grandma Parlin seated herself in a rocking-chair, took Jennie
+right into her lap, and talked to her a long while in the sweetest
+way. Jennie curled her head into the good woman's neck, and sobbed
+out all her wretchedness.
+
+"She knew she was real bad, and people didn't like to have her play
+with their little girls, and Dotty Dimple thought she was awful; but
+_was_ she the wickedest girl in this town?"
+
+"No; O, no!"
+
+"Wasn't Dotty some bad, too?"
+
+"Yes, Dotty often did wrong."
+
+Then Jenny wept afresh.
+
+"She knew she _was_ worse than Dotty, though. She wished,--O, dear, as
+true as she lived,--she wished she was dead and buried, and drowned in
+the Red Sea, and the grass over her grave, and shut up in jail, and
+everything else."
+
+Then Mrs. Parlin soothed her with kind words, but told the truth with
+every one.
+
+"No 'm," Jennie said; "it wasn't right to take fruit-cake without
+leave, or tell wrong stories either; she wouldn't any more. Yes'm, she
+would try to be good--she never had tried much.--Yes 'm, she would ask
+God to help her. Should you suppose He would do it?
+
+"Yes 'm, she would ask Him not to let her have much temptation. She
+did believe she would rather be a good girl--a real good girl, like
+Prudy, _not like Dotty_!--than to have a velvet dress with spangles
+all over it."
+
+All this while Dotty did not waken. In the morning she was surprised
+to see her little bedfellow looking so cheerful.
+
+"I've told your grandmother all about it," said Jennie with a smile.
+"I knew I did wrong, but I don't believe I should have meant to if you
+hadn't acted so your _own_ self--now that's a fact."
+
+"You haven't seen my grandmother," returned Dotty, not noticing the
+last clause of her friend's remark. "You dreamed it."
+
+"No, she came in here and forgave me. She's the best woman in this
+world. What do you think she said about you, Dotty Dimple? She said
+there were other little girls full as good as you are. There!"
+
+"O!"
+
+"Said you 'often did wrong,' that's _just_ what," added Jennie,
+correcting herself, and making sure of the "white truth."
+
+Step by step Dotty came down from the mountain-top, and, before
+breakfast was ready, had led her visitor through the morning dew to
+the playhouse under the trees, chatting all the way as if nothing had
+happened.
+
+It proved that the money belonged to Abner. He had missed it several
+weeks before, and ever since that had been suspecting old Daniel
+McQuilken, a day laborer, of stealing it.
+
+"I'm ashamed of it now," said Abner to Ruth, "though I didn't tell
+anybody but you. I wish you'd mix a pitcher of sweetened water, and
+let me take it out to the field to old Daniel. I feel as if I wanted
+to make it up to him some way."
+
+Ruth laughed; and when Abner came into the house at ten o'clock, she
+had a pitcher of molasses and water ready for him, also a plate of
+cherry turnovers. Flyaway insisted upon toddling over the ground with
+one of the turnovers in her apron.
+
+"Man," said she, when they reached the field, and she saw the Irishman
+with his funny red and white hair, "what's your name, man?"
+
+He wiped his face with his checked shirt-sleeve, and took a turnover
+from her hand, bowing very low as he did so.
+
+"Thank ee, my little lady; sense you're plazed to ask me,--my name's
+Dannul."
+
+"O, are you?" said Flyaway, looking up in surprise at the large and
+oddly-dressed stranger. "Are you Daniel? My mamma's just been reading
+about you. You was in the lions' den--_wasn't_ you, Daniel?"
+
+Mr. McQuilken smiled at bareheaded, flossy-haired little Katie, and
+replied, with a wink at Abner,--
+
+"Fath, little lady, and I suppose I'm that same Dannul; but 'twas so
+long ago I've clane forgot aboot it entirely."
+
+"O, did you? Well, you _was_ in the lions' den, Daniel, but they
+didn't bite you, you know, 'cause you prayed so long and so loud,
+with your winners up; and then God wouldn't let 'em bite."
+
+Old Daniel laid both his huge hands on Katie's head.
+
+"Swate little chirrub," said he, "don't she look saintish?"
+
+Katie moved away; she did not like to have her hair pulled, and Daniel
+was unconsciously drawing it through the big cracks in his fingers, as
+if he was waxing silk.
+
+"I guess I'll go home now," said she, with a timid glance at the man
+whom the lions did not bite; "they'll be spectin' me."
+
+Abner and Daniel both watched the tiny figure across the fields till
+Ruth came out to meet it, and it fluttered into the east door of the
+house.
+
+"There, she's safe," said Abner; "she needs as much looking after as
+a young turkey."
+
+"She runs like a little sperrit, bliss her swate eyes," said Daniel.
+"I had one as pooty as her, but she's at Mary's fate, Hivven rist her
+sowl!"
+
+The moment Flyaway reached the house, she rushed into the parlor to
+tell her mother the news.
+
+"The man you readed about in the book, mamma, he's out there! Daniel,
+that the lions didn't bite, mamma, 'cause he prayed so long and so
+loud with his winners up; he's out there--got a hat on."
+
+"O, no, my child; it is thousands of years since Daniel was in the
+lions' den; he died long and long ago."
+
+"But he said he did, mamma; he told me so. I _fought_ he was dead,
+mamma, but he said he wasn't."
+
+Mrs. Clifford shook her head. "I dare say his name is Daniel, but he
+was never in a lion's den."
+
+Flyaway opened and closed her eyes in the slowest and most impressive
+manner. "Mamma," said she, solemnly, "does--folks--tell--lies?"
+
+It was an entirely now idea to the innocent child: it stamped itself upon
+her mind like a motto on warm sealing-wax, "Folks--does--tell--lies."
+
+Mrs. Clifford was sorry to see the look of distrust on the young face.
+
+"Listen to me, little Flyaway. I think the man was in sport; he was
+only playing with you, as Horace does sometimes, when he calls himself
+your horse."
+
+Flyaway said no more, but she pressed her eyelids together again, and
+felt that she had been trifled with. Half an hour afterwards Prudy
+heard her repeating, slowly, to herself, "Folks--does--tell--lies."
+
+"Why, here she is," called Dotty from the piazza; "come, Fly; we're
+going wheel-barrowing."
+
+"Wait a minute, cousin Dotty," said Mrs. Clifford; "Flyaway must put
+on a clean frock; she is not coming home with you, but you are to
+leave her at aunt Martha's. I shall meet her there at dinner time."
+
+"O, mamma, may I? I love you a hundred rooms full. Let me go bring my
+_buttoner bootner_ quick's a minute."
+
+Flyaway was not long in getting ready. She was never long about
+anything.
+
+"You said we might have all the money, we three--didn't you, grandma?"
+asked Dotty again, at the last moment, thinking how glad she was
+Jennie had gone home, and would not claim a share.
+
+"Yes," replied patient grandma for the fifth time; "you may do
+anything you like with it, except to buy colored candy."
+
+As they were trundling the wheelbarrow out of the yard, Horace came up
+from the garden.
+
+"Prudy," said he, with rather a shame-faced glance at his favorite
+cousin, "you girls will cut a pretty figure, parading through the
+streets like a gang of pedlers. Come, let me be the driver."
+
+"O, we thought you couldn't leave your flower-beds, sir," replied
+Prudy, sweeping a courtesy.
