PLAYING PRISONER.
I know how it happened, too. It came of eating sausages. Mrs. Rosenberg,
after she was fairly awake, felt so uncomfortable and oppressed that she
went up stairs to see if the children were safe. Really, I do suppose
those little human souls were precious to her, after all.
There lay Mandoline and Dotty side by side on the buffalo skins; and the
Jewish mother stood in her short night-dress, with a tallow candle in
her hand, and gazed at them tenderly. That horrible dream had stirred
the fountain of love in her heart They made a beautiful picture, and
there was no stain of evil in their young faces. It seems as if the
angel of Sleep flies away with loads of naughtiness, for he always
leaves sleeping children looking very innocent. But, alas! he brings
back next morning all he carried away, for the little ones wake up with
just as bad hearts as ever.
"What sweet little creeters!" said Mrs. Rosenberg, bending over and
kissing them both; "just like seraphims right out of the clouds."
Softly, madam! If a drop of tallow should fall on them from that candle,
they might take to themselves wings and fly away. That was what Cupid did
in the fairy story, and you are in fairy-land yourself, Mrs. Rosenberg;
you are still half asleep.
She looked at Mandoline's perfect little hand, lying outside the
patchwork quilt.
"It doesn't seem, now," murmured the mother, with a tear in her eye,
"that I could ever whack them pretty fingers with a thimble. I do believe
if I wasn't pestered to death with everything under the sun to do, I
might be kind o' half-way decent."
Perhaps the poor woman told the truth; I think she did.
Then, as she stood there, she breathed a little prayer without any
words,--not for herself--for she did not suppose God would hear
_that_,--but for her children that she "banged about" every day of
their lives.
She was not really a Jewess, for she had no religion of any sort, and
never went to church; but I am sure of one thing: little overworked
Mandoline would have loved her mother better if she had known she ever
prayed for her at all.
In the morning, Mrs. Rosenberg was just as hard and sharp as ever; she
could not stop to be pleasant. Dotty longed to get away; but she was an
exile from her own dear home; whither could she turn?
It was a cold morning, and the children ran down stairs half dressed and
shivering. Dotty spread out her stiff, red fingers before the
cooking-stove like the sticks of a fan. "O, hum!" thought she, drearily,
"I wish I could see the red coals in our grate. My mamma wouldn't let me
go to the table with such hair as this. Prudy'd say 'twas 'harum scarum.'
But I can't brush it with a tooth-comb, 'thout any glass--so there!"
Dotty's curly hair looked quite as respectable as Mandoline's. Mrs.
Rosenberg was far too busy to attend to her children's heads. They might
be rough on the outside, and full of mischief inside; but she could not
stop to inquire.
"What a dreadful nice breakfast!" remarked Judith, rubbing her hands,
and accidentally hitting little Jacob, who forthwith spilled some
molasses on the clean table-cloth, and had his ears boxed in consequence.
It was very evident that this meal was a much better one than usual--a
sort of festival in honor of Dotty Dimple: Dutch cheese and pickles,
mince-pie and gingerbread, pepper-boxes and green and yellow dishes, were
mixed up together as if they had been stirred about with a spoon.
Dotty had not intended to eat a mouthful; but after her light supper
of the night before, she was really hungry, and, in spite of her
best resolves, the fish-hash and corncake gradually disappeared from
her plate.
After breakfast she felt more resigned, and armed herself to meet her
fate. Mrs. Rosenberg graciously allowed Mandoline to lay aside her
tedious knitting, and give her undivided attention to her guest. Dotty
had no heart for play.
"Seems as if I should choke in this house," said she; "let's go out
and breathe."
The air inside the house was rather stifling from a mixture of odors, and
soon the grocery began to fill with loud-talking men and boys; but not
the least of Dotty's troubles was the black and tan dog, who seemed to
have just such a temper as Mrs. Rosenberg, and would certainly have
scolded if he had had the gift of speech.
The two little girls went out to walk; but it was not a pleasant street
where the grocery stood, and Dotty hurried on to a better part of the
town. They fluttered about for two or three hours, as aimless as a couple
of white butterflies. Just as they were turning to go back to the dismal
little grocery, which Dotty thought was more like a lock-up than ever,
they met Mr. and Mrs. Parlin riding out in a carriage.
