DOLLY'S PERPLEXITIES.
Dolly went to bed that night, her little soul surging and boiling
with conjecture. All day scraps of talk about the election had
reached her ears; her nerves had been set vibrating by the tones of
her father's prayer, some words of which yet rung in her ear--tones
of passionate pleading whose purport she could scarcely comprehend.
What was this dreadful thing that had happened or was going to
happen? She heard her brother Will emphatically laying off the
state of the case to Nabby in the kitchen, and declaring that "the
Democrats were going to upset the whole State, for father said so."
Exactly what this meant, Dolly could not conceive; but, coupled with
her mother's sorrowful face and her father's prayer, it must mean
something dreadful. Something of danger to them all might be at hand,
and she said her "pray God to bless my dear father and mother" with
unusual fervor.
Revolving the matter on her pillow, she had a great mind, the next
time she met General Lewis with his smiling face, to walk boldly up
to him and remonstrate, and tell him to let her papa alone and not
upset the State!
Dolly had a great store of latent heroism and felt herself quite
capable of making a courageous defense of her father--and her heart
swelled with a purpose to stand by him to the last gasp, no matter
what came.
But sleep soon came down with her downy wings, and the great blue
eyes were closed, and Dolly knew not a word more till waked by the
jingling of sleigh bells and the creaking of sleds at early sunrise.
She sprang up, dressed quickly, and ran to the window. Evidently the
State had _not_ been upset during the night, for the morning was
clear, bright and glorious as heart could desire.
The rosy light of morning filled the air, the dreary snow wreaths lay
sparkling in graceful lines with tender hues of blue and lilac and
pink in their shadows, and merry sleigh bells were ringing and the
boys were out snow-balling each other in mere wantonness of boy life,
while Spring was barking frantically, evidently resolved to be as
frisky a boy as any of them.
[Illustration: HIEL IN HIS GLORY.
_"And wasn't you running to look at him?" asked Dolly._
_"Land o' Goshen, no!" said Nabby. "I jest wanted to see----well,
them horses he's got." ... "Oh" said Dolly._--p. 109.]
The fears and apprehensions of last night were all gone like a cloud,
and she hurried down into the kitchen to find Nabby stirring up her
buckwheat batter, and running to the window to see Hiel go by on
the stage, kissing his hand to her as he passed.
"I declare! the imperence of that cretur," said Nabby.
"What, Hiel?" asked Dolly.
"Yes, Hiel Jones! he's the conceitedest fellow that ever I did see.
You can't look out of a window but he thinks your running to look at
_him_."
"And wasn't you running to look at him?" asked Dolly.
"Land o' Goshen, no! What should I want to look at _him_ for? I jest
wanted to see--well, them horses he's got."
"Oh," said Dolly.
Upon reflection she added,
"I thought you liked Hiel, Nabby."
"You thought I liked Hiel?" said Nabby laughing. "What a young 'un!
Why, I can't bear the sight of him," and Nabby greased her griddle
with combative energy. "He's the saassiest fellow I ever see. _I cant
bear him!_"
Dolly reflected on this statement gravely, while Nabby dropped on the
first griddleful of cakes; finally she said,
"If you don't like Hiel, Nabby, what made you sit up so late with him
Christmas night?"
"Who said I did?" said Nabby, beginning to turn griddle-cakes with
velocity.
"Why, Will and Tom; they both say so. They heard when Hiel went out
the kitchen door, and they counted the clock striking twelve just as
he went. Will says he kissed you, too, Nabby. Did he?"
"Well, if ever I see such young 'uns!" said Nabby, flaming carnation
color over the fire as she took off the cakes. "That Bill is saassy
enough to physic a hornbug. I never see the beat of him!"
"But did Hiel stay so late, Nabby?"
"Well, yes, to be sure he did. I thought I never should have got him
out of the house. If I hadn't let him kiss me I believe in my soul
I'd a had to set up with him till morning; he said he wouldn't go
without. I've been mad at him ever since. I told him never to show
his face here again; but I know he'll come. He does it on purpose to
plague me."
"That is dreadful!" said Dolly, meditatively. "I wouldn't let him.