+
+"Well, the weeds _are_ pretty tough, ma'am; roots 'way down in China,
+and the Emperor objects to parting with 'em; but--"
+
+"Poh! we don't need any boys," cried the self-sustained Miss Dimple;
+"if your hands are too soft, Prudy, you mustn't push. Wait and see
+what Dotty Dimple can do."
+
+"O, then, if you spurn me and my offer, good by. I suppose my little
+Topknot goes for _surplusage_," said Horace, who liked now and then to
+puzzle Dotty with a new word. He meant that Flyaway was of no use, but
+rather in the way.
+
+"No, she needn't do any such thing," returned Dotty. "Jump in, Fly,
+and sit on the bag." And off moved the gay little party, "the
+middle-aged sister" laughing so she could hardly push, Flyaway dancing
+up and down on the rag-bag, like a humming-bird balancing itself on a
+twig; Grace and Susy looking down from the "green chamber" window, and
+saying to each other, with wounded family pride, "_Should_ you think
+grandma would allow it?" Out in the street the young rag-merchants
+were greeted by a cow lowing dismally. Flyaway, in her rustic
+carriage, felt as secure as the fabled "kid on the roof of a house;"
+so she called out, "Don't cry, old cow; I 'shamed o' you."
+
+At this Prudy and Dotty laughed harder than ever.
+
+"'Sh right up, old cow," said Flyaway, standing on her "tipsy-toes,"
+and making a threatening gesture with her little arms; "'Sh right
+up!--O, why don't that cow mind in a minute?"
+
+In her earnestness the little girl pushed the bag to one side, and
+Prudy and Dotty, shaking with laughter, tipped over the wheelbarrow.
+No harm was done except to give Flyaway a dust-bath in her nice clean
+frock. Just as they were struggling with the bag, to get it in again,
+they were overtaken by a droll-looking equipage. It was a long house
+on wheels, and instantly reminded Dotty of Noah's ark.
+
+"O, a house a-ridin'! a house a-ridin'!" exclaimed Flyaway, gazing
+after it with the greatest astonishment.
+
+Dotty thought the world was going topsy-turvy. She looked at the trees
+to see if they stood fast in the ground. But Prudy explained it as
+soon as she could stop laughing.
+
+"Only a photograph saloon," said she. "Didn't you ever see one before?
+We don't have them in the city going round so, but things are
+different in the country. Let's watch and see where it stops."
+
+"O, dear me," said Dotty; "I shouldn't want to live in a house that
+couldn't stand still! Stove tipping over, and the gingerbread falling
+out of the oven! There, I declare!"
+
+The look of wonder on Dotty's face was so amusing that Prudy was
+obliged to hold on to her sides.
+
+"There, look!" said she; "it has stopped down by the corner. Now the
+man can bake his gingerbread if he wants to, and the stove won't tip
+over. Jump in, Flyaway, and finish your ride."
+
+"No-o," said Flyaway, wavering between her fear of the cow, some yards
+ahead, and her fear of the rocking, unsteady wheelbarrow. "Guess I
+won't get in no more, Prudy; it wearies me."
+
+"Wearies you?"
+
+"Yes: don't you know what 'wearies' means, Prudy? It means it makes me
+a--a--little--scared!"
+
+And in her "weariness" Flyaway nestled between her two cousins, and
+kept fast hold of their skirts till the cow was safely passed and the
+red store reached.
+
+"Bravo!" exclaimed Mr. Bradley, the merchant, as he came out and
+dragged the rag-bag into the store; "so you've taken the business into
+your own hands, my little women? Ah, this is a progressive age! Walk
+in--walk in."
+
+Prudy blushed, Dotty smiled, and Flyaway took off her hat, as she
+usually did when she did not know what else to do.
+
+"Take some seats, young ladies," said Mr. Bradley, placing three
+chairs in a row, and bowing as if to the most distinguished visitors.
+Two or three men, who were lounging about the counter, looked on with
+a smile. Dotty was very well satisfied, for she enjoyed attention; but
+Prudy, who was older, and had a more delicate sense of propriety,
+blushed and cast down her eyes. She had thought nothing of driving a
+wheelbarrow through the street, but now, for the first time, a feeling
+of mortification came over her. If Mr. Bradley would only keep quiet!
+
+"A fine morning, my young friends! Rather warm, to be sure. And so you
+have brought rags to sell? Would you like the money for them, or do
+you think we can make a trade with some articles out of the store?"
+
+"Grandma said we could have the money between us, we three," replied
+Dotty, with refreshing frankness, "and buy anything we please except
+red and yellow candy."
+
+"I want a _music_," said Flyaway, in an eager whisper; "a music, and a
+ollinge, and a pig."
+
+"Hush!" said Prudy, for the man with a piece of court-plaster on his
+cheek was certainly laughing.
+
+Mr. Bradley took the bag into another room to weigh it. A boy was in
+there, drawing molasses. "James," said Mr. Bradley, "run down cellar,
+and bring up some beer for these young ladies."
+
+There was a smile on James's face as he drove the plug into the
+barrel. Prudy saw it through the open door, and it went to her heart.
+The cream beer was excellent, but Prudy did not relish it. She and
+Dotty had been whispering together.
+
+"We will take two thirds of the rags in money, if you please," said
+Prudy, in such a low tone that Mr. Bradley had to bend his ear to
+hear.
+
+"Because," added Dotty, who wished to have everything clearly
+explained, "because we want to have our tin-types taken, sir. We saw
+a saloon riding on wheels, and we thought we'd go there, and see if
+the man wasn't ready to take pictures."
+
+"And our little cousin may use her third, and buy something out of the
+store, if you please," said the blushing Prudy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+TIN-TYPES.
+
+
+Mr. Bradley said he did not often allow any one behind his counter, as
+all the boys in the village could testify; but these young ladies were
+welcome in any part of the store.
+
+"That little one is the spryest child I ever saw," said the man with
+the court-plaster, as Flyaway hovered about the candy-jars, like a
+butterfly over a flower-bed. "She isn't a Yankee child--is she?"
+
+"No, sir," replied Dotty, quickly; "she is a _westerness_."
+
+She had heard Horace use the word, and presumed it was correct.
+
+"I do wish Dotty would be more afraid of strangers," thought Prudy. "I
+never will take her anywhere again--with a wheelbarrow."
+
+Flyaway fluttered around for a minute, and then alighted upon her
+favorite sweet-meats, "_pepnits_." She chose for her portion a large
+amount of these, an harmonica, and a sugar pig, which Dotty assured
+her was not "colored." "Nothing but pink dots, and those you can pick
+off."
+
+"The rags came to seventy-five cents, and this young lady has now had
+her third; here is the remainder," said Mr. Bradley, smiling as he
+gave each of the little Parlins some money, and bowed them out of the
+store.
+
+"I'll put it in _my_ porte-monnaie, sir; my sister Prudy didn't bring
+hers."
+
+"What makes you talk so much, Dotty Dimple?" said Prudy, "that man
+has been making sport of us all the time."
+
+"Did he?" said Dotty, solemnly. "I'm 'stonished at grandma Parlin
+letting us sell rags! Wish this wheelbarrow was in the _Stiftic
+Ocean_."
+
+"But it isn't, little sister, and the worst of it is, we've got to
+take it to the photograph saloon; it's so far home and back again."
