IS YOUR NAME SOLOMON?
All this while, Mr. Parlin, doing business in the city, and his wife,
sewing by her cheerful fire, had neither of them felt any anxiety about
their children. Why should they? They supposed them safe at school.
At one o’clock, as the storm was still increasing, Mr. Parlin went
after them with a horse and sleigh. Susy and Prudy muffled themselves
and danced down stairs in high glee, for such a fearful storm as this
was an event in their lives. But where was Dotty? Their father came out
of the primary room with a pale face, and Miss Parker followed him,
repeating,--
“I am sure, Mr. Parlin, there is nothing to fear. She only went to Mrs.
Penny’s with Sarah--not an eighth of a mile. You turn down ---- street,
and it is the first house you see on the right,--brown, with green
blinds.”
“Yes, yes, I understand, Miss Parker; but I wonder you dared let such
little ones go out of the yard. I trust it is all right; but if I were
in your place, I would not allow it again.”
Mr. Parlin told Susy and Prudy to wait while he went to Mrs. Penny’s
with the sleigh. Of course, when he got there, the Pennys knew nothing
about the children, and were in a great fright on being informed that,
more than an hour ago, Tate had started for home with Dotty.
Mrs. Penny was a widow; she had no one to send in search of her missing
child but her son Ben, a lad of fourteen, who was just recovering from
a slow fever.
“I must go, mother,” pleaded Ben; “I can’t stand it to sit here and do
nothing.”
His mother helped him draw on his overcoat, and then, with trembling
fingers, she wound a shawl about his hectic cheeks.
“You go down by the Back Cove, and I’ll drive to Munjoy,” said Mr.
Parlin, hoarsely.
But first he had to go to the school-house for Susy and Prudy. He
would have let them wait, but feared their mother would be anxious. He
hurried them home with scarcely a word. They ran into the house very
merrily, just as he had meant they should do; and when their mother
cried out,--
“Ah, my little snow-images, where’s Dotty?” they said, gayly,--
“O, she’s gone to Tate Penny’s; father went for her; it’s something
about the nose-bleed.”
Mrs. Parlin did not think twice of the matter. She had as much as she
could do to shake the children’s clothes, and listen to their lively
prattle about the snow-storm.
“Was there ever anything like it when you were a little girl?” said
one. “And can there be a _flood_ of snow? The rainbow isn’t any sign,
is it, only about the rain?” said another.
“It appears to me,” remarked Mrs. Parlin, looking at the clock, “your
papa is gone a long while. I thought Mrs. Penny lived very near?”
“So she does,” answered Prudy. “I’m afraid Tate is sick.”
Mrs. Parlin feared so too, and that her husband was needed to go for
the doctor. It must be dreadful, she thought, for people to be sick
in such a terrible storm. It had not occurred to her, as yet, to be
alarmed about her child.
The storm was all this time increasing, till Mr. Parlin could see
neither the road nor his horse, and the poor animal scarcely knew
whether he was wading through clouds or snow-drifts.
“It certainly is not strange the children should lose their way,”
thought Mr. Parlin. “I must have a care, or I shall lose mine, too.”
As his horse was only a hinderance, he took him back to the stable, and
pursued his way on foot.
* * * * *
Now we will return to the little ones, and see what they were doing.
Dotty had said she was going to give up; still she struggled on, and
Tate followed, crying out,--
“If we die you’ll say ’twas me did it; but who hit my nose?”
“O, Tate, I don’t want to talk. I don’t _want_ to talk!”
“And who tried to go back to the school-house, Dotty Dimple, but you
wouldn’t? And then we’d have been alive now!”
Dotty did not listen. She was thinking about the whooping-cough. Had
she been saved from it in her babyhood, and lived six years, to meet
with such a doom at last?
“My mamma said I had the whooping-cough so my face was purple. She
thought I’d die in it; but I never. I lived over it, and the purple
went off, and I’ve been alive ever since till to-day. O, my mamma
didn’t think this morning how I was going to die before she’d see me
again! She’d have kissed me a million times for good by; she’d have
hugged me like everything! And then, after she’d cried her eyes out,
she’d have said, ‘Dotty, take off your water proof, dear; I don’t want
my little girl to go to school and never come home any more.’
“My father didn’t know what he’s doing, when he said I wasn’t tender!
He thought I’d cough to death when I was little; he didn’t know this
was a great deal worse’n the whooping-cough.”
Unhappy Dotty! Unhappy Tate! Two forlorn little creatures, fighting
against a terrible fate!
“There don’t anybody care what ’comes of us,” said Dotty aloud, at
last. “There isn’t anybody anywhere, Tate Penny, and nothing in this
world but just snow!”
“O, dear,” echoed Tate, hugging herself. “I never was so cold but just
once, and then my mother rolled me in a shawl.”
