DOTTY HAVING HER OWN WAY.
Yes, Fly was out of sight; that was certain. Whether she had turned to
the right, or to the left, or had merely gone straight on, fallen down,
and been trampled on, that was the question. How was one to find out?
People enough to inquire of, but nobody to answer.
Horace had as many thoughts as a drowning man. How had he ever dared
bring such a will-o'-the-wisp away from home? How had his mother
consented to let him? His father had charged him, over and over, not to
let go Fly's hand in the street. That did very well to talk about; but
what could you do with a child that wasn't made of flesh and blood, but
the very lightest kind of gas?
"Dotty, turn down this street, and I'll keep on up Broadway. No--no;
you'd get lost. What shall we do? Go just where I do, as hard as you can
run, and don't lose sight of me."
Dotty began to pant. She could not keep on at this rate of speed, and
Horace saw it.
"You'll have to go back to Stewart's."
"Where's Stewart's?" gasped Dotty, still running.
"Why, that stone building on Tenth Street, with blue curtains, where we
left auntie."
"I don't know anything about Tenth Street or blue curtains."
"But you'll know it when you get there. Just cross over--"
"O, Horace Clifford, I can't cross over! There's horses and carriages
every minute; and my mother made me almost promise I wouldn't ever cross
over."
"There are plenty of policemen, Dotty; they'll take you by the
shoulder--"
"O, Horace Clifford, they shan't take me by the shoulder! S'pose I want
'em marching me off to the lockup?" screamed Dotty, who believed the
lockup was the chief end and aim of policemen.
"Well, then, I don't know anything what to do with you," said Horace, in
despair.
It seemed very hard that he should have the care of this willful little
cousin, just when he wanted so much to be free to pursue Flyaway.
"If you won't go back to Stewart's, you won't. Will you go into this
shop, then, and wait till I call for you?"
"You'll forget to call."
"I certainly won't forget."
"Well, then, I'll go in; but I won't promise to stay. I want to help
hunt for Fly just as much as you do."
"Dotty Dimple, look me right in the eye. I can't stop to coax you. I'm
frightened to death about Fly. Do you go into this store, and stay in it
till I call for you, if it's six hours. If you stir, you're lost.
Do--you--_hear_?"
"Yes, I _hear_.--H'm, he thinks my ears are thick as ears o' corn? No
holes in 'em to hear with, I s'pose! Horace Clifford hasn't got the
_say_ o' me, though. I can go all over town for all o' him!"
"What will you have, my little lady?" said a clerk, bowing to Dotty.
"I don't want anything, if you please, sir. There was a boy, and he
asked me to stay here while he went to find something."
"Very well; sit as long as you please."
"Screwed right down into the floor, this piano stool is," thought Dotty;
"makes it real hard to sit on, because you can't whirl it. Guess I'll
walk 'round a while. Why, if here isn't a window right in the floor!
Strong enough to walk on. There's a man going over it with big boots and
a cane. I can look right down into the cellar. Only just I can't see any
thing, though, the glass is so thick."
Dotty watched the clerks measuring off yards of cloth, tapping on the
counter, and calling out, "Cash." It was rather funny, at first, to see
the little boys run; but Dotty soon tired of it.
"Horace is gone a long while," thought she, going to the door and
looking out.
"He has forgotten to call, or he's forgotten where he left me, or else
he hasn't found Fly. Dear, dear! I can't wait. I'll just go out a few
steps, and p'rhaps I'll meet 'em."
She walked out a little way, seeing nothing but a multitude of strange
faces.
"Well, I should think this was queer! I'll go right back to that store,
and sit down on the piano stool. If Horace Clifford can't be more
polite! Well, I should think!"
Dotty went back, and entered, as she supposed, the store she had left;
but a great change had come over it. It had the same counters, and
stools, and goods on lines, marked "Selling off below cost;" but the men
looked very different. "I don't see how they could change round so
quick," thought Dotty; "I haven't been gone _more'n_ a minute."
"What shall I serve you to, mees," said one of them, with a smile that
was all black eyes and white teeth. Dotty thought he looked very much
like Lina _Rosenbug's_ brother; and his hair was so shiny and sticky, it
must have been dipped in molasses.
She answered him with some confusion. "I don't want anything. I was the
girl, you know, that the boy was going somewhere to find something."
The man smiled wickedly, and said, "Yees, mees." In an instant it
flashed across Dotty that she had got into the wrong store. Where was
the glass window she had walked on? They couldn't have taken that out
while she was gone. The floor was whole, and made of nothing but boards.