+
+"Got to take the ole _wheelbarrel_ every single where we go," pouted
+Flyaway, as drearily as either of her cousins.
+
+"You needn't mind it, though," said Dotty, giving the one-wheeled
+coach a hard push; "a little girl that's going visiting, and have
+succotash for dinner."
+
+"I didn't know I was. O, I _am_ so glad! What is it!"
+
+"Corn and beans. Aunt Martha's girl is the best cook,--makes cherry
+pudding. Dear, dear, dear! Wish I was in Portland; see 'f I wouldn't
+go to Tate Penny's, and have some salmon and ice-cream!"
+
+Down the beautiful shaded street walked the three little rag-pedlers;
+and it did seem as if they were met by all the people in town, from
+the minister down to the barefoot boys going fishing. At last they
+arrived at the house on wheels.
+
+"Now I'll tell you, Fly, what we're going to do," said Prudy. "Dotty
+and I want to have our tin-types taken, to give to grandma, as a
+pleasant surprise. We'll pay for yours too, if you'll sit for it."
+
+"_Tin-tybe_? Of course, indeed I will. Won't I have nuffin to do but
+just sit still? But I'd rather be gentle (generous), and give it to my
+mamma."
+
+"Well, to your mamma, then. What will be the harm, Dotty, in leaving
+this wheelbarrow out here at the door?"
+
+"I don't know," said Dotty; "I hope there won't any 'bugglers' come
+along, and steal it."
+
+"I shall watch it," replied Prudy, with a care-worn look; and they all
+went up the steps and entered the little picture-gallery.
+
+The windows were closed, and the odor of chemicals was so stifling,
+that the children almost gasped for breath. The artist seemed glad to
+see them, made no remarks about the wheelbarrow, though he must have
+noticed it, and said he would be ready in a few minutes. While they
+waited, they walked about the room, looking at the pictures on the
+walls.
+
+"See," said Dotty; "there is Abby Grant, with her hair frizzed. Prudy"
+(in a low whisper), "you don't s'pose he will carry us off--do you? I
+forgot about the wheels, or I wouldn't have come! O, see that little
+boy; hands as big as my father's! Here comes Jennie Vance; I'm going
+to call her in."
+
+Dotty had forgotten her contempt for her lively friend. Jennie came
+in, twirling the rim of her hat, and looking quite gratified by this
+mark of friendship in Dotty.
+
+"Going to have your picture taken, Dotty Dimple? Well, so I would if I
+was as pretty as you are. O, dear" (with a sly peep at the glass), "I
+wish I wasn't so homely."
+
+Now Jennie was a handsome child, and knew it well; but Dotty took her
+wail in earnest. "Why, Jennie," said she, with ready sympathy, "I
+don't think you're so _very_ homely; not half so homely, any way, as
+some of the girls at Portland."
+
+Jennie frowned and bit her thumb. Prudy smiled "behind her mouth," but
+Dotty was serenely unconscious that she had given offence. By this
+time the artist was ready, and thought it best to try Flyaway first;
+for he had had enough experience with children to see at a glance that
+this one would be as difficult to "take" as a bird on the wing. Prudy
+made sure the wheelbarrow was safe, and then turned to arrange her
+little cousin.
+
+"Here, put your hands down in your lap."
+
+Up went the little hands to the flossy hair. "It won't stay, Prudy,
+_or nelse_ you tie it."
+
+"I shall brush it, the very last minute, Flyaway. All you must do is
+sit still. Mayn't she look at your watch, sir, just to keep her eyes
+from moving?"
+
+"No matter what she looks at," replied the artist; "but she must keep
+that little head of hers straight."
+
+His tone was firm; he hoped to awe her into quietness. Flyaway was
+frightened, and clung to Prudy for protection. "Don't the gemplum love
+little gee--urls?" said she, in a voice as low and sad as a dying
+dove's.
+
+Mr. Poindexter laughed, and stroked the beautiful floss lovingly.
+
+"Just turn your sweet little face this way, dear child; that's all."
+
+"O, my shole! Must I turn my face to my back!" said Flyaway,
+bewildered.
+
+"No, no; look at this picture on the wall. See what it is, so you can
+tell your mother."
+
+"It's a bridge, and a man, and a fish," said Flyaway, flashing a
+glance at it.
+
+"There, smooth your forehead; now you will do." And so she did, for
+two seconds, till she began to squint, to see whether it was a fish or
+a dog; and that picture was spoiled.
+
+Next time she tried so very hard to sit still that she swayed to and
+fro like a slender-stemmed flower when the wind goes over it. The
+picture was blurred.
+
+"O, Fly, you must keep your shoulders still," said Prudy, looking as
+anxious as the old woman in the shoe.
+
+"I didn't never want to come here," said the child; "when I sit so
+still, Prudy, it 'most gives me a pain."
+
+"But you haven't sat still yet, not a minute."
+
+"I could, you know, Prudy, _or nelse_ I didn't have to breeve,"
+groaned Flyaway, lifting her eyebrows.
+
+"Another one spoiled," said the artist, trying to smile.
+
+"Yes," said Dotty, who felt none of the care. "Once it was her head,
+and then it was her shoulders; and now her eyebrows are all of a
+quirk."
+
+Poor little Flyaway felt as much out of place as a grape-vine would
+feel, if it had to make believe it was a pine tree.
+
+"Wisht I'd said 'no,' 'stead o' 'yes,'" murmured she, puckering her
+mouth to the size of a very small button-hole.
+
+"This will never do," said the patient artist, almost in despair.
+"Hold your little chin up, there's a lady. Don't put it in your neck.
+Now! Ready!"
+
+But at the critical moment there was a jerk, and Flyaway cried out,--
+
+"I've got a sneeze; but, O, dear, I can't sneeze it."
+
+"Why, where's that head of yours, little Tot? I declare, I believe it
+goes on wires, like a jumping-jack."
+
+"My head's wrong side up," said Flyaway, mournfully; "my mother said
+it was."
+
+Mr. Poindexter laughed: it was impossible to be vexed with such a
+gentle child as Flyaway. "Really, my young friends," said he, rubbing
+his stained fingers through his hair, "I believe I shall be obliged to
+give it up for the present. Have the child's mother come with her
+to-morrow, and we'll do better, I am sure."
+
+With the likenesses of the other girls he succeeded very well; and
+Prudy and Dotty were glad to find, that after paying for theirs, they
+each had ten cents left.
+
+"Now, Fly, we will go to aunt Martha's."
+
+But Fly was amusing herself by scraping dirt out of the cracks of her
+boots with a bit of glass.
+
+"Dotty won't be to aunt Marfie's. I don't want to stay where Dotty
+isn't."
+
+"But your mamma will be there, you know; and I told you what they are
+going to have for dinner."
+
+"Yes, _secretary_," said Flyaway, proud of her memory. "She is a very
+nice _cooker_, but you'll have hard work to get me to go."
+
+She drawled out the words languidly, and seemed on the point of going
+to sleep.
+
+"O, girls, girls, girls," cried Prudy, opening the door and looking
+out, "our wheelbarrow is gone--it's gone!"
+
+"It's bugglers; I told you so," said Dotty.
+
+Mr. Poindexter was quite amused by his little sitters. "I saw that you
+came in a coach," said he, "and without any horses."