I'll tell you what," she added, with animation, "_I'll_ talk to him
and tell him he mustn't come here any more. Sha'n't I, Nabby?"
But Nabby laughed and said, "No, no; little girls mustn't talk so.
Don't you never say nothin' to Hiel about it; if you do I won't tell
you no more. Here, carry in this plate o' cakes, for they're eatin'
breakfast. I heard your pa askin' blessin' just after you came down.
You carry these in while I get on the next griddleful."
Dolly assumed her seat at table, but there again the trouble met her.
Her father and mother were talking together with sad, anxious faces.
"It is a most mysterious dispensation why this is allowed," said her
mother.
"Yes, my dear, 'clouds and darkness are round about Him,' but we must
have faith."
Here Spring varied the discourse by putting his somber black visage
over Dolly's arm and resting his nose familiarly on the table,
whereat she couldn't help giving him the half of a griddle-cake.
"How many times must I tell you, Dolly, that Spring is never to be
fed at the table?" said her mother. "I love dogs," she added, "but it
spoils them to be fed at table."
"Why, papa does it sometimes," pleaded Tom.
Mrs. Cushing was obliged to confess to the truth of this, for the
doctor when pursuing the deeper mazes of theology was sometimes so
abstracted that his soul took no note of what his body was doing,
and he had been more than once detected in giving Spring large
rations under the table while expounding some profound mysteries of
foreknowledge and free will.
Tom's remark was a home-thrust, but his mother said, reprovingly:
"Your father never means to do it; but he has so much to do and think
of that he is sometimes absent-minded."
A conscious twinkle might have been observed playing about the blue
eyes of the doctor, and a shrewd observer might have surmised that
the offense was not always strictly involuntary, for the doctor,
though a most docile and tractable husband, still retained here
and there traces of certain wild male instincts and fell at times
into singular irregularities. He had been known to upset all Mrs.
Cushing's nicely arranged yarn-baskets and stocking-baskets and
patch-baskets, pouring the contents in a heap on the floor, and
carrying them off bodily to pick up chestnuts in, when starting off
with the children on a nutting expedition. He would still persist at
intervals in going to hunt eggs in the barn with Dolly, and putting
the fruits of the search in his coat-tail pocket, though he had once
been known to sit down on a pocketful at a preparatory lecture, the
bell for which rung while he was yet on the hay-mow.
On this occasion, therefore, Spring made an opportune diversion in
the mournful turn the conversation was taking. The general tone of
remark became slightly admonitory on the part of Mrs. Cushing and
playfully defensive on the part of the doctor. In their "heart of
heart" the boys believed their father sometimes fed Spring when
he _did_ know what he was about, and this belief caused constant
occasional lapses from strict statute law on their part.
That morning, in prayers, their father read: "God is our refuge and
strength, a very present help in time of trouble. Therefore will
we not fear, though the earth be removed; though the mountains be
carried into the midst of the sea;" and at those verses he stopped
and said: "There, my dear, there must be our comfort." And then they
sung:
"Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home."
Then in prayer he plead for the Church--the Church of God, the vine
of his planting--and said:
"When the enemy cometh in like a flood, may Thy spirit lift up a
standard against them;" and again Dolly trembled and wondered. But
after prayers Bill suddenly burst back into the house.
"Oh! mamma, there _is_ a bluebird! Spring is come!"
"A bluebird! Impossible so early in March. You must be mistaken."
"No. Come to the door; you can hear him just as plain!"
And, sure enough, on the highest top of the great button-ball tree
opposite the house sat the little blue angel singing with all his
might--a living sapphire dropped down from the walls of the beautiful
city above. A most sanguine and imprudent bluebird certainly he must
have been, though the day was so lovely and the great icicles on
the eaves of the house were actually commencing to drip. But there
undoubtedly he was--herald and harbinger of good days to come.
"It is an omen," said the doctor, as he put his arms fondly round his
wife. "The Lord liveth, and blessed be our rock!"
And the boys and Dolly ran out, shouting wildly,
"There's been a bluebird. Spring is coming--spring is coming!"