PLAYING TRUANT.
For several days after her return Dotty Dimple was in a state of jubilee.
She had a great deal to tell, and the whole household was ready to
listen. Norah would stand with a dish or a rolling-pin in her hand, and
almost forget what she had intended to do in her desire to hear every
word Miss Dotty was saying.
Once, when she related her adventure with the pigeon-pie, grandma Read,
who was clear-starching her caps, let the starch boil over on the stove;
and at another time Mrs. Parlin was so much absorbed in a description of
Phebe, that she almost spiced a custard with cayenne pepper.
All these evidences of interest were very flattering to Dotty. Sometimes
she took Prudy one side, and told her the same story twice over, to which
Prudy always listened with unfailing politeness. As I said before, while
this excitement lasted Miss Dimple was in a state of jubilee. But by and
by the novelty wore off; she had told the family everything she could
possibly think of, and now longed for a few pairs of fresh ears into
which to pour her stories. Everybody else was working for Christmas;
Dotty alone was idle; for no one had time to give her a daily stint, and
see that she accomplished it.
"After the holidays I shall have to go to school; so now is my time to
play," said she to herself, "and I ought to play every minute, as tight
as I can spring."
But she tried so hard to be happy that the effort was really very
tiresome. If she had only had something to do, I am almost sure she would
not have fallen into the misfortune which I am about to record.
One day her mother sent her to a worsted store to pattern some worsteds.
A girl behind the counter gave her the right shades, and she slowly
started for home. It was about four o'clock of a November day. Dotty,
glancing idly at the sky, saw that the sun was already getting low.
"How queer it is!" thought she; "it seems as if the sun grows sleepy very
early nowadays, and goes to bed right in the middle of the afternoon.
Well, I declare, if there isn't Lina Rosenberg!"
The beautiful little Jewess was just turning an opposite corner, and, as
usual, the sight of her face bewitched Dotty in a minute.
[Illustration: LINA ROSENBERG INVITES DOTTY TO HER HOUSE.]
"O, Lina Rosenberg, come over here! How do you do?"
"I'm very well, Dotty: how do YOU do? Only I wish you wouldn't call
me a BUG!"
"Well, then, Lina, you mustn't have bugs in your name if you don't want
to be called by 'em. Did you know I'd been Out West?"
"No; you haven't, Dotty Dimple!"
"Yes, I have; you may ask my father. I kept my own ticket right in my
glove, and took 'most the whole care of myself. Went to the Blind 'Sylum;
found a pearl in an oyster; been 'way down in a coal mine; and--and--"
"Come to my house, won't you, and tell me all about it?" said Lina
Rosenberg, looking as beguiling as possible, and taking Dotty's
unresisting hand.
Dotty knew very well that her mother would never allow her to go to
Lina's house; but she did not like to say that, and she only replied,--
"I've matched my worsteds, and now I must go home."
"O, you can go home afterwards. My mother said to me to-day, 'Do you
bring Dotty Dimple home to supper this very night. She'll be so glad to
see you!'"
Dotty gave another glance at the sky, then one at the city clock.
"What time do you drink tea, Lina?"
"At five, 'most always."
Dotty had long felt a great curiosity about the domestic affairs of the
Jews; and here was an unexpected opportunity to sit down at the very
table with them. She had an invitation from the head of the family, and
that was something which did not happen every day. She could go home any
time afterwards; for their own tea-hour was not till half past six.
"I'll walk along with you a little way, Lina, and think it over."
It was true Mrs. Parlin did not approve of Mandoline or any of her
family; but Dotty thought she would forget that, just for once.
"O, dear! I keep thinking how my mamma said, 'I do not wish you to
play with Lina Rosenberg!' Now I can 'most always forget easy enough;
but when I TRY to forget, it says itself over and over--and I remember
just as hard!"
As they turned another corner they met Susy, who had been sent to the
dye-house.
"Why, Dotty," said she, "what are you doing on that street?"
Lina spoke up very boldly,--
"She's going to the doctor's with me, Susy Parlin, to get a plaster for
my mother."
At this wicked speech Dotty's heart almost sank into her boots; for she
had never known before that Lina would tell a deliberate lie.
Lina lived in a little grocery store. Her father was gone away to-day,>
and her mother had just served a customer with a pound of damp brown
sugar, saying, as she clipped the string,--
"It's very cheap sweetening at that price; we are going to rise on it
to-morrow."
After that she stood a minute in front of the store, and shook her
head at Jacob, a little boy, some three years old, who was trying to
balance a patent washboard against a tree which grew out of the brick
pavement. It was a large, scrawny tree, which looked as if it was
obliged to live there, but didn't want to, and had tried in vain to
get burnt up in the Portland fire. From the lower branches of the
tree depended a couple of dun-colored hams, and a painted board, with
the words, "Good Family Butter."
"Come in, Jacob, you naughty boy!" said Mrs. Rosenberg, this time shaking
him, because she was afraid he would injure the patent wash-board. Then
Jacob, who had been waiting for the shaking, and would not stir without
it, went in at the side door crying; for the family lived in one end of
the store.
Mrs. Rosenberg had a great many children, and was obliged to work very
hard at various employments. Just now she went to spreading pumpkin-seeds
to dry under the stove. She was not expecting company; and when Mandoline
entered with Dotty, she looked up from her work with a frown.
"Who've you brought home with you this time, Mandoline Rosenberg?" said
she. "Take off your hat and hang it over them tommatuses; but mind yer
don't drop it into that dish of lard."
"Mother," pleaded Mandoline, "we want to go up chamber to see my pretty
things; her mother sent her a-purpose."