+
+"Our grandmother said we might," spoke up Dotty, anxious to divert all
+blame from herself. "She said we might; but Prudy ought to have gone
+straight home. I knew it all the time."
+
+"I dare say some one has driven off your carriage in sport," said the
+kind-hearted photographer; "never fear."
+
+"O, no, sir; it was new and red. Folks wanted it to haul stones in,
+and that was why they took it," said Dotty, wrathfully.
+
+The children looked up street and down street. No wheelbarrow in
+sight. "We must go to aunt Martha's, and then come back and hunt for
+it, if we have to go without our dinners," they said. They took
+Flyaway between them, and marched her off. She was almost as passive
+as a rag baby, ready to drop down anywhere, and fall asleep. "'Cause I
+_am_ so tired," said she.
+
+Aunt Martha cordially invited the two cousins to dine. They thanked
+her, but no, they must find the wheelbarrow. "We shan't say, certain
+positive, that bugglers took it, but we s'pose so," said Dotty,
+softening her judgment, as she remembered her mistake about the
+"screw-up pencil." They went home through the broiling sun, but found
+no trace of the wheelbarrow.
+
+"It's a dreadful thing," said Prudy, lazily, "but I don't feel as bad
+as I should if I was fairly awake."
+
+"Me, too," yawned Dotty; "I wish we could lie down under the trees,
+and go to sleep."
+
+They had been a long while in the close saloon, inhaling ether, and
+this was the cause of their languor. As they entered the yard they met
+Horace.
+
+"O, dear," said Dotty, trying to look as sorry as she knew she ought
+to feel, "that wheel--"
+
+"What!" exclaimed Prudy.
+
+There, under a syringa tree in the garden, stood the wheelbarrow. The
+girls rubbed their eyes, and wondered if they were walking in their
+sleep.
+
+"That thing trundled itself in here about half an hour ago," said
+Horace, gravely. "You may know I was surprised to look up, and see it
+coming without hands, just rolling along like a velocipede."
+
+Dotty eyed the runaway wheelbarrow stupidly. "I don't believe it,"
+said she, flatly.
+
+Horace laughed; and then the fog cleared away from Dotty's mind in a
+minute.
+
+"Why, girls," said he, "how long did you think I could wait to haul
+off my weeds? You were gone two hours. I watched you on your parade,
+and followed at a respectful distance."
+
+"There, Horace Clifford!"
+
+"In order not to disturb the procession. Then, when I saw you going
+into the saloon, I went up and claimed my wheelbarrow. Didn't want it
+any longer--did you?"
+
+"No, and never want it again," said Prudy.
+
+"By the way, here's a conundrum for you, girls, Why's a wheelbarrow
+like a potato?"
+
+"I shouldn't think it was like it at all," answered Dotty. "Where did
+you read that?"
+
+"Didn't read it anywhere. I've given up books since I undertook
+gardening. Never was much of a bookworm. Make a very respectable
+_earth-worm_; ask aunt Louise if I don't."
+
+The little girls entered the house, too tired and sleepy to make any
+reply.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+WAKING.
+
+
+Flyaway was very much sleepier than either of her cousins, and really
+did not know where she was, or what she was doing. Lonnie Adams, a boy
+of Horace's age, tried to interest her. He made believe the old cat
+was a sheep, killed her with an iron spoon, and hung her up by the
+hind legs for mutton, all which Pussy bore like a lamb, for she had
+been killed a great many times, and was used to it. But it did not
+please Flyaway; neither did aunt Martha's collection of shells and
+pictures call forth a single smile. There was a beautiful clock in
+the parlor, and the pendulum was in the form of a little boy swinging;
+but Flyaway would not have cared if it had been a gallows, and the boy
+hanging there dead.
+
+Uncle John took her on his knee, asked her what her name was, where
+she lived, and whom she loved best; but she only answered she "didn't
+know." She might have been Daniel in the lions' den, or Joseph in the
+pit, for all the difference to her.
+
+"How very singular!" said aunt Martha. "I wish her mother would come.
+Do feel her pulse, John, and see if it is fever."
+
+"Nothing of the kind," said uncle John, as the little one's head
+dropped on his shoulder. "Overcome by the heat; that's all. I'll just
+lay her down on the sofa."
+
+When Mrs. Clifford came, she was surprised to find the child fast
+asleep. She would not have her wakened for dinner; so Flyaway missed
+her "secretary." But when it was three o'clock, and she still slept,
+Mrs. Clifford feared something was wrong, and decided to take her
+home. Uncle John had "Lightning Dodger" harnessed, and brought around
+to the door.
+
+"Wake up, little daughter," said Mrs. Clifford; "we are going home
+now."
+
+Flyaway looked around vacantly, her eyes as heavy as drenched violets.
+
+"You must come again, and stay longer," said aunt Martha; "it is
+hardly polite not to let little girls have their dinners--do you think
+it is?"
+
+"Yes 'm," replied Flyaway, faintly. She did not understand a word any
+one said; it all sounded as indistinct as the roaring of a sea-shell.
+By the time she was lifted into her mother's arms in the carriage,
+she was nodding again. When they reached home she scarcely spoke,
+but, dropping upon the sofa, went on with her dreams. It was odd for
+Flyaway to take a nap in the daytime, and such a long one as this!
+
+"It must be a very warm day," said Mrs. Parlin, "for Prudy and Dotty
+have been asleep too."
+
+"Where did they go after they sold the rags?" asked Mrs. Clifford;
+"they all look pale."
+
+"To a photograph saloon. Here are the tin-types they brought home to
+me," replied grandma, producing them from her pocket, with a gratified
+smile.
+
+"Very good, mother--don't you think so? I would be glad to have as
+truthful a likeness of our little Katie; but she must be taken asleep.
+I wonder, by the way, if there wasn't something in the air of the
+saloon which made the children all so languid?"
+
+"Why, yes, Maria; very likely it was the ether. Now you speak of it, I
+am confident it must have been the ether."
+
+"I knew just such an instance before," said Mrs. Clifford; "and that
+is why I happened to think of it now."
+
+About four o'clock Flyaway came to her senses.
+
+"Where's the wheelbarrel?" said she, rubbing her eyes.
+
+"O, Horace came and took it," said Dotty. "Hasn't this been the
+queerest day!"
+
+"You said you's goin' to take me to aunt Marfie's; why didn't you?"
+
+"O, we did; we took you, you know."
+
+"Dotty Dimpul, I shouldn't think you'd make any believe."
+
+"I'm not 'making any believe'--am I, Prudy?"
+
+"No, Fly, she isn't. We pulled you along,--don't you remember?--and
+you hung back, and said, 'I _am_ so tired.'"
+
+"I don't 'member," said Flyaway, slowly and sadly. "I shouldn't think
+_you'd_ make any believe, Prudy."
+
+"We'll ask your mamma, then; she tells the truth. Aunt 'Riah, didn't
+we take Flyaway to aunt Martha's this morning, and didn't you go there
+too?"
+
+"Certainly," said Mrs. Clifford; "but it wasn't much of a visit,--was
+it, darling!--when you slept most of the time, and didn't have a
+mouthful of dinner?"
+
+Flyaway sighed heavily, and looked at her mother. "O, mamma! mamma!"
+
+"What is it, dear?"
+
+"O, mamma," repeated she, sorrowfully, "why did you say those words?"
