AUNT POLLY'S STORY.
Flyaway sat on the kitchen floor, feeding Dinah with a roasted apple.
As often as Dinah refused a teaspoonful, she put it into her own
mouth, saying, with a wise nod, "My child, she's sick; hasn't any
_appletite_."
Out of doors it was raining heartily. It seemed as if the "upper deep"
was tipping over, and pouring itself into the lap of the earth.
"O, Ruthie," sighed Dotty Dimple, "my mother won't come while it's
such weather. Do you s'pose 'twill ever clear off?" [Blank Page]
[Illustration: FLYAWAY AND DINAH.]
"Yes, I do," replied Ruth, trimming a pie briskly; "it only began last
night at five."
"Why, Ruthie Dillon! it began three weeks ago, by the clock! Don't you
know that day I couldn't go visiting? Only sometimes it stops a while,
and then begins again."
"If you're going to have the blues, Miss Dotty, I'll thank you kindly
just to take yourself out of this kitchen. Polly Whiting is here, and
she is as much as a body can endures in this dull weather."
"It's pitiful 'bout the rain, Dotty; but you mustn't scold when God
sended it," said Flyaway, dropping the feeble Dinah, and pursuing her
cousin round the room with a pin. In a minute they were both laughing
gayly, till Flyaway caught herself on her little rocking-chair, and
"got a _torn_ in her apron." That ended the sport.
"What shall I do to make myself happy?" said Dotty, musingly; for she
wished to put off all thought of Prudy's money. "I should like to roll
out some thimble-cookies, but Ruthie hasn't much patience this
morning. I never dare do things when her lips are squeezed together
so."
But Flyaway dared do things. She took up the kitty, and played to her
on the "music," till Ruth's ears were "on edge." After this the
harmonica fell into a dish of soft soap, and in cleaning it with ashes
and a sponge, the holes became stopped.
"It won't _muse_ no more," said Flyaway, in sad surprise, blowing into
the keys in vain. Ruth loved the little child too well to say she was
glad of it.
Flyaway's next dash was into the sink cupboard, where she found a
wooden bowl of sand. This she dragged out, and filling her "nipperkin"
with water, carried them both to Ruth, saying, in her sweet, pleading
way,--
"_If_ you please, Ruthie, will you tell _how_ God does when he takes
the 'little drops of water and little grains of sand,' and makes 'the
mighty _oshum_' with um, '_and_ the pleasant land'?"
Ruthie had no answer but a kiss and a smile.
"There, away with you into the nursery, both of you. I know Polly
Whiting is lonesome without you."
Off went the children, Flyaway "with a heart for any fate," but Dotty
still oppressed by the shadow of the ten-cent piece.
"If I don't give it to Prudy, will I be dishonest? Will I be as bad
as Jennie Vance?"
When they entered the nursery, Miss Polly was standing before the
mirror, arranging her black cap, and weaving into her collar a square
black breast-pin, which aunt Louise said looked like a gravestone.
Flyaway peeped in too, placing her smooth pink cheek beside Miss
Polly's wrinkled one.
"I don't look alike, Miss Polly," said she; "and you don't look alike
too."
Certainly not; no more alike than a blush-rose bud and a dried apple.
"What makes the red go out of folks' cheeks when they grow old, and
the wrinkles crease in, like the pork in baked beans?" queried Dotty.
"I couldn't tell you," replied the good lady, giving a pat to her cap,
and settling the bows carefully; "but if you had asked how I happened
to grow old before my time, I should say I'd had such a hard chance
through life, and trouble always leaves its mark."
"Does it? O, dear! I have trouble,--ever so much; will it quirk my
face all up, like yours?"
"You have trouble, Dotty Parlin? Haven't you found out yet that the
lines have fallen to you in pleasant places?"
"I don't know what you mean by lines," said Dotty, thinking of
fish-hooks; "but when it rains, and folks want me to do things that
are real hard, then why, I'm blue, now truly."
"Then we're blue, now truly," added Flyaway by way of finish.
"What would you do, children, if you were driven about, as I used to
be, from post to pillar, with no mother to care for you?"