"Well, it's very queer stores should be _twins_," thought Dotty.
She entered the next one. It was not a "twin;" it was full of books and
pictures.
"Why didn't Horace leave me here, in the first place, it was so much
nicer. And they let people read and handle the pictures. O, they have
the _goldest_-looking things!"
How shocked Prudy would have been, if she had seen her little sister
reaching up to the counter, and turning over the leaves of books, side
by side with grown people! Miss Dimple was never very bashful; and what
did she care for the people in New York, who never saw her before? She
soon became absorbed in a fairy story. Seconds, minutes, quarters; it
was a whole hour before she came to herself enough to remember that
Horace was to call for her, and she was not where he had left her.
"But he can't scold; for didn't he keep me waiting, too? Now I'll go
back."
The next place she entered was a cigar store.
"I might have known better than to go in; for there's that wooden Indian
standing there, a-purpose to keep ladies out!"
"O, here's a 'Sample Room.' Now this _must_ be the place, for it says
'Push,' on the green door, just as the other one did."
What was Dotty's astonishment, when she found she had rushed into a room
which held only tables, bottles, and glasses, and men drinking something
that smelt like hot brandy!
"I shan't go into any more 'Sample Rooms.' I didn't know a 'Sample'
meant whiskey! But, I do declare, it's funny where _my_ store is gone
to."
The child was going farther and farther away from it.
"Here is one that looks a little like it Any way, I can see a glass
window in there, on the floor."
A lady stood at a counter, folding a piece of green velvet ribbon. Dotty
determined to make friends with her; so she went up to her, and said, in
a low voice, "Will you please tell me, ma'am, if I'm the same little
girl that was in here before? No, I don't mean so. I mean, did I go into
the same store, or is this a different one? Because there's a boy going
to call for me, and I thought I'd better know."
Of course the lady smiled, and said it might, or might not be the same
place; but she did not remember to have seen Dotty before.
"What was the number of the store? The boy ought to have known."
"But I don't believe he did," replied Dotty, indignantly; "he never said
a word to me about numbers. I'm almost afraid I'll get lost!"
"I should be quite afraid of it, child. Where do you live?"
"In Portland, in the State of Maine. Prudy and I came to New York: our
auntie sent for us--I know the place when I see it; side of a church
with ivy; but O, dear! I'm afraid the stage don't stop there. She's at
Mr. Stewart's--she and Prudy."
"Do you mean Stewart's store?"
"O, no'm; it's a man she knows," replied Dotty, confidently; "he lives
in a blue house."
The lady asked no more questions. If Dotty had said "Stewart's store,"
and had remembered that the curtains were blue, and not the building,
Miss Kopper would have thought she knew what to do; she would have sent
the child straight to Stewart's.
"Poor little thing!" said she, twisting the long curl, which hung down
the back of her neck like a bell-rope, and looking as if she cared more
about her hair than she cared for all the children in Portland. "The
best thing you can do is to go right into the druggist's, next door but
one, and look in the City Directory. Do you know your aunt's husband's
name?"
"O, yes'm. Colonel Augustus Allen, _Fiftieth_ Avenue."
"Well, then, there'll be no difficulty. Just go in and ask to look in
the Directory; they'll tell you what stage to take. Now I must attend to
these ladies. Hope you'll get home safe."
"A handsome child," said one of the ladies. "Yes, from the country,"
replied Miss Kopper with a sweet smile; "I have just been showing her
the way home."
Ah, Miss Kopper, perhaps you thought you were telling the truth; but
instead of relieving the country child's perplexity, you had confused
her more than ever. What should Dotty Dimple know about a City
Directory? She forgot the name of it before she got to the druggist's.
"Please, sir, there's something in here,--may I see it?--that shows
folks where they live."
"A policeman?"
"No; O, no, sir."
After some time, the gentleman, being rather shrewd, surmised what she
wanted, and gave her the book.
"Not that, sir," said Dotty, ready to cry.
Perhaps you will be as ready to laugh, when you hear that the child
really supposed a City Directory was an instrument that drew out and
shut up like a telescope, and, by peeping through it, she could see the
distant home of Colonel Allen, on "Fiftieth Avenue."
The apothecary did not laugh at her; but, being a kind man, and,
moreover, not having curls hanging down his neck which needed attention,
he gave his whole care to Dotty, found an omnibus for her, told the
driver just where to let her out, and made her repeat her uncle's street
and number till he thought there was no danger of a mistake.