“BLOWING AWAY.”
Things went on very much as usual with Miss Dimple. Lina did not quite
forgive her for her unjust suspicions; still the two little girls
chatted together, and seemed to be friends, for Lina knew how to keep
her anger out of sight.
“But I don’t like to sit with her, though,” said Dotty to Tate. “I
don’t think she’s very _respectiful_.”
“I don’t think she is, either,” responded Tate, rolling those eyes
of hers, which, Dotty said, looked like little bits of balls of gray
stocking-yarn, with a black pin in the middle. “I don’t think she is,
either, and I know why.”
“Why she isn’t respectiful?” said Dotty.
“Yes; you tell me why _you_ think so, and then I’ll tell you why _I_
think so.”
“Well, ’cause,” said Dotty, “her mother sells _locker_ beer, and snips
with a thimble, and keeps _such_ a dog; and then they--O, I don’t know
what; but they don’t seem very respectiful at that house. Now _you_
tell why.”
“I think it’s because there’s so much dirt on her dresses,” said Tate,
lowering her voice; “and that’s what I always thought.”
“There isn’t any more dirt on her dresses than there is on her aprons,”
rejoined Dotty, “and not quite so much; but any way, I don’t want to
sit with her, and she keeps me whispering just as much as you do.”
“Nor I don’t like to sit with that Dice Prosser,” said Tate; “she’s
just like a rubber baby.”
“Look here, Tate: you and I are the best kind of friends.”
“Yes, indeed, Dotty Dimple.”
“When I said you’s the wickedest girl there is in this state, I didn’t
mean so, Tate!”
“Of course you didn’t mean so, for you couldn’t,” replied good-natured
Tate.
“No! I like you ever so much,” said Dotty, with emphasis, “only I don’t
like you about your holding up your hand, nights, for that’s a lie.”
“But I haven’t held it up for the longest while, Dotty Dimple.”
“No; because Miss Parker has stopped asking if we whisper. What you
s’pose made her stop? You’d do it just the same, Tate, if she asked
us; but then I forgive you; you are some bad, but not so bad as Lina
Rosenbug. It can’t hurt me if you do tell stories with your hands, and
I want to sit with you again.”
“And so do I want to sit with you, Dot Dimple.”
“Miss Parker’s such a darling,” continued Dotty, “and that’s what I
began to say in the first place: who knows but if we ask her in just
the prettiest way--”
“Not to-day, but to-morrow,” said Tate; “wait and I’ll wear my ruffled
apron, and we’ll go up to her together and tell her--”
“O, no, Tate, we mustn’t tell her Lina isn’t respectiful! P’r’aps she
doesn’t know it, and it would be telling a tale. We’ll take hold of
hands, and say, we want to be together, ’cause we’re the best friends
that ever was, and mean to be as good as ladies.”
“Yes, that’s it,” said Tate; and the children parted at the foot of a
blackened elm, which they called “the half-way tree.” It was the place
where they usually parted at night with a mutual kiss.
It happened that the next day was stormy, so Tate could not wear her
ruffled apron.
“It looks as if we were going to have a heavy snow-storm,” said Mrs.
Parlin, looking out of the window. “Edward, is it best to let Alice go
to school?”
“O, yes, I think so,” said Mr. Parlin, “you are not very tender--are
you, chickie?”
Dotty had two little front pockets in her wrapper, and they were full
of pop-corn.
“No, papa,” said she, “I’m ever so tough,” and went on sprinkling salt
into her pockets from the salt-box with holes in the top. “No, papa, I
want to go to school to-day very _partic’lar_. I wouldn’t stay at home
if the snow came down as big as this pop-corn.”
So Dotty was put into a water-proof cloak, and went with her two
sisters; no more afraid of the storm than a snow-bird wrapped in his
feathers.
“You here? O, ho!” said Tate, putting her arm around Dotty; “they like
to not let me come; but I told ’em you and I had some business.”