+
+"What words, darling?"
+
+"Those naughty, naughty words, mamma." Flyaway's gentle eyes were
+afloat. She crossed the room, and knelt by Mrs. Clifford's chair,
+looking up at her with an expression of anguish.
+
+"That man, he wasn't in the lions' den, that prayed so long and so
+loud, mamma."
+
+"Well, dear."
+
+"_He_ telled a wrong story to me, mamma."
+
+"My darling baby," said Mrs. Clifford, catching Flyaway in her arms,
+"do you think your own dear mother is telling you a wrong story this
+minute?"
+
+"'Cause, 'cause, mamma, I didn't go to aunt Marfie's!"
+
+"Yes, you did, my precious daughter; but you were asleep and dreaming.
+We brought you home in the carriage, and you didn't know it. Can't you
+believe it because I say so?"
+
+Flyaway made no reply except to curl her head under Mrs. Clifford's
+arm, like a frightened chicken under its mother's wing. Mrs. Clifford
+looked troubled. She was afraid the little one could not be made to
+understand it. Horace came to her aid.
+
+"Hold up your head, little Topknot, and hear brother talk. Once there
+were three little girls, and they all travelled round with a
+wheelbarrow. By and by they came to a man's house on wheels."
+
+"Yes," said Flyaway, starting up; "I 'member."
+
+"And the wee girl, with dove's eyes--"
+
+"O, O, that's me!"
+
+"She couldn't keep still, and couldn't get any picture."
+
+"No, _tin-tybe_; 'cause--'cause--"
+
+"And all the while there was something in the man's house they kept
+breathing into their noses, and it made them grow sleepy."
+
+"Just so?" asked Flyaway, sniffing.
+
+"Yes; and by and by the little one with dove's eyes was as stupid as
+that woman you saw lying down in the street with the pig looking at
+her."
+
+"Me? Was I a _drunken_?" said Flyaway, in a subdued tone.
+
+"O, no," put in Dotty; "it wasn't whiskey, it was _either_; and I
+didn't know much more than you did, Fly Clifford. That was why I lost
+your money, Prudy; I just about know it was."
+
+Flyaway began to understand. The look of fear and distrust went out of
+her eyes, and she threw her arms round her mother's neck, kissing her
+again and again.
+
+"_'Haps_ I did go to aunt Marfie's, mamma; _'haps_ I was asleep!"
+
+"That's right, Miss Topknot," cried Horace; "now your brother'll carry
+you pickaback."
+
+A little while afterward Mrs. Clifford began a letter to her husband.
+
+"I am going to tell papa about his little girl--that she is very
+well."
+
+"O, no, you needn't, mamma," said Flyaway, laughing; "papa knows it. I
+was well at home."
+
+"What shall I tell him, then?"
+
+Flyaway thought a moment.
+
+"Tell him all the folks doesn't tell lies," said she, earnestly; "only
+but the naughty folks tells lies."
+
+So that was settled; and Flyaway decided to write off the whole story,
+and send to her father--a mixture of little sharp zigzags, curves, and
+dots. When Horace asked her what these meant, she said "she couldn't
+'member now; but papa would know."
+
+There was another matter which troubled grandma Parlin somewhat. Dotty
+had gone to the store, after dinner, with two ten-cent pieces in her
+porte-monnaie. She had bought for herself some jujube paste, but in
+returning had lost the other dime.
+
+"Grandma, do you think that is fair?" said Prudy. "She has lost my
+money, but she doesn't care at all; only laughs. I was going to put it
+with some more I had, and buy mother a collar."
+
+"No, it is not right," replied grandma. "I will talk with her, and try
+to make her willing to give you some of hers in return."
+
+Ah, grandma Parlin, you little knew what you were undertaking when you
+called Dotty Dimple into the back parlor next morning, and began to
+talk about that money! Children's minds are strange things. They are
+like bottles with very small necks; and when you pour in an idea, you
+must pour very slowly, a drop at a time, or it all runs over. Dotty
+did not know much more about money than Flyaway.
+
+"My child," said her grandmother, "it seems you have lost something
+which belonged to Prudy."
+
+Dotty looked up carelessly from the picture of a rose she held in her
+hand, which she meant to adorn with yellow paint.
+
+"O, yes 'm; you mean that money."
+
+"There are several things you don't know, Dotty; and one is, that you
+have no right to lose other people's things."
+
+"No 'm."
+
+"The money you dropped out of your porte-monnaie, yesterday, was
+Prudy's, not yours; and what are you going to do about it?"
+
+"Let me see; my mother'll come to-morrow; I'll ask her to give me some
+more."
+
+"But is that right? Dotty lost the money; must not Dotty be the one to
+give it back?"
+
+"O, grandma, I can't find it! The wind blew it away, or a horse
+stepped on it. I can't find it, certainly."
+
+"No; but you have money of your own. You can give some of that to
+Prudy."
+
+"Why-ee!" moaned Dotty. "Prudy's got ever so much. O, grandma, she
+has; and my box is so empty it can't but just jingle."
+
+"But, my dear, that has nothing to do with the case. If Prudy has a
+great deal of money, you have no right to lose any of it. Don't you
+think you ought to give it back?"
+
+"O, no, grandma--I don't; because she doesn't need it! I wish she'd
+give _me_ ten cents, for I do need it; I haven't but a tinty, tonty
+mite."
+
+Here Dotty threw herself on the sofa, the picture of despair. Grandma
+was perplexed. Had she been pouring ideas into Dotty's mind too fast?
+What should she say next?
+
+"My dear little girl, suppose Prudy should lose some of your
+money--what then?"
+
+"I shouldn't like it at all, grandma. Don't let her go to my box--will
+you?"
+
+"Selfish little girl!" said grandma, looking keenly at Dotty's
+troubled face. "You would expect Prudy to return every cent, if she
+were in your place."
+
+"Because--because--grandma--"
+
+"Yes; and when I explain your duty to you, you don't understand me.
+You would understand if you were not so selfish!"
+
+Dotty winced.
+
+"Don't come to me again, and complain of Jennie Vance."
+
+Dotty could not meet her grandmother's searching gaze: it seemed to
+cut into her heart like a sharp blade.
+
+"Am I as bad as Jennie Vance? Yes, just us bad; and grandma knows it.
+But then," said she aloud, though very faintly, "Prudy needn't have
+put it in my porte-monnaie; she might have known I'd lose it."
+
+"Dotty, I am not going to say any more about it now. You may think it
+over to-day, and decide for yourself whether you are following the
+Golden Rule. Or, if you choose, you may wait and talk with your
+mother."
+
+"Yes 'm." Dotty was glad to escape into the kitchen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+AUNT POLLY'S STORY.
+
+
+Flyaway sat on the kitchen floor, feeding Dinah with a roasted apple.
+As often as Dinah refused a teaspoonful, she put it into her own
+mouth, saying, with a wise nod, "My child, she's sick; hasn't any
+_appletite_."
+
+Out of doors it was raining heartily. It seemed as if the "upper deep"
+was tipping over, and pouring itself into the lap of the earth.
+
+"O, Ruthie," sighed Dotty Dimple, "my mother won't come while it's
+such weather. Do you s'pose 'twill ever clear off?" [Blank Page]
+
+[Illustration: FLYAWAY AND DINAH.]
