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[Transcriber's notes: Punctuation and inconsistencies in language and
dialect found in the original book have been retained.
Sophie May is a pseudonym of Rebecca Sophia Clarke.
Smilie/Smiley spelled two ways: used Smiley.]
[Illustration: Frontispiece.]
_LITTLE PRUDY'S FLYAWAY SERIES._
AUNT MADGE'S STORY.
BY
SOPHIE MAY,
AUTHOR OF "LITTLE PRUDY STORIES," "DOTTY DIMPLE STORIES," ETC.
_ILLUSTRATED._
BOSTON:
LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS.
NEW YORK:
LEE, SHEPARD AND DILLINGHAM.
1874.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871,
BY LEE AND SHEPARD,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
Electrotyped at the Boston Stereotype Foundry,
No. 19 Spring Lane.
_LITTLE PRUDY'S FLYAWAY SERIES._
TO BE COMPLETED IN SIX VOLS.
1. LITTLE FOLKS ASTRAY.
2. PRUDY KEEPING HOUSE.
3. AUNT MADGE'S STORY.
(Others in preparation.)
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
I. TOTTY-WAX. 9
II. THE LADY CHILD. 20
III. THE BLUE PARASOL. 38
IV. LIZE JANE. 55
V. THE PARTY. 69
VI. THE PATCHWORK SCHOOL. 87
VII. THE LITTLE LIE-GIRL. 108
VIII. THE TANSY CHEESE. 122
IX. "WAXERATION." 140
X. "THE CHILD'S ALIVE." 159
XI. THE FIRST CAR RIDE. 174
XII. BETTER THAN KITTENS. 188
XIII. GOOD BY. 199
AUNT MADGE'S STORY.
CHAPTER I.
TOTTY-WAX.
Here you sit, Horace, Prudy, Dotty, and Flyaway, all waiting for a
story. How shall I begin? I cannot remember the events of my life in
right order, so I shall have to tell them as they come into my mind.
Let us see. To go back to the long, long summer, when I was a child:
There once lived and moved a little try-patience, called Margaret
Parlin; no more nor less a personage than myself, your affectionate
auntie, and very humble servant. I was as restless a baby as ever sat
on a papa's knee and was trotted to "Boston." When I cried, my womanly
sister 'Ria, seven years old, thought I was very silly; and my brother
Ned, aged four, said, "Div her a pill; _I_ would!"
He thought pills would cure naughtiness. If so, I ought to have
swallowed some. Pity they didn't "div" me a whole box full before I
began to creep; for I crept straight into mischief. Aunt Persis, a
very proper woman, with glittering black eyes, was more shocked by me
than words can tell. She said your grandma "spoiled me by baby-talk;
it was very wrong to let little ones hear baby-talk. If she had had
the care of me she would have taught me grammar from the cradle." No
doubt of it; but unfortunately I had to grow up with my own father and
mother, and ever so many other folks, who were not half as wise as
Aunt Persis.
They called me Marg'et, Maggie, Marjie, Madge; and your grandpa's pet
name was Totty-wax; only, if I joggled the floor when he shaved, it
was full-length "Mar-ga-ret."
I was a sad little minx, so everybody kindly informed me, and so I
fully believed. My motto in my little days seems to have been, "_Speak
twice before you think once_;" and you will see what troubles it led
me into. I never failed to "speak twice," but often forgot the
thinking altogether. Margaret means Daisy; but if I was like any
flower at all, I should say it was "the lady in the bower." You know
it, Prudy, how it peeps out from a tangle of little tendrils? Just so
I peeped out, and was dimly seen, through a wild, flying head of hair.
Your grandma was ashamed of me, for if she cut off my hair I was taken
for a boy, and if she let it grow, there was danger of my getting a
squint in my eye. Sometimes I ran into the house very much grieved,
and said,--
"O, mamma, I wasn't doin' noffin, only sitting top o' the gate, and a
man said, 'Who's that funny little fellow?'--Please, mamma, won't you
not cut my hair no more?"
I was only a wee bit of a Totty-wax when she stopped cutting my yellow
hair, and braided it in two little tails behind. The other girls had
braids as well as I; but, alas! mine were not straight like theirs;
they quirled over at the end. I hated that curly kink; if it didn't go
off it would bring my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.
But, children, I fear some of the stories I told were crookeder
than even my braids. In the first place, I didn't know any better. I
told lies, to hear how funny they would sound. My imagination was
large, and my common sense small. I lived in a little world of my own,
and had very queer thoughts. Perhaps all children do; what think, Fly?
