THE UNDERTAKING.
When Flyaway knew she was going to New York, it was about as easy to fit
her dresses as to clothe a buzzing blue-bottle fly. With spinning head
and dancing feet, she was set down, at last, in the cars.
"Here we are, all by ourselves, darling, starting off for Gotham. Wave
your handkerchief to mamma. Don't you see her kissing her hand? There,
you needn't spring out of the window! And I declare, Brown-brimmer, if
you haven't thrown away your handkerchief! Here, cry into mine!"
"I didn't want to cry, Hollis; I wanted to laugh," said the child,
wiping her eyes with her doll's cloak. "When you ride in carriages, you
don't get anywhere; but when you ride in the cars, you get there right
off."
"Yes; that's so, my dear. You are in the right of it, as you always are.
Now I am going to turn the seat over, and sit where I can look at
you--just so."
"O, that's just as splendid, Hollis! Now there's only me and Flipperty.
There, I put her 'pellent cloak on wrong; but see, now, I've
un-_wrong-side-outed_ it! Don't she sit up like a lady?"
Her name was Flipperty Flop. She was a large jointed doll (not a doll
with large joints,) had seen a great deal of the world, and didn't think
much of it. She came of a high family, and had such blue blood in her
veins, that the ground wasn't good enough for her to walk on. She wore
a "'pellent cloak" and rubber boots, and had a shopping-bag on her arm
full of "choclid" cakes. She was nearly as large as her mother, and all
of two years older. A great deal had happened to her before her mother
was born, and a great deal more since. Sometimes it was dropsy, and she
had to be tapped, when pints of sawdust would run out. Sometimes it was
consumption, and she wasted to such a skeleton that she had to be
revived with cotton. She had lost her head more than once, but it never
affected her brains: she was all the better with a young head now and
then on her old shoulders. Her present ailment appeared to be small-pox;
she was badly pitted with pins and a penknife. "I declare I forgot to
get a ticket for her," said Horace. "What if the conductor shouldn't
let her pass?"
"O, Hollis, but he must?" cried Fly, springing to her feet; "_I_ shan't
pass athout my Flipperty! Tell the 'ductor 'bout my white mouses died,
and I can't go athout sumpin to carry."
"Pshaw! Dotty Dimple don't carry dolls. She don't like 'em: sensible
girls never do."
"Well, _I_ like 'em," said Flyaway, nothing daunted. "You knew it
byfore; 'n if you didn't want Flipperty, you'd ought to not come!"
Horace laughed, as he always did when his little sister tried her power
over him. The conductor was an old acquaintance, and he told him how it
stood with Flipperty, how she was needed at New York, and all that;
whereupon Mr. Van Dusen gave Fly a little green card, and told her to
keep it to show to all the conductors on the road; for it was a free
pass, and would take Flipperty all over the United States.
"Yes, sir, if you please," said Fly, with a blush and a smile, and put
the "free pass" in Miss Flop's cloak pocket.
After this, she never once failed to show it, whenever Mr. Van Dusen, or
any other conductor, came near, but always had to hunt for it, and once
brought up a cookie instead, which fearful mistake mortified her to the
depths of her soul.
Horace was sure all eyes were fixed on his charming little charge, and
was proud of the honor of showing her off; but he paid for it dearly; it
cost him more than his Latin, with all the irregular verbs. There was no
such thing as her being comfortable. She was full of care about him,
herself, and the baggage. Flipperty lost off a rubber boot, which
bounced over into the next seat. Horace had to ask a gentleman and his
sick daughter to move, and, after all, it was in an old lady's lap.
Then Fly's feet were cold, and Horace took her to the stove; but that
made her eyes too hot, and she danced back, to lie with her head on his
breast and her feet against the window, till she suddenly whirled
straight about, and planted her tiny boots under his chin.
"O, Topknot, Topknot, I pity that woman with the baby, if she feels as
lame all over as I do!"
"Where's the baby, Hollis? O, I see."
"What's the matter, now? Why upon earth can't you sit still, child?"
said Horace, next minute, catching her as she was darting into the
aisle, dragging Miss Flop by the hair of the head.
"O, Hollis, don't you see there's a dolly over there, with two girls and
a lady with red clo'es on? 'Haps they'd be willing for her to get
'quainted with Flipperty?"
"Well, Topknot, 'haps they would, but 'haps I wouldn't. I can't have you
dancing all over the car, in this style."
Flyaways's lip quivered, and a tear started. Horace was moved. One of
Fly's tears weighed a pound with him, even when it only wet her
eyelashes, and wasn't heavy enough to drop.
"Well, there, darling, you just sit still,--not still enough, though, to
give you a pain (Fly always said it gave her a pain to sit still),--and
I'll bring the girls and dollie over here to you. Will that do?"
Fly thought it would.
A dreadful fit of bashfulness came over Horace, when he stood face to
face with the black-eyed lady and her daughters, and tried to speak.
"I've got a little girl travelling with me, ma'am; she's so--so uneasy,
that I don't know what to do with her. Will you let me take--I mean, are
you willing--"
"Bring her over here, and we will try to amuse her," said the black-eyed
lady, pleasantly; but Horace was sure he saw the oldest girl laughing at
him.