"No, she didn't; no such a thing! You're a master hand to pick up
children and fetch 'em home here, and then crawl out of it by lying!
Besides, you've got to knit. I must have those socks done by to-morrow
noon, Mandy, or I'll know the reason why."
As Mrs. Rosenberg spoke, she pushed a waiter full of seeds under the
stove as if she hated the very sight of them; and when she stood up
again, Dotty observed that her dirty calico dress did not come anywhere
near the tops of her calf-skin shoes.
"But, mother," said Mandoline, with a winning smile, "this is Dotty
Dimple, the little girl that gave me the needle-book."
This was partly true. Dotty had given Mandoline an old needle-book; but
it had been in return for some maple sugar, which the little Jewess had
pilfered from her father's store.
"Dotty Dimple, is it?" said Mrs. Rosenberg, with a sharp look at the
little guest.
"I don't know now any better than I did before. That's a name for a
doll-baby; I should say."
"Alice Parlin, mother."
"Is it? O, well; you may take her up stairs out of my way; but mind, you
must knit every minute you're gone."
Dotty was greatly abashed by this reception, and would have rushed out of
the house, but Mandoline held her fast.
"You shan't go a step," said she, "I'll hide your hat."
So Dotty, under peril of going home bareheaded, was obliged to creep up
the rickety staircase with Mandoline. She likened her feelings on the
occasion to those of a person whom "the mayor is putting in the lockup."
Indeed, the "lock-up" was Dotty's dream of all the horrors, and she had
no doubt it was the mayor himself who always stood with his hands
outstretched, ready to thrust wicked people into it.
The chamber which the little girls entered was an unfinished one, and
from the rafters hung paper bags of dried herbs; for, besides being a
housekeeper and clerk, Mrs. Rosenberg was something of a doctress withal,
and made "bitters" for her particular friends.
"Sit down here on the bed, Dotty Dimple, and look at my paper dolls,"
said Lina, producing from under a disjointed chair, an old cigar box full
of paper heroes and heroines. Mandoline was an artist in he! way, and
these figures were clad in the most brilliant costumes of silver and
gold. Dotty was dazzled. Never before had it been her lot to see such
magnificent dolls,--dolls which shone so in the sun; every one of them a
king or a queen, and fit to wear a crown.
"O, Lina," sighed she, in ecstasy, "where _do_ you get your silver
and gold?"
"Tease for it," replied the little Jewess.
Dotty knew, to her own sorrow, that Lina was capable of teasing. It was
hard to keep so much as an apple or a peppermint away from her if she
happened to set her heart on it.
"I'll give you twenty dolls," said Lina, "if you'll let me have your
ring; and it isn't a very pretty ring, either; looks like brass."
Dotty locked her fingers together.
"You can't tease away my owny dony pearl, Lina, if it _is_ brass; so you
needn't try."
"Mandoline!" called out Mrs. Rosenberg's sharp voice from down stairs,
"are you at work?"
"O, dear!" said Lina, sauntering along to an old chest, and taking her
knitting from the top of it; "that's always the way. I thought if you
came, mother'd let me play."
Dotty understood from this remark why Lina had asked her to go home with
her. It was not because she wished to hear any of Dotty's brilliant
stories, for she had not asked a single question about Out West; it was
because she hoped for a reprieve from the dreaded knitting.
"She's a real naughty little girl," thought Miss Dimple; "and if she
hadn't hided my hat, I'd go right home."
There was a heavy tread on the stairs. Mrs. Rosenberg was coming up,
partly to see if her daughter was knitting, and partly to hang a paper
bag on the long pole overhead. Mandoline was dreadfully afraid of her
mother, and, in her eagerness to be found hard at work, she rattled her
needles very fast, while her fingers wandered aimlessly about among the
stitches. Mrs. Rosenberg detected the cheat at once; and, as she was
needing the money for the socks, she scolded Mandoline soundly, and
pelted her pretty little hands, rat, tat, tat, with a steel thimble.
Dotty was a little startled, and peeped out at Lina from the corners of
her eyes. Mrs. Rosenberg scolded so hard that the paper bags overhead
seemed to rattle, and some yellow pollen dropped out of one of them like
shooting stars.
Dotty had never known that there are such cruel people in the world; but
let me tell you, little reader, every mother is not like the gentle,
low-voiced woman who takes you in her lap, and kindly reproves you when
you have done wrong. No; there are very different mothers; hard-working,
ignorant ones, who do not know how to treat their children any more than
you know how to build a brick house.
Mrs. Rosenberg was so severe and unreasonable, that her little daughter,
through fear of her, had learned to deceive. Still Mrs. Rosenberg loved
Mandoline, and would have been a better mother, perhaps, if she had only
known how, and had not had so much work to do.
Presently she went down stairs, and left the little girls together.
"Good!" said Lina, in a low voice. "She's gone; now we'll play."
"But you can't knit if you play, Lina. Tell me where you hided my hat,
'cause I want to go home."
"You shan't go home till after supper, you little darling Dotty Dimple."
"O, but I must go, for my mother doesn't know where I am," said Dotty, in
a dreary tone. She had no longer any curiosity regarding Jewish suppers;
all she wanted was the liberty to get away. But it is always easier to
fall into a trap than to get out of it. Mandoline would not produce the
missing hat, and it was no light matter for Dotty to go down stairs,
among the noisy, quarrelsome children, and beg the severe Mrs. Rosenberg
to take her part. If she did so, perhaps the woman would pelt her with
the steel thimble. Perhaps, too, she would say Mandoline might keep the
hat. So Dotty played "synagogue," and all the while the sun was dropping
down, down the sky, as if it had a leaden weight attached to it, to make
it go faster.