A DARK DAY.
Meanwhile Dotty was lying on the hay in the barn scaffold. It is very
easy to be unhappy when we particularly try to be so; and Dotty had
arrived at the point of _almost_ believing that she _almost_ wished she
was actually dead.
And, to add to her gloom, a fierce-looking man, with a long horse-whip
in his hand, came and peeped in at the barn door, and screamed to Dotty
in a hoarse voice that "Ruth Dillon wanted her right off, and none of
her dilly-dallying."
And then, on going into the house, what should she learn but that this
man had come to take Ruth home, because her mother was sick. The
children--so Ruth said--must stay with Polly and be little ladies.
O, dear, it was as lonesome as a line-storm, after lively Ruth had gone
away. Dotty began to think she liked her brisk little scoldings, after
all.
"Does you feel so bad?" said little Flyaway, gazing on her sober cousin
with pity; "your mouth looks just this way;" and, putting up both hands,
she drew down her own little lips at the corners.
"Yes, I feel bad," said Dotty. "You needn't talk to me; where's your
orange?"
"I squoze it," replied Flyaway; "and falled it down my froat. But I
didn't had enough. If you pees, um, give me some more."
"Why, what an idea!" said Dotty, laughing.
But when she began to divide her own orange into sections, Katie looked
on expectantly, knowing she should have a share. Dotty ate two quarters,
gave one to Katie, and reserved the fourth for Polly. She longed to eat
this last morsel herself, but Polly had praised her once for giving away
some toys, and she wished to hear her say again, "Why, what a generous
little girl!"
But when she smilingly offered the bite, what was her surprise to hear
Polly say in an indifferent tone,--
"Well, well, child, you needn't have saved such a tiny piece for me; it
doesn't amount to anything!"
At the same time she ate the whole at a mouthful. Dotty felt very much
irritated. Did Miss Polly think oranges grew on bushes? What was the use
to be generous if people wouldn't say "thank you?"
"I don't feel much better than I did when I gave the beggar my money.
But I didn't do my 'alms before men' this time, though," said she,
looking at her little fat arms and wondering what her grandmother meant
by talking of her giving _them_ away.
"I s'pose it's my _fingers_ that grow on the ends of my arms, and that's
what I give with," she concluded.
On the whole she was passing a dismal day. She had been told that she
must not go away; and it happened that nobody came, not even Jennie
Vance.
"If Prudy had been left alone, all the girls in town would have come to
see her," thought the forlorn Miss Dimple, putting a string round one of
her front teeth, and trying to pull it out by way of amusement.
"O, dear, I can't move my tooth one inch. If I could get it out, and put
my tongue in the hole, then there'd be a gold one come. But I can't. O,
dear!"
"Where is your little cousin?" said Miss Polly, coming into the room
with her knitting in her hand. "I thought she was with you: I don't
wonder they call her Flyaway."
"I don't know where she is, I'm sure, Miss Polly. Won't you please pull
my tooth! And do you 'spose I can keep my tongue out of the hole?"
"Why, Dotty, I thought you were going to take care of that child," said
Miss Polly, dropping her knitting without getting around to the
seam-needle, and walking away faster than her usual slow pace.
"There's nothing so bad for me as worry of mind: I shall be sick as sure
as this world!"
Dotty knew she had been selfish and careless. She not only felt ashamed
of herself, but also very much afraid that something dreadful had
happened to Katie, in which case she would be greatly to blame. She
anxiously joined in the search for the missing child. I am sure you
would never guess where she was found. In the watering trough! Not
drowned, because the water was not deep enough!
"I was trying to srim," said she, as they drew her out; "and THAT'S what
is it."
Even Miss Polly smiled at the dripping little figure with hair clinging
close to its head; but Flyaway looked very solemn.
"It makes me povokin'," said she, knitting her brows, "to have you laugh
at me!"
"It would look well in you, Dotty," said Miss Polly, "to pay more
attention to this baby, and let your teeth alone."
Dotty twisted a lock of her front hair, and said nothing; but she
remembered her grandmother's last words,--"Alice, I depend upon you to
amuse your little cousin, as your Aunt Maria told you. You know you can
make her very happy when you please."
"Seems to me," thought Dotty, "that baby might grow faster and have more
sense. _I_ never got into a watering-trough in my life!--Why, how
dark it is! Hark!" said she, aloud; "what is that rattling against the
windows?"
For she heard
"the driving hail
Upon the window beat with icy flail."
"That is hail," replied Polly--"frozen drops of rain."
"Why Miss Polly," said Dotty, giving a fierce twitch at her tooth, "rain
can't freeze the least speck in the summer. You don't mean to tell a
wrong story, but you've made a mistake."
"Her's made a 'stake," said Katie.
"Now, look, Polly, it's stones! They're pattering, clickety-click, all
over the yard. Dear, dear! The grass will look just like the
gravel-path, and the windows will crack in two."
"Never you mind," said Polly, knitting as usual; "if it does any harm,
'twill only kill a few chickens."
Upon this there was another wail; for next to ducks Dotty loved
chickens. But lo! before her tears had rolled down to meet her dimples,
the patter of hail was over.
"Come and see the rainbow," said Polly, from the door-stone.
It was a glorious sight, an arch of varied splendor resting against the
blue sky.
"That isn't a rainbow," said Dotty; "it's a hail-bow!"
"What a big, big, big bubbil!" shouted Katie.
"She thinks somebody is blowing all that out of soapsuds, I s'pose,"
said Dotty; "I guess 'twould take a giant with a 'normous pipe--don't
you, Polly?"
