DOTTY AND LINA.
When Dotty reached home her eyes were blazing. A few tears would have
quenched their fire, but she had not the “gift of tears.” She ran all
over the house to find her mother, and tell the story of the screw-up
pencil; but Mrs. Parlin had gone out, and did not return till tea was
ready. By that time Dotty was calmer, and her father only observed that
her cheeks were unusually red.
“Well, chickie, how have things gone with you to-day? You have not had
very good lessons, I fancy.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Dotty, in an excited tone. “I didn’t miss but one
word, and that was the teacher’s fault; she put out ‘saw,’ but didn’t
say whether it was ‘I saw John,’ or a thing to chop wood with; so _of
course_, I spelled it s-e-w!”
Mr. Parlin laughed.
“Miss Parker should be more careful how she puts out words. Is it not
surprising how everybody contrives to cheat my little daughter, while
she herself so seldom makes mistakes?”
Dotty did not see that her papa was joking, and feeling very much
pleased with his remarks, she was about to pour out the story of her
trials, when Prudy said,--
“‘Saw? saw?’ Is that a preposition, papa, or an adverb?”
Mr. Parlin laughed again, and remarked to his wife that he thought
their children were “growing very learned.”
“Prudy,” said he, “you are attending the grammar school. Do you study
grammar?”
“Yes, sir, and like it ever so much,” replied Prudy, brightly.
“Do you know what a verb is?”
“O, yes, sir; it’s a word that signifies to be, to act, or to be acted
upon,” was the parrot-like reply.
“Very well. Now can you tell me what is the verb in this sentence:
‘John struck James with a big stick.’”
“O, yes, papa--_big stick_.”
“Indeed! Why so?”
“O, sir, because the stick was what he did it with. P’raps he wouldn’t
have dared strike him at all if he hadn’t had any stick!”
“O, what an idea!” cried wise Susy.
But her father and mother were not at all disturbed by Prudy’s
ignorance, and did not even try to set her right. In fact, they
thought she was too young to study grammar.
“But all this while we have not heard from Dotty,” said Mrs. Parlin;
“she began to speak a little while ago, and some of us interrupted her.”
“O, nothing, mamma, only Lina Rosenbug’s been stealing!”
“Stealing, Dotty!”
“Yes’m; my screw-up pencil.”
“Are you perfectly sure?”
“Yes, mamma; my pocket was next to her, and there’s where I put my
pencil.”
“Wait a minute,” said Mr. Parlin. “Your pocket’s being next to a person
doesn’t prove that that person has put his hand in it.”
“But if she didn’t, papa, who did?”
“I don’t know, my daughter; perhaps nobody. How would you like it if
Lina should say she knew you stole her mittens, just because they
happened to be hanging on a nail beside your cloak?”
“But, papa, I shouldn’t want to steal her mittens; they’re all full of
holes!”
Mr. Parlin said nothing more just then. It was so hard to reason with
the little girl, that one was obliged to choose one’s words with care.
“In the very first place, Dotty,” said her mother, “do you know you
have lost the pencil? Perhaps it is laid away in a book, or in your
desk, or there may be a hole in your pocket.”
“No, mamma; it isn’t anywhere at all, for I’ve looked in all those
places, and there’s no hole in my pocket, either. Lina was the one that
took it, ’cause she liked that pencil.”
“Be careful, Dotty.”
“O, I’m very careful. I just know she did it; and Mrs. Rosenbug
wouldn’t mind if she did.”
“Dotty, I cannot allow you to talk so.”
“Well, then, I won’t; but I went there once, and staid all night,
mamma, and that’s how I know about Mrs. Rosenbug and the dog. But I
couldn’t make her say she did it; she kept saying she never. I devised
her to give it right back. I told her I’d tell my papa, and when the
mayor took her to the jurymens, _then_ how’d she feel!”
“Why, Dotty, did you talk so to Lina?”
“O, I didn’t say much, mamma; only told her she was an awful, wicked,
horrid girl; and oughtn’t I to say so, you know? for it’s the black and
blue truth, mamma, and you wouldn’t want me to tell a lie!”
Dotty’s tongue was running at such a rate that it must be stopped at
once.
“You may go up stairs, Dotty, and get your grandmother’s knitting;
but do not let us hear another word about your pencil to-night.”
[Illustration: THE SCREW-UP PENCIL.--Page 81.]
After Dotty had gone to bed and forgotten her great wrong in a
refreshing sleep, Mrs. Parlin went into the child’s room, and took from
the closet her little red frock. She touched it with loving hands; for
there is something in the look of a little one’s clothes that goes
straight to a mother’s heart. She wished to make sure there was no hole
in the pocket. She turned it wrong side outward, and smiled as the
slate pencils, empty spools, buttons, strings, bits of licorice, and
wads of paper, fell into her lap.
“There is everything here _but_ the screw-up pencil,” said she to
herself; “and I see no place where that could have crept out. But what
is this?”
The skirt of the dress was lined, and just where the pocket went in
was a rent an inch long.
“She might have put the pencil in there; let me see.”
So Mrs. Parlin examined, and found that a long and slender substance
had dropped down to the bottom of the skirt. She put in her finger, and
drew out the screw-up pencil.
“Poor little Lina! You have been unjustly accused! It grieves me that
my daughter has such a hasty spirit.”
Dotty was greatly surprised, in the morning, to see the pencil lying on
her pillow.
“But perhaps it is not yours,” said her mother; “it may belong to Tate
Penny, or some other little girl.”
“O, mamma Parlin, here’s a place where I scratched it with a pin. What
made you think I didn’t know my own pencil?”
“Why, you said Lina had taken that.”
“But she didn’t, mamma,” said Dotty, casting down her eyes.
“Excuse me, dear, but you said you ‘just _knew_’ she did.”
“I meant--I--just _thought_.”
“Ah, indeed! You only thought?”
“Yes’m.”
“And just because you thought, although you couldn’t know, you called
Lina an ‘awful, wicked, horrid girl.’”
“I truly s’posed she was, mamma,” said Dotty, with her finger in her
mouth.
“Your ‘truly s’poses’ are very cruel things, Dotty. What is going to be
done with that little fiery tongue of yours?”
Dotty touched the tip of it, and felt very much as if she would like to
pull it out by the roots.
“I don’t know, mamma.”
“Of course you will ask Lina’s pardon for accusing her falsely.”
“Yes’m.”
“And after this I do hope my little girl will beware of hasty
judgments.”
“Yes’m.”
Dotty was very eager to atone for her fault. The moment she saw Lina,
she held up the pencil, exclaiming,--
“You didn’t take it, Lina Rosenbug; now I know you didn’t, for here it
is; came out of my dress--and I’m sorry I said so.”
“There, there, I knew you’d find it,” said Lina, highly delighted.
“I shall be certain sure, next time, before I tell a person they _did_
steal,” added Dotty, penitently. “Will you forgive me?”
“O, yes, I forgive you,” replied Lina, with a toss of her pretty head:
“only you’d better not say so again. What’d you think if I should ’cuse
_you_ of stealing?”
“O, you wouldn’t,” said Dotty, quickly. “You’d know better than to
s’pose _I’d_ steal.”
“Why, Dotty Dimple! that’s the same as to say _I_ would.”
“O, no, Lina, I don’t think that. I wouldn’t be so wicked! But I don’t
like to have you sit next to my pocket, though. Won’t you please to
change places?”
On the whole, it did not appear that Dotty’s apologies had made a bad
matter any better. Still she thought she had done her duty, and entered
the school-room with a serene face.
Lina walked behind her, looking very sullen.