"If I hadn't no mamma, I could go barefoot, like a dog," said Flyaway,
brightening with the new idea; "I could paddle in the water too, and
eat pepnits."
"O, child! But what if you had neither father nor mother?"
"Then," said Flyaway coolly, "I should go to some house where there
_was_ a father'n mother."
"Why, you little heartless thing! But that is always the way with
children; their parents set their lives by them, but not a 'thank you'
do they get for their love! Try a pinch," continued she, offering her
snuff-box to the little folks, who both declined. This Polly thought
was strange. They must like snuff if they followed the natural bent of
their noses.
"Yes, Katie, as I was saying, you little know how your mother loves
you."
"Yes um, I do. She loves me more 'n the river, and the sky, and the
bridge. My papa loves me too, only but he don't _say_ nuffin' 'bout
it."
"Yes, yes; just so," said Miss Polly, who talked to the simplest
infants just as she did to grown people. "One of these days you will
look back, and see how happy you are now, and be sorry you didn't
prize your parents while you had them."
Flyaway rested her rosy cheek on Polly's knee, and watched the gray
knitting-work as it came out of the basket. She did not understand the
sad woman's words, but was attracted by her loving nature, and liked
to sit near her, a minute at a time, and have her hair stroked.
"There, now," said Dotty, "you are knitting, Miss Polly; and it's so
lonesome all round the house, with mother not coming till to-morrow,
that I should think you might tell--well, tell an anecdote."
"I don't know where to begin, or what to say," replied Polly, falling
into deep thought.
"I just believe she does sigh at the end of every needle," mused
Dotty; "I'm going to keep 'count. That's once."
"Please, Miss Polly, tell a _nanny-goat_," said Flyaway, dancing
around the room. "Please, Miss Polly, and I'll kiss you a pretty
little kiss."
"Twice," whispered Dotty.
"Well, I'll tell you something that will pass for an anecdote, on
condition that you call me _aunt_ Polly; that name warms my heart a
great deal better than _Miss_ Polly."
"Three!" said Dotty aloud. "We will, honestly, if we can think of it,
aunt Polly.--Four."
"Le'me gwout for the sidders, first," said busy Flyaway.
"There, aunt Polly, you forgot it that time! You sprang up quick to
shut the door, and forgot it."
"Forgot what?"
"You didn't sigh at the end of your needle."
"Why, Dotty, how you do talk! Any one would suppose, by that, I was in
the habit of sighing! I have a stitch in my side, child, and it makes
me draw a long breath now and then; that's all."
Flyaway was back again,
"With step-step light, and tip-tap slight
Against the door."
"Come in," said Dotty, "and see if you can keep still two whole
minutes; but I know you can't."
Miss Polly let her work fall in her lap, and drew up the left sleeve
of her black alpaca dress. "Do you see that scar, children?"
It was just below the elbow,--an irregular, purple mark, about the
size of a new cent.
"Why, Miss--why, aunt Polly!"
"I've got one on me too," said Flyaway, pulling at her apron sleeve;
"Hollis did it with the tongs."
"It can't be; not a scar like mine."
"Bigger 'n' larger 'n' yours; only but I can't find it," said Flyaway,
carefully twisting around her dainty white arm, which Polly kissed,
and said was as sweet as a peach. "Bigger 'n' larger 'n' yours. Where's
it gone to? O, I feegot--'twas on my _sleeve_, and I never put it on
to-day."
"You're a droll child, not to know the difference between scars and
dirt! When I was almost as young and quite as innocent, that wicked
little boy bit me, and I shall carry the marks of his teeth to my
grave." With another lingering glance at the purple mark, Polly drew
down her sleeve, sighed, and began to knit again.
"Was it the woman's child that made you dig, that you told about last
summer?"
"Yes; I was a bound girl."
"Bound to what?" Dotty was trying to drown the remembrance of Prudy's
ten cents; so she wished to keep Miss Polly talking.
"Bound to Mrs. Potter till I was eighteen years old. Her husband kept
public house. They made a perfect slave of me. When I was twelve
years old I had to milk three cows, besides spinning my day's work on
the flax-wheel. And very often all I had for supper was brown bread
and skim milk. I didn't have any grandfather's house to go to, with a
seat in the trees, and a boat on the water, and a swing, and a summer
house, and a _crocky-set_ (croquet set). Not I!"
