RUNNING AWAY TO HEAVEN.
About ten o'clock one morning, Flyaway was sitting in the little green
chamber with Dotty Dimple and Jennie Vance, bathing her doll's feet in
a glass of water. Dinah had a dreadful headache, and her forehead was
bandaged with a red ribbon.
"_Does_ you feel any better?" asked Flyaway, tenderly, from time to
time; but Dinah had such a habit of never answering, that it was of no
use to ask her any questions.
Dotty Dimple and Jennie were talking very earnestly.
"I do wish I did know where Charlie Gray is!" said Dotty, looking
through the open window at a bird flying far aloft into the blue sky.
"You do know," answered Jennie, quickly; "he's in heaven."
"Yes, of course; but so high up--O, so high up," sighed Dotty, "it
makes you dizzy to think."
"Can um see we?" struck in little Flyaway, holding to Dinah's flat
nose a bottle of reviving soap suds.
"Prudy says it's beautiful to be dead," added Dotty, without heeding
the question; "beautiful to be dead."
"Shtop!" cried Flyaway; "I's a-talkin'. Does um see _we_?"
"O, I don' know, Fly Clifford; you'll have to ask the minister."
Flyaway squeezed the water from Dinah's ragged feet, and dropped her
under the table, headache and all. Then she tipped over the goblet,
and flew to the window.
"The Charlie boy likes canny seeds; I'll send him some," said she,
pinning a paper of sugared spices to the window curtain, and drawing
it up by means of the tassel. "O, dear, um don't go high enough.
Charlie won't get 'em."
"Why, what is that baby trying to do?" said Dotty Dimple.
"Charlie's defful high up," murmured Flyaway, heaving a little sigh;
"can't get the canny seeds."
"O, what a Fly! How big do you s'pose her mind is, Jennie Vance?"
"Big as a thimble, perhaps," replied Jennie, doubtfully.
"Why, I shouldn't think, now, 'twas any larger than the head of a
pin," said Dotty, with decision; "s'poses heaven is top o' this room!
Why, Jennie Vance, I _persume_ it's ever so much further off 'n Mount
Blue--don't you?"
"O, yes, indeed! What queer ideas such children do have! Flyaway
doesn't understand but very little we say, Dotty Dimple; not but very
little."
Flyaway turned round with one of her wise looks. She thought she did
understand; at any rate she was catching every word, and stowing it
away in her little bit of a brain for safe keeping. Heaven was on
Mount Blue. She had learned so much.
"But I knowed it by-fore," said she to herself, with a proud toss of
the silky plume on the crown of her head.
"Shall we take her with us?" asked Jennie Vance.
Flyaway listened eagerly; she thought they were still talking of
heaven, when in truth Jennie only meant a concert which was to be
given that afternoon at the vestry.
"Take _that_ little snip of a child!" replied Dotty; "O, no; she isn't
big enough; 'twouldn't be any use to pay money for _her!_"
With which very cutting remark Dotty swept out of the room, in her
queenly way, followed by Jennie. Flyaway threw herself across a
pillow, and moaned,--
"O, dee, dee!"
Her little heart was ready to bleed; and this wasn't the first time,
either. Those great big girls were always running away from her, and
calling her "goosies" and "snips;" and now they meant to climb to
heaven, where Charlie was, and leave her behind.
"But I won't stay down here in this place; I'll go to heaven too, now,
_cerdily_!" She sprang from the pillow and stood on one foot, like a
strong-minded little robin that will not be trifled with by a worm.
"I'll go too, now, cerdily."
Having made up her mind, she hurried as fast as she could, and tucked
a stick of candy in her pocket, also the bottle of soap suds, and two
thirds of a "curly cookie" shaped like a leaf. "Charlie would be so
glad to see Fly-wer!" She purred like a contented kitten as she
thought about it. "'Haps they've got a _bossy-cat_ up there, and a
piggy, and a swing. O, my shole!"
There was no time to be lost. Flyaway must overtake the girls, and, if
possible, get to heaven before they did. She flew about like a
distracted butterfly.
"I must have some skipt; her said me's too little to pay for money;"
and she curled her pretty red lip; "but I'm isn't much little; man'll
_want_ some skipt."
For she fancied somebody standing at the door of heaven holding out
his hand like the ticket-man at the depot. She found her mother's
purse in the writing-desk, and scattered its contents into the
wash-bowl, then picked out the wettest "skipt," a five-dollar bill,
and tucked it into her bosom. This would make it all right at the door
of heaven.
"Now my spetty-curls," she added, hunting in the "uppest drawer" till
she found the eyeless spectacles used for playing "old lady." With
these on, Flyaway thought she could see the way a great deal better.
