EAST AGAIN.
A whole year passed. Dotty Dimple became a school-girl, with a "bosom
friend" and a pearl ring. Prudy, who called herself "the middle-aged
sister," grew tall and slender. Katie was four years old, and just a
little heavier, so she no longer needed a cent in her pocket to keep
her from blowing away.
The Parlins had been at Willowbrook a week before the Cliffords
arrived. There was a great sensation over Katie. She was delighted to
hear that she had grown more than any of the others.
"I'm gettin' old all over!" said she, gayly. "Four--goin' to be five!
Wish I was most six. Dotty Dimpul, don't you wish _you's_ most a
_hunderd_?"
"O, you cunning little cousin!" said Dotty, embracing her rapturously;
"I wish you loved me half as well as I love you; that's what I wish. I
told Tate Penny you were prettier than Tid; and so you are. Such red
cheeks! But what makes one cheek redder than the other?"
"O, I eat my bread 'n' milk that side o' my mouf," replied Flyaway;
"and that's why."
"What an idea! And your hair is just as fine as ever it was; the color
of my ring--isn't it, Prudy?"
Flyaway put her little hand to her head, and felt the floss flying
about as usual.
"My hair comes all to pieces," explained she; "_or nelse_ I have a
ribbon to tie it up with."
"Are you glad to come back to Willowbrook, you precious little dear?"
asked two or three voices.
"Yes 'm," said Flyaway, doubtfully; "Y--es--um."
"She doesn't remember anything about it, I guess," said Prudy,
kneeling before the little one, and kissing the sweet place in her
neck.
"Yes, I do," said Flyaway, winking hard and breathing quick in the
effort to recall the very dim and very distant past; "yes, I 'member."
"Well, what do you 'member?"
"O, once I was grindin' coffee out there in a yellow chair, and
somebody she came and put me in the sink."
"She does know--doesn't she?" said Dotty. "That was Ruthie; come out
in the kitchen and see her."
But when Flyaway first looked into Ruth's smiling face, with its black
eyes and sharp nose, she could not remember that she had ever seen it
before. Abner, too, was strange to her.
"Come here," said he, "and I can tell in a minute if you are a good
little girl."
Flyaway cast down her soft eyes, and sidled along to Abner.
"Here, touch this watch," said he, "and if you are a good little girl
it will fly open; if you are naughty it will stay shut."
Flyaway looked askance at Abner, her finger in her mouth, but dared
not touch the watch.
"Who'd 'a thought it, now?" said Abner, pretending to be shocked.
"Looks to be a nice child; but of course she isn't, or she'd come
right up and open the watch."
Flyaway thrust another finger in her mouth, and pressed her eyelids
slowly together. Abner did not understand this, but it meant that he
had not treated her with proper respect.
"Here, Ruth," said he, in a low tone, "hand me one of your plum tarts;
that'll fetch her.--Come here, my pretty one, and see what's inside of
this little pie."
Flyaway was very hungry. She took a step forward, and held her hand
out, though rather timidly.
"But she mustn't eat it without asking her mamma," said Ruth.
"Yes; O, yes," cried Miss Flyaway, opening her little mouth for the
first time, and shutting it again over a big bite of tart; "I want to
eat it and _s'prise_ my mamma."
Abner laughed in his hearty fashion. "Some of the old mischief left
there yet," said he, catching Flyaway and tossing her to the ceiling.
"Have you come here this summer to keep the whole house in commotion?
Remember the Charlie boy--don't you--that had the meal-bags tied to
his feet?"
"Did he? What for?"
Flyaway had not the least recollection of Charlie; but Horace had
talked to her about him, and she said, after a moment's thought,--
"Yes, he washed the pig. Me and Charlie, we played all everything what
we thinked about."
"So you did, surely," said a woman who had just come in at the back
door, and begun to drop kisses, as sad as tears, on Flyaway's
forehead. "Do you know who this is?" Flyaway looked up with a sweet
smile, but her mind had lost all impression of her melancholy friend,
Miss Whiting. "Look again," said the sad-eyed stranger, who did not
like to have even a little child forget her; "you used to call me the
'Polly woman.'"
Katie looked again, and this time very closely.
"There's a great deal o' yellowness in your face," exclaimed she,
after a careful survey; "but you was made so!"
Miss Polly laughed drearily. "So you don't remember how I took you out
of the watering-trough, you sweet lamb! 'I's tryin' to swim,' you
said; 'and _that's_ what is it.' Here's a summer-sweeting for you,
dear; do you like them?"
"Yes'm, thank you," said Flyaway, "but I like summer-_sourings_ the
best."
At the same time she allowed herself to be taken in Miss Polly's lap,
and won that tender-hearted woman's love by putting her arms round her
neck, and saying, "Let me kiss you so you'll feel all better. What
makes you have tears in your eyes?--tell me."
"We're good friends--I knew we should be," said Miss Polly, quite
cheerily. "Look out of the window, and see that swing. How many times
I've pushed you and Dotty in that swing when it seemed as if it would
break my back!"
Flyaway looked out. There stood the two trees, and between them hung
the old swing; but the charm was forgotten. In the field beyond, her
eye fell on an object more interesting to her.
"O, O," said she, "I don't see how God _could_ make a man so homebly
as that!"
"So homely as what?"
"Why," laughed Dotty, "she means that scarecrow."
The corn was up long ago, but one direful image had still been left to
flaunt in the sunlight and soak in the rain.
"That isn't a man," said Prudy; "it's only a great monstrous rag baby,
with a coat on."
