BOSOM FRIENDS.
Dotty did not go to school again until the next Monday. Miss Parker
kissed her affectionately, and said, she should never forgive herself
for her thoughtlessness; which was very gratifying to Dotty.
At recess Miss Parker called both the little girls up to her, and asked
for the history of their “blowing away.” Dotty gave it with delight,
and whenever her breath failed, Tate added a word of her own.
“If her nose hadn’t bled that time, Miss Parker, we were going to ask
you something. Mayn’t we sit together? ’Cause Tate likes me, and she
don’t like Dice Prosser; _do_ you, Tate?”
“Not much,” replied Tate, timidly; “but I don’t hate her near so bad as
you do Lina Rosenberg.”
“O, I don’t hate anybody,” said Dotty, virtuously; “only I asked my
mother which she wanted me to sit with, and she said ‘Tate,’ if you’re
perfectly willing, Miss Parker. Tate doesn’t _betwitch_ me, and I’m not
afraid to have her sit next to my pocket.”
“I have no objection to your changing your seats,” said Miss Parker,
smiling; “but I wish you to remember, children, that I have a great
deal of care, and if you love me you will try to be quiet.”
“So we will--won’t we, Tate?” said Dotty, joyfully, as they moved their
books. “We’ll be better girls, ’cause, don’t you know, we were saved to
purpose?”
Dotty was as good as her word. She could not always keep her little
tongue still; but on the whole, she tried so hard to do right, that
Miss Parker loved her better and better every day.
The two little seat-mates were becoming “bosom friends.” Tate regarded
Dotty as a superior being, and Miss Dimple was quite willing to be
looked up to and copied. Much of their time out of school was spent in
printing letters to each other, of which this is a specimen:--
DEER TAIT:
_Jhonnie cald_ Me _todelkins_. One time Flierway put a pertater onter
the Kerryseen Kan, onter the nose. kiss tid for Me.
Truely yours,
ALICE PARLIN.
This letter was the longest one Dotty had ever written. It cost her
an hour’s patient labor, and just as she was folding it carefully in
the shape of a diamond, Prudy tipped the inkstand over it, and almost
“blotted it out forever.” Dotty was about to scold, but stopped to
count ten, and then said, with almost a smile,--
“No matter. You didn’t spoil anything but the ‘Toddlekins,’ and that
was so crooked I was ’shamed of it.”
Then Dotty hung the letter on the clothes line to dry, while her heart
danced for joy because she had been so patient with Prudy.
But one morning Tate did not appear at school, and to Miss Dimple’s
great grief, the following note was given her by Ben Penny:--
DARLING DOTTY:
I canot set with you enny more. Ime going to my mothers arnts scholl.
The one that the mice eat up her cows. Good by.
Verry truley,
SARAH PENNY.
Dotty sat for a whole minute with her head on her hand. She could not
remember about this queer “arnt,” though Tate had described all her
relatives, and, without doubt, this one among the others.
“Mice ate up her cows! It must be very great mice, or else very tinty
cows!”
But the sad fact that Tate was going to another school made Dotty as
lonesome as a widowed dove. She was obliged to go round to Mrs. Penny’s
that night to talk about it; she told her mother she “couldn’t live if
she didn’t.”
“O, mamma,” cried she, as soon as she returned, “I do wish you’d let me
go to that dear little school! It’s Tate’s aunt’s mother, and she keeps
cows and mice, and it’s such a dear little school!”
“What do you know about the lady, Dotty?”
“O, Tate told me all about her. She wears one of these hair things you
call a wig, and a cap right on over it; and to-morrow’s Wednesday, no
school in the afternoon; but her aunt’s mother has it all day, and
afterwards going to show ’em the sheeps and camp-meetings. And wants to
know if I can go--there’s little boys, too--with my red dress on, and
stay to Tate’s house to tea--if you don’t care and perfectly willing.
’Cause it’s a dear little school!”
Dotty caught her breath, and went on:--
“She wants me to go all the time, and not go to Miss Parker, Tate
does. The woman’s real good, and prays in school with her eyes wide
open. That’s so she can see the little boys and little girls when
they’re doing naughty, and gets up and shakes ’em, and then she goes to
praying again.”
“I shouldn’t want to go to such a school as that,” said Prudy.
“O, she doesn’t shake ’em, ’thout they need to be shook; she’s a _good_
woman, and lets ’em eat gingerbread in school.”
Mrs. Parlin said Dotty might go just once, and see how she liked it.
So, the next afternoon, she set out with Tate for “the dear little
school.” As they skipped along swinging each other by the hand, they
were met by Johnny. Dotty began to hurry.
“Where are you going, Dot?”
“Going away.”
“You don’t say! When you coming back?”
“When I return!”
After which pert reply Dotty tossed her head, and swung Tate along upon
the full run.
A flash of anger rose to Johnny’s eyes. He and his little cousin had
not had a quarrel since the Crystal Wedding, and he was starting for
his aunt Mary’s, to make an afternoon visit. Dotty saw the flash, and
it set her thinking.
“_I_ wouldn’t want to go with me and Tate to where I wasn’t wanted! But
Johnny does! But, then, he said he wouldn’t quarrel, ’thout I begun it,
and _I_ won’t begin it. I’ll stop throwing my head back, ’cause that
always makes the tempers come.”
She was learning to watch the lion in her bosom. When he began to shake
his mane, she said, “Lie down, sir.” It was the only way; after he had
really got upon his feet, and begun to rage, Dotty couldn’t stop him.
“Tate,” said she, sweetly, “are you willing Johnny should go too? For I
spect you want to; don’t you, Johnny?”
It was a small sacrifice, and Dotty thought she was well repaid, when
her cousin, with the greatest good humor, whipped a paper bag out of
his pocket, and began to scatter about figs, and candy, and jujube
paste.
“Yes, I’ll go to school with you,” said Johnny; “but who is Mrs. Piper?
Peter’s wife?”
“He’s dead, her husband is,” replied Tate. “I don’t know what his name
was.”