[Illustration: DOTTY AND THE BLACK-AND-TAN DOG.]
Dotty felt a sudden tumult of joy and shame, but the joy was uppermost.
She rushed headlong across the street, swinging her arms and startling
the horse, who supposed she was some new and improved kind of windmill,
dressed up in a little girl's clothes.
"O, my darling mamma, my darling mamma!"
To her surprise, the horse did not stop. He only pricked up his ears, and
looked with displeasure at the windmill, but kept along as before.
"Mamma, mamma, I say!"
Her mother never even looked at her, but turned her gaze to the blackened
trees, the heaps of ruin along the pavement.
"O; papa! O, stop, papa! It's me! It's Dotty!"
Mr. Parlin bent on his runaway daughter a glance of indifference, and
called out, in passing,--
"What strange little girl is this, who seems to know us so well? It
_looks_ like my daughter Alice. If it is, she needn't come to my house
to-day; she may go and finish her visit at Mrs. Rosenberg's."
Then the horse trotted on,--indeed, he had never paused a moment,--and
carried both those dear, dear people out of sight.
What did they mean? What had happened to Dotty Dimple, that her own
father and mother did not know her?
She looked down at the skirt of her dress, at her gaiters, at her little
bare hands, to make sure no wicked fairy had changed her. Not that she
suspected any such thing. She understood but too well what her father
and mother meant. They knew her, but had not chosen to recognize her,
because they were displeased.
Dotty's little heart, the swelling of which had net gone down at all
during the night, now ached terribly. She covered her face with her
hands, and groaned aloud.
"Don't," said Mandoline, touched with pity. "They no business to
treat you so."
"O, Lina, don't you talk! You don't know anything about it. You never had
such a father'n mother's they are! And now they won't let me come into
the house!"
This wail of despair would have melted Mrs. Parlin if she could have
heard it. It was only because she thought it necessary to be severe that
she had consented to do as her husband advised, and turn coldly away
from her dear little daughter. Dotty was a loving child, in spite of her
disobedience, and this treatment was almost more than she could bear. She
found no consolation in talking with Lina, for she knew Lina could not
understand her feelings.
"She hasn't any Susy and Prudy at her house, nor no _anything_" thought
Dotty. "If I lived with Mrs. Rosenberg and that dog, I'd want to be
locked out; I'd ask if I couldn't. But, O, my darling mamma! I've been
naughty too many times! When I'd been naughty fifty, sixty, five hundred
times, then she forgave me; but now she can't forgive me any more; it
isn't possible."
Dotty staggered against a girl who was drawing a baby-carriage, but
recovered herself.
"It isn't possible to forgive me any more. She told me not to go on the
water, and I went. She told me not to have temper, and I had it. Every
single thing she's told me not to do, I always went and did it. She said,
'I do not wish you to play with Lina Rosenberg;' and then I went right
off and played with her. I didn't have a bit good time; but that's
nothing. She hided my hat--Lina did; but if I'd gone home, straight home,
and not gone to her house, then she couldn't have hided it.
"I was naughty; I was real naughty; I was as naughty as King Herod and
King Pharaoh. Nobody'll ever love me. I'm a poor _orphanless_ child! I've
got a father'n mother, but it's just the same as if I didn't, for they
won't let me call 'em by it. O, they didn't die, but they won't be any
father'n mother to ME!
"'What strange little girl is this?' that's what my papa said. '_ Looks_
like my daughter Alice!' O, I wish I could die!"
"Come, come," said Lina; "let's go home. Mother said you and I might have
some macaroni cakes and lager beer, if we wouldn't let the rest of 'em
see us at it."
"I don't care anything about your _locker_ beer, Lina Rosenberg, nor your
whiskey and tobacco pipes, either. Nor neither, nor nothing," added the
desolate child, standing "stock still," with the back of her head against
a pile of bricks, her eyes closed, and her hands folded across her bosom.
"There, there; you're a pretty sight now, Dotty Dimple! What if you
should freeze so! Come along and behave."
"I can't, I can't!"
"If you don't, Dotty, I'll have to go into that barber's shop. I know the
man, and I'll make him carry you home _piggerback_"
"Well, if I've got to go, I'll go," said Dotty, rousing herself,
and starting; "but I'd rather be dead, over'n over; and wish I was;
so there!"