+
+"Yes, I do," replied Ruth, trimming a pie briskly; "it only began last
+night at five."
+
+"Why, Ruthie Dillon! it began three weeks ago, by the clock! Don't you
+know that day I couldn't go visiting? Only sometimes it stops a while,
+and then begins again."
+
+"If you're going to have the blues, Miss Dotty, I'll thank you kindly
+just to take yourself out of this kitchen. Polly Whiting is here, and
+she is as much as a body can endures in this dull weather."
+
+"It's pitiful 'bout the rain, Dotty; but you mustn't scold when God
+sended it," said Flyaway, dropping the feeble Dinah, and pursuing her
+cousin round the room with a pin. In a minute they were both laughing
+gayly, till Flyaway caught herself on her little rocking-chair, and
+"got a _torn_ in her apron." That ended the sport.
+
+"What shall I do to make myself happy?" said Dotty, musingly; for she
+wished to put off all thought of Prudy's money. "I should like to roll
+out some thimble-cookies, but Ruthie hasn't much patience this
+morning. I never dare do things when her lips are squeezed together
+so."
+
+But Flyaway dared do things. She took up the kitty, and played to her
+on the "music," till Ruth's ears were "on edge." After this the
+harmonica fell into a dish of soft soap, and in cleaning it with ashes
+and a sponge, the holes became stopped.
+
+"It won't _muse_ no more," said Flyaway, in sad surprise, blowing into
+the keys in vain. Ruth loved the little child too well to say she was
+glad of it.
+
+Flyaway's next dash was into the sink cupboard, where she found a
+wooden bowl of sand. This she dragged out, and filling her "nipperkin"
+with water, carried them both to Ruth, saying, in her sweet, pleading
+way,--
+
+"_If_ you please, Ruthie, will you tell _how_ God does when he takes
+the 'little drops of water and little grains of sand,' and makes 'the
+mighty _oshum_' with um, '_and_ the pleasant land'?"
+
+Ruthie had no answer but a kiss and a smile.
+
+"There, away with you into the nursery, both of you. I know Polly
+Whiting is lonesome without you."
+
+Off went the children, Flyaway "with a heart for any fate," but Dotty
+still oppressed by the shadow of the ten-cent piece.
+
+"If I don't give it to Prudy, will I be dishonest? Will I be as bad
+as Jennie Vance?"
+
+When they entered the nursery, Miss Polly was standing before the
+mirror, arranging her black cap, and weaving into her collar a square
+black breast-pin, which aunt Louise said looked like a gravestone.
+Flyaway peeped in too, placing her smooth pink cheek beside Miss
+Polly's wrinkled one.
+
+"I don't look alike, Miss Polly," said she; "and you don't look alike
+too."
+
+Certainly not; no more alike than a blush-rose bud and a dried apple.
+
+"What makes the red go out of folks' cheeks when they grow old, and
+the wrinkles crease in, like the pork in baked beans?" queried Dotty.
+
+"I couldn't tell you," replied the good lady, giving a pat to her cap,
+and settling the bows carefully; "but if you had asked how I happened
+to grow old before my time, I should say I'd had such a hard chance
+through life, and trouble always leaves its mark."
+
+"Does it? O, dear! I have trouble,--ever so much; will it quirk my
+face all up, like yours?"
+
+"You have trouble, Dotty Parlin? Haven't you found out yet that the
+lines have fallen to you in pleasant places?"
+
+"I don't know what you mean by lines," said Dotty, thinking of
+fish-hooks; "but when it rains, and folks want me to do things that
+are real hard, then why, I'm blue, now truly."
+
+"Then we're blue, now truly," added Flyaway by way of finish.
+
+"What would you do, children, if you were driven about, as I used to
+be, from post to pillar, with no mother to care for you?"
+
+"If I hadn't no mamma, I could go barefoot, like a dog," said Flyaway,
+brightening with the new idea; "I could paddle in the water too, and
+eat pepnits."
+
+"O, child! But what if you had neither father nor mother?"
+
+"Then," said Flyaway coolly, "I should go to some house where there
+_was_ a father'n mother."
+
+"Why, you little heartless thing! But that is always the way with
+children; their parents set their lives by them, but not a 'thank you'
+do they get for their love! Try a pinch," continued she, offering her
+snuff-box to the little folks, who both declined. This Polly thought
+was strange. They must like snuff if they followed the natural bent of
+their noses.
+
+"Yes, Katie, as I was saying, you little know how your mother loves
+you."
+
+"Yes um, I do. She loves me more 'n the river, and the sky, and the
+bridge. My papa loves me too, only but he don't _say_ nuffin' 'bout
+it."
+
+"Yes, yes; just so," said Miss Polly, who talked to the simplest
+infants just as she did to grown people. "One of these days you will
+look back, and see how happy you are now, and be sorry you didn't
+prize your parents while you had them."
+
+Flyaway rested her rosy cheek on Polly's knee, and watched the gray
+knitting-work as it came out of the basket. She did not understand the
+sad woman's words, but was attracted by her loving nature, and liked
+to sit near her, a minute at a time, and have her hair stroked.
+
+"There, now," said Dotty, "you are knitting, Miss Polly; and it's so
+lonesome all round the house, with mother not coming till to-morrow,
+that I should think you might tell--well, tell an anecdote."
+
+"I don't know where to begin, or what to say," replied Polly, falling
+into deep thought.
+
+"I just believe she does sigh at the end of every needle," mused
+Dotty; "I'm going to keep 'count. That's once."
+
+"Please, Miss Polly, tell a _nanny-goat_," said Flyaway, dancing
+around the room. "Please, Miss Polly, and I'll kiss you a pretty
+little kiss."
+
+"Twice," whispered Dotty.
+
+"Well, I'll tell you something that will pass for an anecdote, on
+condition that you call me _aunt_ Polly; that name warms my heart a
+great deal better than _Miss_ Polly."
+
+"Three!" said Dotty aloud. "We will, honestly, if we can think of it,
+aunt Polly.--Four."
+
+"Le'me gwout for the sidders, first," said busy Flyaway.
+
+"There, aunt Polly, you forgot it that time! You sprang up quick to
+shut the door, and forgot it."
+
+"Forgot what?"
+
+"You didn't sigh at the end of your needle."
+
+"Why, Dotty, how you do talk! Any one would suppose, by that, I was in
+the habit of sighing! I have a stitch in my side, child, and it makes
+me draw a long breath now and then; that's all."
+
+Flyaway was back again,
+
+ "With step-step light, and tip-tap slight
+ Against the door."
+
+"Come in," said Dotty, "and see if you can keep still two whole
+minutes; but I know you can't."
+
+Miss Polly let her work fall in her lap, and drew up the left sleeve
+of her black alpaca dress. "Do you see that scar, children?"
+
+It was just below the elbow,--an irregular, purple mark, about the
+size of a new cent.
+
+"Why, Miss--why, aunt Polly!"
+
+"I've got one on me too," said Flyaway, pulling at her apron sleeve;
+"Hollis did it with the tongs."
+
+"It can't be; not a scar like mine."
+
+"Bigger 'n' larger 'n' yours; only but I can't find it," said Flyaway,
+carefully twisting around her dainty white arm, which Polly kissed,
+and said was as sweet as a peach. "Bigger 'n' larger 'n' yours. Where's
+it gone to? O, I feegot--'twas on my _sleeve_, and I never put it on
+to-day."
