THE BONE MAN.
In spite of all Mr. Parlin had said against it, his little daughter was
called by various pet names,--such as Midge, and Ladybird, and
Forget-me-not. Very few were the people who seemed to remember that her
name was Alice.
She had a pair of busy dimples, which were a constant delight to her
sisters.
"They twinkle, twinkle like little stars, only they don't shine," cried
Prudy.
"Why," said Susy, "it's just as if her cheeks were made of water, and
we were skipping pebbles in 'em."
And because of these tiny whirl pools, the child was usually called
Dotty Dimple. From the time she could stand on her own little feet, she
was a queen of a baby, and carried her small head very high. If she
chanced to fall over a chair she seldom shed a tear, but thought the
chair had treated her shamefully, and ought to be shut up in the closet.
She never liked to have any one kiss her little bruises and pity her. It
gave great offence if any one said, "Poor Alice!" She seemed to grow
half a head taller in a minute, and looked as if she would say, "Needn't
make a baby o' _me_!"
Not that she really said so. Talking was a thing she did not often
attempt, though she sang a great deal, with a voice as clear as a flute.
Prudy mourned because her tongue "did not grow fast enough." But where
was the need of speech? If she fancied she would like to be tossed to
the "sky of the room," she had only to pat her father's arm, and point
upward, and the next minute she was flying to the ceiling, in high glee,
and catching her breath. If she wished to go walking, it was enough to
point to the door, and then to her hat. Her little forefinger was as
good as most people's tongues, and served as a tolerably good
guide-post, for it pointed the way she meant to go herself, and the way
she wished others to go.
One day, while Mrs. Parlin was making currant jelly, she allowed Prudy
to stay in the kitchen, and see her strain the beautiful crimson juice.
But as for Alice, she had been found pounding eggs in a mortar, and must
be taken away. She was placed in care of Susy, who led her out upon the
piazza, where she could watch the people passing by. "_Pedadder!_" cried
Alice, showing her dimples. "Yes, _piazza_; so it is," said careless
Susy, beginning to read a fairy story, and soon forgetting her quiet
little charge.
Looking up at last, there was nothing to be seen of Alice. She could not
have entered the house, for the front-door knob was above her reach.
Susy ran out upon the pavement, and looked up and down the street.
Which way to go she could not tell, but started down street at full
speed. "O, I'm sure I ought to be going _up street_," gasped she; "and
if I was, I shouldn't think _that_ was right either. Wish I knew which
way I should _expect_ Dotty to go, and then I'd know she'd gone just the
other way."
After flitting hither and thither for some time, Susy ran home to give
the alarm. Without stopping to remove the jelly from the stove, Mrs.
Parlin, Norah, and Prudy ran out of doors, and taking different
directions, started in search of the missing child.
On High Street Prudy met a soap-man, just reentering his wagon at some
one's door.
"O, have you seen my little sister?" cried Prudy, pressing her hand
against her heart.
"Your little sister? And who may that be?" said the soap-man, in a deep
whisper; for he had such a severe cold on his lungs that for six months
he had not spoken a loud word.
"O, her name is Alice Wheelbarrow Parlin, sir," whispered Prudy, in
reply; "and she had on a pink dress, and her hair curls down her neck,
and she has the brightest eyes, and two years and a half of age, sir. O,
where _do_ you s'pose she's gone to?"
In her concern for Dotty, Prudy had forgotten her usual fear of
strangers.
"I'm sorry you've lost your sister," whispered the soap-man; "but as you
seem to be pretty well tired out, suppose you jump into my cart and
ride with me."
Prudy wondered why the man still kept whispering, but presumed there was
some reason why the loss of Dotty aught to be kept secret. She looked at
the long lumber-wagon, partly filled with barrels, and was on the point
of replying, "No, thank you, sir," when a bright idea occurred to her.
"Do you s'pose, sir, I can get to my sister any quicker if I ride?"
"Well, can't say as to that, my dear," whispered the soap-man, shoving a
barrel to one side, "seeing as I don't know where your sister's to be
found; but there's one thing certain--you'll get over the ground a good
deal quicker riding than you would on your feet. I'm going to Pearl
Street before I stop."