“You never’ll see your mother again,” said Dotty, in a hard tone, as if
she took a grim pleasure in it; “never again; nor your house, nor your
brother Ben, nor your little sister Tid. O, no! Just ’cause your nose
bleeds so easy.”
“You stop saying that, Dotty Dimple; it’s bad enough--”
“O, Tate, what you s’pose I care about your nose? Miss Parker was the
most to blame. Only think, little things like us, in the _Primary’s_
Department! And to send us off to freeze!”
“She’ll feel dreadfully to-morrow,” said Tate; “don’t you believe
they’ll put it in the papers?”
“I see something black,” exclaimed Dotty, “it’s a boy!”
At that moment Enoch Rosenberg approached, his face almost hidden under
a cloth cap and red comforter.
Dotty sprang upon him.
“O, Solly,” cried she, “Solly Rosenbug! _Is_ your name Solomon? I know
your _brother’s_ is!”
“No; my name’s Enoch,” replied the tall youth. “There’s only one
Solomon in the family. Is this the little Parlin girl? What are you
doing down this way?”
“O, Solly, Solly,” gasped Dotty; and then her strength failed, and she
sank at his feet.
Of course Tate did not keep up another second after that, but fell
across Dotty with a smothered groan.
“Here’s pretty doings!” thought Enoch; “two little young ones froze to
death, and no house in sight! What were their folks thinking of, to let
’em out in such a trimmer of a storm? None o’ _my_ business; much as I
can do to take care o’ myself.”
But Enoch had a heart, after all, and could not leave the children to
perish. He took Tate in his arms, she being the lighter of the two,
and, as he could see, the fainter-hearted, and bade Dotty follow.
“I can’t,” said she, feebly.
“Nonsense! yes, you can, too.”
Dotty did not rise.
This would never do. Enoch held up Tate with his left hand, and with
his right raised Dotty and shook her fiercely.
“Now come along,” said he; “if you don’t, I’ll call the dog.”
[Illustration: A FRIEND IN NEED.--Page 112.]
Dotty roused at once. Enoch’s words scattered the mist which was
spreading over her thoughts, just as his mother’s scolding scattered
the cobwebs from the rafters. Dotty found she was not dead yet, and,
more than that, she was not going to allow herself to be killed by a
dog that belonged to the Rosenberg family. So she clung to Enoch, and
struggled on. She hardly knew whether it was hours or minutes, for
time was in a blur, like everything else; but by and by they came to a
house.
Enoch walked in without knocking. A woman, with a baby in her arms,
cried out, “Mercy on us!” dropped the baby into a cradle, and, seizing
Tate, began to pull off her hood and cloak.
“Fly round, Martha Jane,” said she to her daughter; “take the other
one, and rub her hands as quick as you can! Susan Ellen, fetch the
camphor-bottle! Where did these children come from?”
And without waiting for an answer, she ran for hot water and ginger.
“Drink this,” said she, coming back with a steaming bowl, whose
contents she stirred with a spoon. She was almost obliged to open the
little girls’ mouths before she could make them swallow.
“O, mother,” said Martha Jane, tearfully, “don’t you remember the lamb
I told you about last year, at uncle Sam’s? how stiff its little jaws
were? We had to hold them apart, just this way, to pour down pepper
tea.”
Dotty looked up at the big girl in a green dress with a foolish smile.
“Am I a little sheep?” thought she, and closed her eyes.
She felt somebody tucking her into a warm bed. Her clothes had been
removed, and there were nice blankets and shawls wrapped about her from
head to foot. Then she fancied she was a baby with a purple face, dying
of whooping-cough. That there was such a little girl as Tate Penny,
she had quite forgotten. And Tate, who lay near her, had forgotten all
about Dotty, and her own unfortunate nose. Mrs. Harris stood watching
them with enough motherly kindness in her heart to have warmed them,
body and soul.
“Bless the little dears, they look all right now, and will be asleep in
two minutes; but I assure you, Martha Jane, I thought, when they first
came in, it was a pretty hard chance; they wouldn’t have stood it out
doors much longer.”
Enoch was waiting in the next room. He was glad to hear the children
were doing so well; but he did not say so, and hurried away with a
cross face, as if he had already wasted a great deal of time.
“Call at Mrs. Parlin’s without fail,” said Mrs. Harris, “or else at the
school-house.”
“It’s a good two miles to either place,” grumbled Enoch; “and it isn’t
exactly summer weather, you’d better believe.”
“O, but their folks must be told where they are!” persisted Mrs.
Harris. “Do go--there’s a good boy! I’ve nobody but girls, and can’t
send!”
Enoch slammed the door after him, leaving kind Mrs. Harris in a fever
of uncertainty whether he meant to go to Mr. Parlin’s or not.