When I was lying in the cradle I found my hands one day, and I
shouldn't wonder if I thought they were two weeny babies come
visiting; what do you suppose? Of course I didn't know they belonged
to me, but I stared at them, and tried to talk. And from that time
until I was a great girl, as much as five years old, I was always
supposing things were "diffunt" from what they really were. I thought
our andirons were made of gold, just like the stars, only the andirons
had enough gold in them to sprinkle the whole sky, and leave a good
slice to make a new sun. When I saw a rainbow, I asked if it was "a
side-yalk for angels to yalk on?"
I thought the cat heard what I said when I talked to her, and if I
picked a flower I kissed it, for "mebbe" the flower liked to be
kissed.
I had a great deal of fun "making believe," all to myself. I made
believe my mamma had said I might go somewhere, and off I would go,
thinking, as I crept along by the fence, bent almost double for fear
of being seen, "_Prehaps_ she'll tie me to the bed-post for it."
And she always did.
I was the youngest of the family then, but I made believe I had once
had a sister Marjie, no bigger than my doll, and a naughty woman in a
green cloak came and carried her off in her pocket. I told my little
friend Ruphelle so much about this other Marjie that she believed in
her, and after a while I believed in her myself. We used to sit on
the hay and talk about her, and wonder if the naughty woman would ever
bring her back. We thought it would be nice to have her to play with.
This was not very wicked; it was only a fairy story. But the mischief
was, my dear mother did not know where to draw the line between fairy
stories and lies. Once I ran away, and Mrs. Gray told her she had seen
me playing on the meeting-house steps with Ann Smiley.
"No, mamma," said I, catching my breath, "'twasn't me Mis' Gray saw; I
know who 'twas. There's a little girl in this town looks jus' like me;
has hair jus' the same; same kind o' dress; lives right under the
meeting-house. Folks think it's me!"
Your grandma was distressed to have me look her straight in the face
and tell such a lie; but the more she said, "Why, Margaret!" the
deeper I went into particulars.
"Name's Jane Smif. Eats acorns; sleeps in a big hole. Didn't you never
hear about her, mamma?"
As I spoke, I could almost see Jane Smif creeping slyly out of the big
hole with mud on her apron. She was as real to me as some of the
little girls I met on the street; not the little girls I played with,
but those who "came from over the river."
My dear mother did not know what to do with a child that had such a
habit of making up stories; but my father said,--
"Totty-wax doesn't know any better."
Mother sighed, and answered, "But _Maria_ always knew better."
I knew there was "sumpin bad" about me, but thought it was like the
black on a negro's face, that wouldn't wash off. The idea of trying
to stop lying never entered my head. When mother took me out of the
closet, and asked, "Would I be a better girl?" I generally said, "Yes
um," very promptly, and cried behind my yellow hair; but that was only
because I was touched by the trembling of her voice, and vaguely
wished, for half a minute, that I hadn't made her so sorry; that was
all.
But when I told that amazing story about Jane Smif, in addition to
running away, mother whipped me for the first time in my life with a
birch switch.
"Margaret," said she, "if you ever tell another wrong story, I shall
whip you harder than this, you may depend upon it."
I was frightened into awful silence for a while, but soon forgot the
threat. I was careful to avoid the name of Jane Smif, but I very soon
went and told Ruphelle that my mamma had silk dresses, spangled with
stars; "kep' 'em locked into a trunk; did _her_ mamma have stars on
_her_ dresses?" Ruphelle looked as meek as a lamb, but her brother
Gust snapped his fingers, and said,--
"O, what a whopper!"
That is why I remember it, for Ruth heard him, and asked what kind of
a whopper I had been telling now, and reported it to mother.
Mother rose very sorrowfully from her chair, and bade me follow her
into the attic. I went with fear and trembling, for she had that
dreadful switch in her hand. Poor woman! She wished she had not
promised to use it again, for she began to think it was all in vain.
But she must not break her word; so she struck me across the wrists
and ankles several times; not very hard, but hard enough to make me
hop about and cry.
When she had finished she turned to go down stairs, but I said
something so strange that she stopped short with surprise.
"I _can't_ 'pend upon it, mamma," said I, looking out through my hair,
with the tears all dried off. "You said you'd whip me harder, but you
whipped me _softer_. I _can't_ 'pend upon it, mamma. You've telled a
lie yourse'f."
What could mother say? I have often heard her describe the scene
with a droll smile. She gave me a few more tingles across the neck, to
satisfy my ideas of justice; but that was the last time she used the
switch for many a long day. Not that I stopped telling marvellous
stories; but she thought she would wait till she saw some faint sign
in me that I knew the "diffunce" between truth and falsehood.