“That’s what I told my mother,” said Dotty; “now let’s go right up to
Miss Parker, and ask her.”
“No, I _dassent_, Dotty Dimple, my heart beats so; let’s wait till
noon.”
The children waited, and meanwhile it snowed as if the sky were
falling. Down fell the flakes, and the wind, whistling in glee, played
with them, blowing them hither and yon. The air was so full of the
white mass that Dotty thought the whole world looked as if it was
shrouded in spotted lace. And presently it was not like lace; it was
like sheets waving to and fro, and you could barely catch the faintest
glimpses of trees and houses. It seemed as if the children in the
school-room were shut out from the rest of the world; yet the door that
shut them out was made of the softest snow.
“I had no idea of such a storm,” thought Miss Parker; “how are all
these children to get home to dinner?”
But very soon the principal of the grammar school, up stairs, sent her
a note, saying it was thought best not to dismiss school at noon, but
have “a long session.”
Miss Parker was glad of this, for she knew, if her little pupils went
home, their parents would not be likely to send them back in the
afternoon. She heard all the morning lessons, and then gave a half
hour’s recess, telling the children they might walk about the room and
whisper; but they would not wish, she said, to go out of doors in such
a storm.
There was a deal of buzzing and promenading. Tate and Dotty marched
around, holding each other by the hand, and humming “John Brown,” under
breath.
“Now’s the time to go up to Miss Parker; she’s only eating an apple,”
said Dotty.
“No, I dassent yet; let’s wait till just before the bell rings,”
replied easy Tate, who never would do anything disagreeable till the
last minute.
“Well, then,” said Dotty, “let’s go to the window and look out. Did you
_ever_, Tate Penny? Don’t you s’pose angels have wings?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Well, don’t you s’pose, when the little boys-and-girls angels get to
playing up there, the small feathers pop out?”
“I don’t know.”
“And neither don’t I; only P’R’APS they do, and p’r’aps that’s snow.”
“The Bible don’t say so,” said Tate, “and besides, they wouldn’t play
hard enough.”
“O, but the angels have such tender wings,” said Dotty, confidently.
“Now, if you had ’em on _your_ back, and I should hit you just so--not
hard a bit--how the feathers would fly!”
To make her meaning clear, Dotty gave Tate’s shoulder a gentle pat,
which would have done no harm if Tate had not been resting on one foot;
but as she was, and the floor just in that spot was slippery, she
fell against a desk, and made her nose bleed. She used first her own
handkerchief, then Dotty’s, till both were drenched, and Dotty had a
wild impulse to offer her the pockets of her wrapper.
“O, dear, I’m so sorry, Tate Penny! Your nose is just like an inkstand;
every time anybody touches it, it tips over.”
“It isn’t any matter,” whispered Tate, “only I shall bleed the floor,
and bleed my dress. I want to go home, and haven’t any apron on.”
“Here, take my slate, Tate Penny, and the sponge, too, while I ask Miss
Parker if I mayn’t go home with you.”
“Tate has got the nose-bleed, Miss Parker,” said Dotty, “both sides
of her nose, and I was the one that did it, but ’twas _untennyshal_.
Mayn’t I take her home before she bleeds the house all up? She’s got it
real hard, both sides, Miss Parker.”
The earnest look in Dotty’s eyes was not to be resisted. Miss Parker
forgot the weather, and consented. She knew Tate lived very near the
school-house; but she did not reflect that in this whizzing storm it
was almost unsafe for such young children to walk even a short distance.
The little girls hurried on their cloaks and hoods, and started out,
Miss Parker going into the entry with them, and giving Tate her own
handkerchief, saying,--
“Use snow, my dear. I wouldn’t come back to school, for you won’t feel
like it. Dotty, perhaps you’d better not go; it’s a terrible storm, and
Tate can do as well alone.”