"There, now," said Miss Polly, "I just want you to hold some of this
hail in your hand. What do you call that but ice?"
"So it is," said Dotty; "cold lumps of frozen ice, as true as this
world."
"And not stones," returned Polly. "Now you won't think next time you
know so much better than older people--will you?"
"But I don't see, Miss Polly, how it got here from Greenland; I don't,
now honest."
"I didn't say anything about Greenland, child. I said it was rain, and
it froze in the air coming down; and so it did."
"Did it? Why, you know a great deal--don't you, Miss Polly? Did you ever
go to school?"
Polly sighed dismally.
"O, yes, I went now and then a day. I was what is called a 'bound girl.'
I didn't have nice, easy times, like you little ones. You have no idea
of my hardships. It was delve and dig from sunrise to sunset."
"Why, what a naughty mother to make you dig! Did you have a ladies'
hoe?"
"My mother died, Dotty, when I was a creeping baby. The woman who took
me to bring up was a hard-faced woman. She made me work like a slave."
"Did she? But by and by you grew up, Miss Polly, and, when you had a
husband, he didn't make you a dog--did he?"
"I never had a husband or anybody else to take care of me," said Polly.
"Come, children, we must go into the house."
They all three entered the parlor, and Miss Whiting fastened the window
tightly to exclude the air, for it was one of her afflictions that she
was "easy to take cold."
"I don't see," queried Dotty, "why your husband didn't marry you. I
should have thought he would."
"He didn't want to, I suppose," said Polly, grimly.
Dotty fell into a brown study. It was certainly very unkind in _some_
man that he hadn't married Miss Polly and taken care of her, so she need
not have wandered around the world with a double-covered basket and a
snuff-box. It was a great pity; still Dotty could not see that just now
it had anything to do with Polly's forgetting to set the table. "I'm so
hungry," said she; "isn't it 'most supper time?"
"It's only five; but you appear to be so lonesome that I'll make a fire
this minute and put on the tea-kettle," replied the kind-hearted Polly.
"What does your grandmother generally have for supper?"
"Cake sometimes," answered Dotty, her eyes brightening; "and tarts."
"And perjerves," added Katie; "and--and--yice puddin'."
"She keeps the cake in a stone jar," said Dotty, eagerly; "and the
strawberries are down cellar in a glass dish--cost a cent apiece."
"The slips they grew from cost a cent apiece; that is what you mean,"
said Polly; "you hear things rather hap-hazard sometimes, Dotty, and you
ought to be more careful."
[Illustration: A DARK DAY.--Page 154.]
The tea-kettle was soon singing on the stove, and Dotty forgot her
peculiar trials when she saw the table covered with dainties. She was
not sure grandma would have approved of the cake and tarts, but they
were certainly very nice, and it was a pleasure to see how Polly enjoyed
them. Dotty presumed she had never had such things when she lived with
the "hard-faced woman."
"It wasn't everywhere," she said, "that she saw such thick cream as rose
to the tops of Mrs. Parlin's pans."
She poured it freely over the strawberries and into her own tea, which
it made so delicious that she drank three cups. Then after supper she
seemed to feel quite cheery for her, and, taking Katie in her arms,
rocked her to sleep to the tune of "China," which is not very lively
music, it must be confessed.
"Aunt 'Ria puts her to bed awake," said Dotty. "She's going to sleep in
my bed to-night."
"Very well," said Polly, "but you will sleep with me."
"Why, Miss Polly! what if Katie should wake up?"
"She won't be likely to; but I can't help it if she does. I may have the
nightmare in the night."
"What is the nightmare?"
"It is something perfectly dreadful, child! I sincerely hope you'll
never know by sad experience. It's the most like dying of any feeling I
ever had in my life. I can't move a finger, but if I don't move it's
sure death; and somebody has to shake me to bring me out of it."
Dotty turned pale.
"Miss Polly, O, please, I'd rather sleep with Katie!"
"But how would you feel to have me die in the night?"
"O, dear, dear, dear," cried Dotty; "let me go for the doctor this
minute!"
"Why, child, I haven't got it now, and perhaps I shan't have it at all;
but if I do, I shall groan, and that's the way you will know."
Dotty ran into the shed, threw her apron, still sticky with starch, over
her head, and screamed at the wood-pile.
"O, if grandma were only at home, or Ruth, or Abner!"
"Why, what's the matter, little Goody-Two-Shoes?" said a manly voice.
Abner had just come from his day's work in the meadow.
"Polly's here," gasped Dotty. "She's afraid she's going to die in the
night, and she wants me to shake her."
Abner leaned against a beam and laughed heartily.
"Never you fear, little one! I have heard that story about Polly's dying
in the night ever since I can remember; and she hasn't died yet. You
just say your prayers, dear, and go to sleep like a good little girl,
and that's the last you'll know about it till morning."
So saying, he caught Dotty by the shoulders, and tossed her up to the
rafters. The child's spirits rose at once. It was such a comfort to have
that strong Abner in the house in case of accidents.
She said her prayers more earnestly than usual, but it was nearly five
minutes before she fell asleep. The last thing she heard was Miss Polly
singing a very mournful hymn through her nose; and, while she was
wondering why it should keep people alive to shake them, she passed
into dreamland. Very little good would such a heavy sleeper have done if
Miss Polly had had an ill turn. It was Polly who was obliged to shake
Dotty, and that rather roughly, before she could rouse her.
"Where am I? Who is it?" said she. "O, Miss Polly, are you dead?"
"Hush, child; don't speak so loud; or you'll wake Abner. Little Katie is
sick, and I want you to stay with her while I go down stairs and light a
fire."