Horace's boots would help her up hill; so she jumped into those, and
clattered down the back stairs with Dinah under her arm.
There was nobody in the kitchen, for Ruthie was down cellar sweeping.
Flyaway caught her shaker off the "short nail," and stole out without
being seen. Sitting in the sun on the piazza was the "blue" kittie.
"Finkin' 'bout a mouse, I spect," said little Flyaway, seizing her and
blowing open her eyes like a couple of rosebuds.
"Does you know where I's a-goin'? Up to heaven. We don't let tinty
folks, like cats, go to heaven."
Pussy winked sorrowfully at this, and baby's tender heart was touched.
"Yes, we does," said she; "but you musn't scwatch the Charlie boy;"
and she tucked the "tinty folks" under her left arm. Then all was
ready, and the little pilgrim started for heaven.
"Um's on the toppest hill," said she, looking at the far-off
mountains, reaching up against the blue sky. One mountain was much
higher than the others, and on that she fixed her eye. It was Mount
Blue, and was really twenty miles away. If Flyaway should ever reach
that cloud-capped peak, it was not her wee, wee feet which would carry
her there. But the baby had no idea of distances. She went out of the
yard as fast as the big boots would allow. She felt as brave as a
little fly trying to walk the whole length of the Chinese Wall.
Where were Dotty Dimple and Jennie Vance? O, they were half way to
heaven by this time; she must "hurry quick."
The fact was, they were "up in the Pines," picking strawberries.
Nobody saw Flyaway but a caterpillar.
"O, my shole! there's a _catty-pillow_--what he want, you fink?"
Kitty winked and Dinah sulked, but there was no reply.
The next thing they met was a grasshopper. "O, dee, a _gas-papa_!
Where you s'pose um goin'?"
Kitty winked again and Dinah sulked.
Flyaway answered her own question. "Diny, dat worm gone see his
mamma."
Dinah did not care anything about the family feelings of the "worms;"
so she kept her red silk mouth shut; but she grew very heavy--so
heavy, indeed, that once her little mother dropped her in the sand,
but picking her up, shook her and trudged on. Presently she dropped
something else, and this time it was the kitty. Flyaway turned about
in dismay.
"Shtop," cried she, scowling through her "spetty-curls," as she saw
three white paws and one blue one go tripping over the road. "Shtop!"
But the paws kept on.
"O, Diny," said Flyaway, as pussy's tail disappeared round a
corner,--"O, Diny, her don't want to go to heaven!"
Then Flyaway sat down in the sand, and pulled off one of the big
boots.
"Um won't walk," said she; but, before she had time to pull off the
second one, a dog came along and frightened her so she tried to run,
though she only hopped on one foot, and dragged the other. She did not
know what the matter was till she fell down and the boot came off of
itself, after which she could walk very well. What cared she that both
"Hollis's" new boots were left in the road, ready to be crushed by
wagon wheels?
She kept on and kept on; but where was that blue hill going to? It
moved faster than she did.
"Makes me povokin'," said she, giving Dinah a shake. "Um runs away and
away, and all off!"
Sometimes she remembered she was going to heaven, and sometimes she
forgot it. She was on the way to the "Pines," and many little flowers
grew by the road-side. She began to pick a few, but the thorns on the
raspberry bushes tore her tender hands, and one of the naughty
branches caught Dinah by the frizzly hair, and carried her under. What
did Flyaway spy behind the bushes? Dotty Dimple and Jennie Vance. They
were eating wintergreen leaves; they did not see her. Flyaway kept as
still as if she were sitting for a photograph, picked up Dinah, gave
her a hug, and crept on.
She went so quietly that nobody heard her. When she was out of sight
she purred for joy. She had got ahead of the girls on the way to
heaven! She took the stick of candy out of her pocket and nibbled it
to celebrate the occasion. "A little hump-backed bumblebee" saw her do
it. He wanted some too, and followed Flyaway as if she had been a
moving honeysuckle. For half a mile or more she "gaed" and she "gaed,"
all the while nibbling the candy; but now she was growing very tired,
and did it to comfort herself. Suddenly she remembered it was
Charlie's candy. She held it up to her tearful eyes.
"O dee," said she, "it was big, but it keeps a-gettin' little!"
The hungry bumblebee, who was just behind her, thought this was his
last chance: so he pounced down upon Charlie's candy; and being
cross, and not knowing Flyaway from any other little girl, he stung
her on the thumb. Then how she cried, "'Orny 'ting me! 'Orny 'ting
me!" for she had been treated just so before by a hornet. "O my dee
mamma! My dee mamma!"
But her "dee" mamma could not hear her; she was in the city of
Augusta; and as for the rest of the family, they supposed Flyaway was
playing "catch" with Dotty Dimple in the barn.