+
+"You're a droll child, not to know the difference between scars and
+dirt! When I was almost as young and quite as innocent, that wicked
+little boy bit me, and I shall carry the marks of his teeth to my
+grave." With another lingering glance at the purple mark, Polly drew
+down her sleeve, sighed, and began to knit again.
+
+"Was it the woman's child that made you dig, that you told about last
+summer?"
+
+"Yes; I was a bound girl."
+
+"Bound to what?" Dotty was trying to drown the remembrance of Prudy's
+ten cents; so she wished to keep Miss Polly talking.
+
+"Bound to Mrs. Potter till I was eighteen years old. Her husband kept
+public house. They made a perfect slave of me. When I was twelve
+years old I had to milk three cows, besides spinning my day's work on
+the flax-wheel. And very often all I had for supper was brown bread
+and skim milk. I didn't have any grandfather's house to go to, with a
+seat in the trees, and a boat on the water, and a swing, and a summer
+house, and a _crocky-set_ (croquet set). Not I!"
+
+Flyaway was cutting paper dolls with all speed, but her sweet little
+face was drawn into curves of pity.
+
+"Too bad! Naughty folks to give you _skilmick_."
+
+"I had to scour all the knives too. I did it by drawing them back and
+forth into a sand-bank back of the house. This Isaac I speak of was a
+lazy boy, and very unkind to me; but his mother wouldn't hear a word
+against him. One day I brushed a traveller's coat, and got a silver
+quarter for my trouble. I thought everything of that quarter. I had
+never had so much money before in my life. I had half a mind to put it
+in the Savings Bank; 'and who knows,' thought I, 'but I can add more
+to it, one of these days, and buy my time.'"
+
+"Why, Miss Polly, I didn't know you could _buy_ time!"
+
+"But you knew you could throw it away, I suppose," said Polly, with a
+sad smile. "What I mean is this: I wanted to pay Mrs. Potter some
+money, so I could go free before I was eighteen."
+
+"Then you would be _unbound_, aunt Polly."
+
+"Yes; but one day Isaac found my money,--I kept it in an old
+tobacco-box,--and, just to hector me, he kept tossing it up in the
+air, till all of a sudden it fell through a crack in the floor; and
+that was the last I saw of it."
+
+[Illustration: "HERE HE IS!"]
+
+"What a naughty, careless boy!"
+
+After Dotty had said this, she blushed.
+
+"Naughty, careless boy!" echoed Flyaway. "Here he is!" holding up a
+paper doll shaped very much like a whale, with the fin divided for
+legs, the ears of a cat, and the arms of a windmill. "Here he is!"
+
+"He didn't look much like that," said Polly, laughing. "He had plenty
+of money of his own, and I tried to make him give me back a quarter;
+but do you believe he wouldn't, not even a ninepence? And when I
+teased him, that was the time he bit my arm."
+
+"He oughtn't to bitted your arm, course, indeed not!"
+
+"But, aunt Polly," faltered Dotty, whose efforts to forget the
+ten-cent piece had proved worse than useless, "but it didn't do Isaac
+any good to lose your money down a crack."
+
+"No, it was sheer mischief."
+
+"And if it doesn't do folks any good to lose things, you know, why,
+what's the use--to--to--go and get his own money to pay it back
+with?--Isaac I mean."
+
+"What do you say, Dotty Parlin? You, a child that goes to Sabbath
+school! Don't you know it is a sin to steal a pin? And if we lose or
+injure other people's things, and don't make it up to them, we're as
+good as thieves."
+
+"As good?"
+
+"As bad, then."
+
+"But s'posin'--s'posin' folks lose things when they _don't_ toss 'em
+up in the air, and don't mean to,--the wind, you know, or a kind of an
+accident, Miss Polly,--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"And s'posin' I didn't have any more money 'n I wanted myself, and
+Prudy had the most--H'm--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Then it isn't as bad as thieves; now is it? She's got the most.
+Prudy's older 'n I am--"
+
+"Honesty is honesty," said Miss Polly, firmly, "in young or old. If
+you've lost your sister's money, you must make it up to her."
+
+"O, must I, Miss Polly? Such a tinty-tonty mite of money as I've
+got,--only sixty-five cents."
+
+"Honesty is honesty," repeated Miss Polly, "in rich or poor."
+
+"Dear me! will my mother say so, too?"
+
+"Your mother is on the right side, Dotty. The Bible tells us to 'deal
+justly.' There's nothing said there about excusing poor folks."
+
+"O, dear! do you s'pose the Bible expects me to pay Prudy Parlin ten
+cents, when it just blew out of my hands, and didn't do me a speck of
+good?"
+
+"Why, Dotty, you surprise me! Any one would think you were brought up
+a heathen! If you were a small child I could understand it."
+
+"I knew I should have to do it," moaned Dotty.
+
+"I advise you to lose no time about it, then; that is the cause of
+your blues, I guess. We can't be happy out of the line of our duty,"
+sighed Miss Polly, who regarded herself as a pattern of cheerfulness.
+
+"I'll tell you what I'm going to do," said Dotty, resolutely; "I'm
+going right off to pay that money to Prudy, and then I'll be in the
+line of my duty."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+FULL NIPPERKIN.
+
+
+Prudy scorned to take the ten cents. "Did you think your 'middle-aged'
+sister would do such a thing, when she has more money than you have,
+Dotty Dimple? If you're only sorry, that's all I ask. I didn't like to
+have you laugh, as if you didn't care."
+
+"But, Prudy, I want to be honest."
+
+"And so you have been, dear child," said grandma Parlin, with an
+approving smile. "If Prudy chooses now to give you the money, receive
+it as a present, and say, 'Thank you.'"
+
+"O, thank you, Prudy Parlin, over and over, and up to the moon," cried
+Dotty, throwing her arms around her kind sister's neck. "I'll never
+lose anything of yours again; no, never, never!"
+
+This lesson was laid away on a shelf in Dotty's memory. Close beside
+it was another lesson, still more wholesome.
+
+"Dotty Dimple isn't the best girl that ever lived. She had to be
+talked to and talked to, before she was willing to do right. She isn't
+any better than Jennie Vance, after all. Why did she pray that naughty
+prayer, just to make Jennie feel bad? God must have thought it was
+very strange!"
+
+Grandma saw that Dotty's "blues" were dissolving like a morning mist;
+still she knew the child was in need of patchwork, and told her so.
+
+"Let us all take our work," said she, "and sit together in the
+nursery, so we may forget the dull weather."
+
+Grace brought her pique apron down stairs to make, Susy her tatting,
+Prudy a handkerchief, Dotty a square of patchwork, while Flyaway
+danced about for a needle and thread.
+
+"What a happy group!" said Mrs. Clifford, looking up from her sewing.
+She had forgotten Polly Whiting, who was mournfully toeing off a sock
+for Horace, while he sat on the floor, at her feet, mending her
+double-covered basket.
+
+"Why, Katie, darling," said Grace, "what are you doing with that
+beautiful ribbon?"
+
+"Aunt Louise said I might make a bag, Gracie--"
+
+"Seems to me aunt Louise lets you do everything; I shouldn't want you
+to spoil that ribbon."