"Then I'll ride, sir, if you'll please lift me in," whispered poor
Prudy, trembling with fear of the uncouth wagon and strange man, yet
resolved to risk anything for Dotty's sake.
There was no seat in the wagon, and Prudy was obliged to stand up.
"Hold on to me, sissy," said the kind-hearted soap-boiler. "I reckon you
ain't used to riding in this kind of shape. Why, lawful sakes, your face
is as white as a pond-lily!"
"It's my heart," whispered Prudy, faintly; "it _whisks_ just like the
eggs Norah beats in a bowl. But it's no matter, sir; I don't think I'm
afraid,--or only a little speck," added she, in a lower whisper; for,
though anxious to be polite, she did not mean to tell anything but the
"white truth."
The little girl's gentle ways won the soap-boiler's heart at once.
"What's your fathers name, little dear?" inquired he, as they went
clattering through the streets.
"His name is Mr. Edward Parlin.--But O, I don't see a single thing of
Dotty!"
"Dotty! Why, who is Dotty?" asked the man, turning about, and gazing at
his little passenger with a look of curiosity.
"Why, Mr.--, why, _sir_, don't you know?" replied the child, struck with
a sudden fear that her strange companion was a crazy man. "O, my stars!
don't you know what you took me up for? Didn't you hear? My little
sister ran off the piazza." Then Prudy repeated the words aloud, slowly
and on a high key, anxious this time to make her meaning very clear.
"She--ran--off--the--piazza, with a pink dress on, sir, and not a
speck--of--a--hat. And I was stirring jelly on the stove, and never knew
it till she was lost and gone. And we're all hunting,--me, and--mother,
and--all. I thought you knew, sir; but if you didn't I guess I'd better
get out!"
The good-natured soap-man shook with laughter. "Excuse me, little miss,"
said he, "but the fact is, I understood you to say your sister's name
was Alice Wheelbarrow Parlin, and that's why I was puzzled to know who
you meant by Dotty.--But here we are at Pearl Street. Here, in this
house, lives one of my best customers. Now, if you like, I'll lift you
out, and you can go with me and inquire for your little sister. Then you
can ride again, for I'm going as far as Munjoy."
So saying, the man took Prudy out in his arms. She knew it was rather
odd for a little girl like her to be going around to people's back doors
with a stranger in a blue blouse; but it was all for Dotty's sake.
The man knocked with the handle of his whip, and a neat-looking servant
girl appeared.
"Have you seen anything of a stray child?" was his first question.
"My little sister," cried Prudy, in breathless haste. "She had on a pink
dress, and curls bareheaded."
"We have seen no such child pass this way," replied the girl, civilly.
Prudy's eager face fell.
"I supposed likely as not you hadn't," said the soap-man; "so now we'll
proceed to business. You see I'm here with my wagon and barrels, and I
suppose you perceive that I've come for your bones!"
These whispered words fell on Prudy's ears with terrible force. A vague
terror seized her. "_I've come for your bones!_" What could he mean? Was
he an ogre, right out of a fairy-book? What did he want of that poor
woman's bones?
Without stopping to think twice, Prudy ran off with trembling haste, and
by the time the astonished soap-boiler missed her she had reached
Congress Street, and was still running.
The first thing she saw, as she entered her own door, was the fluttering
of Dotty's pink dress. The runaway was safe and sound. She had only
toddled off after a man with a basket of images, calling out, "baa,
baa," "moo, moo," "bow-wow." The end of it was, that the image man had
given her a toy lamb, for which she had said, "How do," instead of thank
you; and Florence Eastman had led her home.
Susy was heartily ashamed of her heedlessness.
"Now, mother," said she, "do you think, if I should be kept on bread and
water for a whole day, I should learn to remember? You'll never trust
Dotty with me again."
"Ah," said Mrs. Parlin, with a meaning smile; "the trouble is, Susy,
you've made up your mind that your memory is good for nothing: you
_expect_ to forget! I _shall_ trust you again, and you must fully
resolve to do better."
Dotty was very proud of her "baa, baa," and insisted upon putting it in
her bathing tub every morning, and scrubbing it with her own hands.
Everybody laughed at Prudy's wild story of the soap-boiler.
"We were tired, my feet and I," said she, between laughing and crying;
"but I never'd have rode with that whispering man if I'd known he was a
_bone man_!"