"Put there to frighten away the crows," added Miss Polly. "When Abner
dropped corn in the ground, the great black crows wanted to come and
pick it out, and eat it up."
Flyaway frowned in token of strong dislike to the crows. "I wouldn't
eat gampa's corn for anything in this world," said she,--"'thout it's
popped! 'Cause I don't like it."
Miss Polly laughed quite merrily.
"There," said she, "I've dropped a stitch in my side; it never agrees
with me to laugh. I must be going right home, too; but there is one
thing more I want to ask you, Katie; do you remember how you ran away,
one day, and frightened the whole house, trying to climb up to
heaven?"
Katie's face was blank; she had forgotten the journey.
"You passed Jennie Vance and me in the Pines," said Dotty, "and went
deep into the woods, and a bee stung you."
"O, now I 'member," said Katie, suddenly. "I 'member the bee as plain
as 'tever 'twas!" And she curled her lip with contempt for that small
Flyaway, of long ago--that silly baby who had thought heaven was on a
hill.
"_I_ went up on a ladder when I was three years old," said Prudy.
"Did you?" said Flyaway. This was a consolation. "Well, I was three
years old, too; I didn't know 'bout angels--didn't know they had to
have wings on."
Here Flyaway curled her lip again and smiled.
"You are wiser now," sighed Miss Polly. "You and I won't try to go to
heaven till our time comes--will we, dear?"
Katie took Miss Polly's large, thin hand, and measured it beside her
own tiny one.
"Miss Polly," said she, with one of her extremely wise looks, "when
you go up to God you'll be a very little girl!"
"Ah, indeed!" said Miss Polly, weaving the third pin into her shawl;
"how do you make that out?"
"Your body'll all be cut off," replied Katie, making the motion of a
pair of scissors with her fingers; "all be cut right straight off;
there won't be nuffin' left but just your little spirit!"
"Since you know so much, dear, how large is my spirit?"
Katie put her hand on the left side of the belt of her apron.
"Don't you call that small, right under my hand a-beatin'?" said she.
"'Bout's big as a bird, Miss Polly. Little round ball for a head,
little mites o' eyes; but you won't care--you can see _just_ as well."
"It does beat all where children get such queer ideas--doesn't it,
Ruth?" said Miss Whiting.
"Didn't you know it?" cried Katie, finding she had startled Miss
Polly. "Didn't you know you's goin' to be little, and fly in the air
just so?" throwing up her arms. "I want to go dreffully, for there's a
gold harp o' music up there, and I'll play on it: it'll be mine."
"You don't feel in a hurry to die, I hope," said Miss Polly,
anxiously.
Katie's eager face clouded. "No," said she, sorrowfully; "I want to,
but I hate to go up to God and leave my pink dress. I can't go into it
then, I'll be so little."
"You'll be just big enough to go into the pocket," laughed Dotty.
"Hush!" said Miss Polly, gravely; "you shouldn't joke upon such
serious subjects. Good by, children. Your house is full of company,
and I didn't come to stay. Here's a bag of thoroughwort I've been
picking for your grandmother; you may give it to her with my love, and
tell her my side is worse. I shall be in to-morrow."
So saying, Miss Polly went away, seeming to be wafted out of the room
on a sigh.
The high-chair was brought down from the attic for Flyaway, who sat
in it that evening at the tea-table, and smiled round upon her friends
in the most benevolent manner.
"I's growing so big now, mamma," said she, coaxingly, "don't you spect
I must have some tea?"
Grandmother pleaded for the youngest, too. "Let me give her some just
this once, Maria."
"Well, _white_ tea, then," returned Mrs. Clifford, smiling; "and will
Flyaway remember not to ask for it again? Mamma thinks little girls
should drink milk."
"Yes'm, I won't never. She gives it to me _this_ night, 'cause I's her
little _grand-girl_. Mayn't Hollis have it too, 'cause he's her little
grand-_boy_?"
"Cunning as ever, you see," whispered the admiring Horace to cousin
Susy, who replied, rather indifferently,--
"No cunninger than our Prudy used to be."
Flyaway made quick work of drinking her white tea, and when she came
to the last few drops she swung her cup round and round, saying,--
"Didn't you know, Hollis, that's the way gampa does, when _he_ gets
most froo, to make it sweet?"
No, Horace had not noticed; it was "Fly, with her little eye," who saw
everything, and made remarks about it.
"O, O," cried Grace, dropping her knife and fork, and patting her
hands softly under the table, "isn't it so nice to be at Willowbrook
again, taking supper together? Doesn't it remind you of pleasant
things, Susy, to eat grandma's cream toast?"
"Reminds me," said Susy, after reflecting, "of jumping on the hay."
"'Minds me of--of--" remarked Flyaway; and there she fell into a brown
study, with her head swaying from side to side.
"I don't know why it is," said Prudy, "but since you spoke, this cream
toast makes me think of the rag-bag. Excuse me for being impolite,
grandma, but where _is_ the rag-bag?"
"In the back room, dear, where it always is; and you may wheel it off
to-morrow."
It had been Mrs. Parlin's custom, once or twice every summer, to allow
the children to take the large, heavy rag-bag to the store, and sell
its contents for little articles, which they divided among themselves.
Sometimes the price of the rags amounted to half or three quarters of
a dollar, and there was a regular carnival of figs, candy, and
fire-crackers.
Horace was so much older now, that he did not fancy the idea of being
seen in the street, trundling a wheelbarrow; but he went on with his
cream toast and made no remark.