Flyaway was cutting paper dolls with all speed, but her sweet little
face was drawn into curves of pity.
"Too bad! Naughty folks to give you _skilmick_."
"I had to scour all the knives too. I did it by drawing them back and
forth into a sand-bank back of the house. This Isaac I speak of was a
lazy boy, and very unkind to me; but his mother wouldn't hear a word
against him. One day I brushed a traveller's coat, and got a silver
quarter for my trouble. I thought everything of that quarter. I had
never had so much money before in my life. I had half a mind to put it
in the Savings Bank; 'and who knows,' thought I, 'but I can add more
to it, one of these days, and buy my time.'"
"Why, Miss Polly, I didn't know you could _buy_ time!"
"But you knew you could throw it away, I suppose," said Polly, with a
sad smile. "What I mean is this: I wanted to pay Mrs. Potter some
money, so I could go free before I was eighteen."
"Then you would be _unbound_, aunt Polly."
"Yes; but one day Isaac found my money,--I kept it in an old
tobacco-box,--and, just to hector me, he kept tossing it up in the
air, till all of a sudden it fell through a crack in the floor; and
that was the last I saw of it."
[Illustration: "HERE HE IS!"]
"What a naughty, careless boy!"
After Dotty had said this, she blushed.
"Naughty, careless boy!" echoed Flyaway. "Here he is!" holding up a
paper doll shaped very much like a whale, with the fin divided for
legs, the ears of a cat, and the arms of a windmill. "Here he is!"
"He didn't look much like that," said Polly, laughing. "He had plenty
of money of his own, and I tried to make him give me back a quarter;
but do you believe he wouldn't, not even a ninepence? And when I
teased him, that was the time he bit my arm."
"He oughtn't to bitted your arm, course, indeed not!"
"But, aunt Polly," faltered Dotty, whose efforts to forget the
ten-cent piece had proved worse than useless, "but it didn't do Isaac
any good to lose your money down a crack."
"No, it was sheer mischief."
"And if it doesn't do folks any good to lose things, you know, why,
what's the use--to--to--go and get his own money to pay it back
with?--Isaac I mean."
"What do you say, Dotty Parlin? You, a child that goes to Sabbath
school! Don't you know it is a sin to steal a pin? And if we lose or
injure other people's things, and don't make it up to them, we're as
good as thieves."
"As good?"
"As bad, then."
"But s'posin'--s'posin' folks lose things when they _don't_ toss 'em
up in the air, and don't mean to,--the wind, you know, or a kind of an
accident, Miss Polly,--"
"Well?"
"And s'posin' I didn't have any more money 'n I wanted myself, and
Prudy had the most--H'm--"
"Well?"
"Then it isn't as bad as thieves; now is it? She's got the most.
Prudy's older 'n I am--"
"Honesty is honesty," said Miss Polly, firmly, "in young or old. If
you've lost your sister's money, you must make it up to her."
"O, must I, Miss Polly? Such a tinty-tonty mite of money as I've
got,--only sixty-five cents."
"Honesty is honesty," repeated Miss Polly, "in rich or poor."
"Dear me! will my mother say so, too?"
"Your mother is on the right side, Dotty. The Bible tells us to 'deal
justly.' There's nothing said there about excusing poor folks."
"O, dear! do you s'pose the Bible expects me to pay Prudy Parlin ten
cents, when it just blew out of my hands, and didn't do me a speck of
good?"
"Why, Dotty, you surprise me! Any one would think you were brought up
a heathen! If you were a small child I could understand it."
"I knew I should have to do it," moaned Dotty.
"I advise you to lose no time about it, then; that is the cause of
your blues, I guess. We can't be happy out of the line of our duty,"
sighed Miss Polly, who regarded herself as a pattern of cheerfulness.
"I'll tell you what I'm going to do," said Dotty, resolutely; "I'm
going right off to pay that money to Prudy, and then I'll be in the
line of my duty."