But Dotty insisted, and Miss Parker said no more. If she had only
opened the outside door she would have seen at once what an imprudent
thing she was allowing the children to do; but instead of opening the
door, she turned and entered the school-room.
Dotty and Tate passed out into the storm. The wind shrieked at them
like some wild animal, and rushed upon them as if it were seeking its
prey.
“O, O, Tate Penny,” said Dotty catching her breath, “it’s going to blow
us to which ways!”
“There’s snow enough, and more too; but I can’t--catch it,” gasped
Tate, “to stop my--nose with--for the wind won’t let me--keep still
a--mi--mi--minute.”
“Why, why! here I am, blowed down,” cried Dotty; and next moment Tate
blew down too.
“Let’s go back to school,” said she, with a tremulous sigh.
But this was not to be thought of, for as they turned around, they were
choked by a powerful gust.
“’Twill blow us _out_,” wailed Dotty, feeling like a feeble candle
breathed upon by a giant.
Tate’s nose had ceased to bleed; but as they were now outside the
school-yard, they decided to keep on, especially as they could not help
it.
“We don’t walk,” observed Dotty, helplessly; “we blow.”
Still it was a hard struggle, for the snow was very deep indeed.
“What store is this?” said Tate, suddenly, after they had waded along
in moody silence for quarter of an hour. “_What_ store is it?”
“Don’t you know the way to your own mother’s house?” returned Dotty,
falling head first into a drift.
“Yes; but where are we going to now? There used to be, O, Dotty, there
used to be a house here, and now it’s a _store_.”
“Tate Penny, I never saw such a girl!”
“Yes, it is; I mean it was; and now what’s this?”
“Why, it’s a burnt place,” said Dotty; “don’t you know anything, Tate?”
“A burnt place? We don’t live near a burnt place. I don’t know where we
are any more,” said Tate, sitting down and beginning to cry.
Dotty looked around quite bewildered. Neither did she know where they
were. She presumed they must be in Portland, for they had not had time
to be blown out of the city. Yes, it was Portland; but what street? The
late fire had swept away all the old “landmarks,” and where there had
been buildings were now only black ruins. Tate and Dotty were not the
first who had been confused by these heaps of brick and mortar; many
older people had lost their way that winter.
Dotty tried to peer through the moving sheets of snow-flakes, but only
grew more and more confused.
“This must be somewhere else,” concluded she, “somewhere else--a great
way off.”
“May be it’s Cape ’Liz’beth,” said Tate, crying afresh.
“Tate Penny, get up, or you’ll die; that’s the way to freeze to death.”
“I want to die,” moaned Tate.
“You stop it; stop dying this minute,” screamed Dotty.
Tate rose drearily, but let the wind blow her down again.
“O, dear, Tate Penny, I wish your nose didn’t bleed so easy!”
“Well, it does; but when I’m dead it won’t.”
“Tate, Tate, we can’t ever be buried in the _stemmitry_!”
“Why not?”
“’Cause, we shall blow into the Stiftic Ocean.”
“Do you s’pose we’ll die?” said poor Tate, her eyes dripping icicles.
“No, _I_ shan’t,” replied Dotty; “but you said _you_ should.”
Tate really did not know whether to keep her word or not. She thought
she did not care.
“But if you do die, you’ll be dreadful ’shamed of it,” went on Dotty;
“and there won’t anybody pity you.”
“I’m willing to go,” said Tate, wringing her hands, “I’m willing to go,
and keep going; but I don’t know where to go to.”
As she spoke they had reached a corner. “Where to go to,” they might
well ask, for the wind started up afresh, and, instead of blowing two
ways, it blew four. It sent the children towards the west, and in the
next instant hurled them north, against a lamp-post.
“I shouldn’t think it need to act so to us little girls,” said Tate,
despairingly.
“O, dear,” cried Dotty. “O, _dear_, dear, Tate Penny, I’m going to give
up!”
Tate shrieked aloud. If Dotty gave up they were certainly lost.