"It's no fun to go and make a fool of yourself," thought he, leading Fly
to the new acquaintances, and standing by as she settled herself shyly
in the seat.
"How do you do, little one? What is your name?--_Flyaway_?--Well, you
look like it. We saw you were a darling, clear across the aisle. And you
have a kind brother, I know."
At these words Fly, for want of some answer to make, sprang forward and
kissed Horace on the bridge of the nose.
"There, you've knocked off my cap."
In stooping to pick it up, he awkwardly hit his head against the older
girl, who already looked so mischievous that he was rather afraid of
her.
"Wish I could get out of the way. She expects me to speak, but I shan't.
"'Needles and pins, needles and pins,
When a man travels his trouble begins.'"
Horace was obliged to stand, very ill at ease, till the black-eyed lady
had found out where he lived, who his father was, and what was his
mother's name before she was married.
"Tell your father, when you go home, you have seen Mrs. Bonnycastle,
formerly Ann Jones, and give him my regards. I knew he married a lady
from Maine."
"I know sumpin," struck in Fly; "if ever _I_ marry anybody, I'll marry
my own brother Hollis. I mean if I don't be a ole maid!"
"And what is 'a ole maid,' you little witch?"
"I don' know; some folks is," was the wise reply. Flyaway was about to
add "Gampa Clifford," but did not feel well enough acquainted to talk of
family matters.
When the Bonnycastles left, at Cleveland, Horace thought that was the
last of them. Miss Gerty was "decent-looking, looked some like Cassy
Hallock; but he couldn't bear to see folks giggle; hoped he never should
set eyes on those people again." Whether he ever did, you shall hear one
of these days.
"O, Topknot," said he, "your hair looks like a mop. Do you want all
creation laughing at you? You'll mortify me to death."
"You ought to water it. If you don't take better care o' your little
sister, I won't never ride with you no more, Hollis Clifford!"
"Well, see that you don't, you little scarecrow," said the suffering
boy, out of all patience. "If you are going to act in New York as you
have on the road, I wish I was well out of this scrape."
Flyaway was really a sight to behold. How she managed to tear her dress
off the waist, and loose five boot buttons, and last, but not least, the
very hat she wore on her head, _would_ have been a mystery if you hadn't
seen her run.
When they reached the city, Horace put the soft, flying locks in as
good order as he could, and tied them up in his handkerchief.
"I wisht I hadn't come," whined Fly; "I don't want to wear a hangerfiss;
'tisn't speckerble!"
"Hush right up! I'm not going to have you get cold!--My sorrows! Shan't
I be thankful when I get where there's a woman to take care of her?"
On the platform at the depot, aunt Madge, Prudy, and Dotty Dimple, were
waiting for them. A hearty laugh went the rounds, which Fly thought was
decidedly silly. Aunt Madge took the young travellers right into her
arms, and hugged them in her own cordial style, as if her heart had been
hungry for them for many a day.
"We're so glad!--for it did seem as if you'd never come," exclaimed
Dotty Dimple.
"And I'd like to know," said Horace, "how you happened to get here
first."
"O, we came by express--came yesterday."
"By 'spress?" cried Flyaway, pulling away from aunt Madge, who was
trying to pin her frock together; "_we_ came by a 'ductor.--Why, where's
Flipperty's ticket?"
Horace seized Prudy with one hand, and Dotty Dimple with the other,
turning them round and round.
"I don't see anything of the express mark, 'Handle with care.' What has
become of it?"
"O, we were done up in brown paper," said Prudy, laughing, "and the
express mark was on that; but aunt Madge took it off as soon as she got
the packages home."
"Why, what a story, Prudy Parlin! We didn't have a speck of brown paper
round us. Just cloaks and hats with feathers in!"
Dotty spoke with some irritation. She had all along been rather
sensitive about being sent by express, and could not bear any allusion
to the subject.
"There, that's Miss Dimple herself. Let me shake hands with your
Dimpleship! Didn't come to New York to take a joke,--did you?"
"No, her Dimpleship came to New York to get warm," said Peacemaker
Prudy; "and so did I, too. You don't know how cold it is in Maine."
By this time they were rattling over the stones in their aunt's elegant
carriage. It was dusk; the lamps were lighted, the streets crowded with
people, the shops blazing with gay colors.
"I didn't come here to get warm, either," said Dotty, determined to
have the last word: "I was warm enough in Portland. I s'pose we've got a
furnace,--haven't we?--and a coal grate, too."
"I do hope Horace hasnt't got her started in a contrary fit," thought
Prudy; "I brought her all the way from home without her saying a cross
word."
But aunt Madge had a witch's broom, to sweep cobwebs out of the sky.
Putting her arm around Dotty, she said,--
"You all came to bring sunshine into my house; bless your happy hearts."
That cleared Dotty's sky, and she put up her lips for a kiss; while
Flyaway, with her "hangerfiss" on, danced about the carriage like a fly
in a bottle, kissing everybody, and Horace twice over.
"'Cause I spect we've got there. But, Hollis," said she, with the
comical shade of care which so often flitted across her little face,
"you never put the trunk in here. Now that 'ductor has gone and carried
off my nightie."