+
+"They shan't bother my little Topknot," said Horace, with a sweep of
+his thumb. "She is going to have all my clothes to make bags of, when
+she grows up."
+
+Flyaway, who knew she had a good right to the ribbon, pressed her
+eyelids together slowly.
+
+"If I's Gracie," said she, severely, "I'd make aprons; if I's mamma
+I'd sew dresses; if I's Flywer, I'd do just's I want to."
+
+And then she went on sewing; without any thimble.
+
+"Girls, have you guessed yet why a wheelbarrow is like a potato?"
+
+"No, Horace; why is it?"
+
+"O, I was in hopes you could tell. I don't know, I am sure. It is as
+much as I can do to make up a conundrum, without finding out the
+answer."
+
+The children laughed at this, but none of them so loud as Flyaway,
+who thought her brother the wisest, wittiest, and noblest specimen of
+boyhood that ever lived.
+
+"How our needles do fly!" said Dotty, merrily.
+
+She was a neat and swift little seamstress, even superior to Prudy.
+
+"See," said Flyaway to Horace; "I work faster 'n my mamma, 'cause she's
+got a big dress to work on: of course she can't sew so quick as I can
+on a little bag."
+
+"Prudy can sew better and faster than I can," said Dotty, with a
+sudden gush of humility.
+
+"Why, Dotty Dimple, I don't think so," returned Prudy, quite
+surprised.
+
+"Neither do I," said aunt Maria; "I am afraid our little Dotty is
+hardly sincere."
+
+Dotty's head drooped a little. "I know it, auntie; I do sew the
+nicest; but I was afraid it wouldn't be polite if I told it just as it
+was, and Prudy so good to me, too."
+
+"If she is good, is that any reason why you should tell her a wrong
+story?" remarked the plain-spoken Susy, giving a twitch to her
+tatting-thread.
+
+"Children," said Mrs. Clifford, laughing, "do you remember those
+hideous green goggles I wore a year ago?"
+
+"O, yes 'm," replied Grace; "they made your eyes stick out so! Why,
+you looked like a frog, ma', more than anything else."
+
+"Well, a certain lady of my acquaintance was so polite as to tell me
+my goggles were very becoming."
+
+"O, ma, who could it have been?"
+
+"I prefer not to give you her name. I appreciated her kind wish to
+please me, but I could not think her sincere."
+
+"O, Susy," said Grace, "if you could have seen those goggles! A little
+basket for each eye, made of green wire, like a fly cover! Ma, did you
+ever believe a word that lady said afterwards?"
+
+"Flatterers are not generally to be trusted," replied Mrs. Clifford.
+"Flyaway, that is the fourth needle you have lost."
+
+Here was another lesson for Dotty's memory-shelf. "I must not say
+things that are not true, just to be polite. It is flattering and
+wicked; and besides that, people always know better."
+
+It was a quiet, busy, cheerful day. Dotty forgot to complain of the
+weather. Just before supper Flyaway jumped down from her grandpapa's
+knee, where she had been talking to him through his "conversation-tube,"
+and ran to the window.
+
+"Why, 'tisn't raining," cried she; "true's I'm walking on this floor
+'tisn't raining!"
+
+Dotty clapped her hands, and watched the sun coming out like pure
+gold, and turning the dark clouds into silver.
+
+"We were patient and willing for it to rain," said she; "but of course
+that wasn't why it cleared off."
+
+And it wasn't why Flyaway lost her thumb-nail, either. She lost
+that--or half of it--in the crack of the door. The poor little thumb
+was very painful, and had to be put in a cot.
+
+"It wearies me," said Flyaway; "it makes me afraid I shan't ever have
+a nail on there again."
+
+Her mother assured her she would. The same God who calls up the little
+blades of grass out of the ground could make a finger-nail grow.
+
+"Will He?" said Flyaway, smiling through tears; "but 'haps He'll
+forget how it looks. Musn't I save a piece of my nail, mamma, and lay
+it up on the shelf, so He can see it, and make the other one like it?"
+
+Mrs. Clifford put the nail in her jewel-box, and I dare say it may be
+there to this day.
+
+Just as Flyaway, in her nightie, was having a frolic with Grace, there
+was a sound of wheels. The stage, which Horace called the "Oriole"
+because it had a yellow breast, was rolling into the yard.
+
+"It's my mother--my mother," cried the three Parlins together.
+
+Yes, and who was that little girl getting down just after her? Her hat
+covered her eyes. "It isn't Tate Penny!" Why, to be sure it was! There
+was her dimpled chin; and if that wasn't proof enough, there was the
+wart on her thumb!
+
+To think such a glorious thing as this could happen to Dotty! and she
+not the best girl in the world either! A visit from her bosom friend!
+"Aunt 'Ria, do you understand? Aunt Louise? Gracie? This is _Tate
+Penny_!"
+
+"Who asked her to come? How did she happen to be with mamma, the same
+day, in the same cars?"
+
+Well, grandma Parlin invited her to come. "When one lives in an
+India-rubber house," she said, "a few people more or less make no
+difference at all. She wished Dotty's 'nipperkin' of happiness to be
+full for once."
+
+And it was: it ran over. There were joyful days for the next
+fortnight. I could never draw the picture of them with my pen, even if
+I had the paper left to put it on. They kept house under the trees;
+they baked their food in a brick oven Horace made; they gave a party;
+they had boat rides; they had swings; they never went into the house
+unless it rained; they were never cross to one another, or rude to
+Jennie Vance; it was like living in fairy-land.
+
+It was a glorious summer. I almost wish it had not come to an end;
+though, in that case, I suppose I should never have stopped telling
+about it. By and by vacation was over, and Tate went off in the same
+stage with the Parlins. You could never guess what she and Dotty each
+put so carefully into their bosoms, to keep "forever." It was a
+splinter of the dear old barn where they had had such good times
+jumping!
+
+Three weeks afterwards the "Oriole" drove up to grandpapa Parlin's
+again, and this time for the Cliffords. Flyaway danced into it like a
+piece of thistle-down. Everybody threw good-by kisses, and the stage
+rattled away.
+
+And after that, dears, as Flyaway will say to her grandchildren,
+"things went into a mist." And this is all I have to tell you about
+the Parlins, the Cliffords, and the Willowbrook home.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+DOTTY DIMPLE STORIES.
+
+To be completed in six vols. Handsomely Illustrated.
+Each vol., 75 cts.
+
+
+1. DOTTY DIMPLE AT HER GRANDMOTHER'S.
+2. DOTTY DIMPLE AT HOME.
+3. DOTTY DIMPLE OUT WEST.
+4. DOTTY DIMPLE AT PLAY.
+5. DOTTY DIMPLE AT SCHOOL.
+6. DOTTY DIMPLE'S FLYAWAY.
+
+
+BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
+
+LITTLE PRUDY STORIES.
+
+Now complete. Six vols. 24mo. Handsomely Illustrated.
+In a neat box. Per vol., 75 cts. Comprising
+
+
+LITTLE PRUDY.
+LITTLE PRUDY'S SISTER SUSIE.
+LITTLE PRUDY'S CAPTAIN HORACE.
+LITTLE PRUDY'S COUSIN GRACE.
+LITTLE PRUDY'S STORY BOOK.
+LITTLE PRUDY'S DOTTY DIMPLE.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Dotty Dimple's Flyaway, by Sophie May
+
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