CRAZY DUCKLINGS.
When the family came home, Miss Polly had a most doleful story to tell
about Katie's experiment in the watering-trough, the child's illness,
the explosion of the beer, and her own fright and "dreadful feelings."
Mrs. Parlin regretted the loss of the tea-pot; Miss Louise said she had
heard of "witches making tea," and perhaps this was the way they did it.
In return for Miss Whiting's laborious services in taking care of the
children, Mrs. Parlin gave her various articles of food to carry home;
for Polly had one room in Mr. Grant's house, which she was accustomed
to call her home, though she did not stay there very much. Polly sighed
her gratitude, put on her dark bonnet, and said, as she went away,--
"Now, Mrs. Parlin, if it should so happen that you should all go away
again, don't fail to ask me to come and keep house. You have always been
so kind to me that I feel it a privilege to do any such little thing for
you."
But in her heart poor Polly thought it was anything but a "little
thing," and it cost her a great effort to promise to undertake it again.
Mrs. Parlin thanked Miss Polly very politely; but for her part she
thought privately it would be a long while before they would, any of
them, be willing to trust such a nervous person with the care of the
children a second time.
"Good by, all," said Polly, going off with her double-covered basket on
her arm; "remember me to Margaret when you write."
"What a funny thing to say!" remarked Prudy; "how can we remember people
to anybody, or forget them to anybody either?"
"O, it was awful," said Dotty, linking arms with Prudy and walking her
off to the seat in the trees. "Miss Polly scared me so I don't believe I
shall ever be afraid of lightning again!"
Little Flyaway ran after them, holding her nipperkin of milk close to
her bosom, to keep off the flies, as she thought.
"I was defful sick," said she; "and did I ask the Polly woman for the
stawbollies? No, she was naughty; _I_ didn't want 'em. She gived me
stawbollies and stawbollies."
Prudy had to hear over and over again the trials which both the children
had suffered. She had had a delightful time herself, as she always did
have, wherever she was. She told Dotty and Flyaway of several
interesting events which had happened; but, best of all, she had brought
them a quantity of beautiful shells, which they were to divide with
Ruthie. The brisk Ruth had come back again as energetic as ever. It
proved that her mother had not been so very ill, after all.
"Bless that Prudy's little white heart," said she, kissing her on both
cheeks; "she never forgets anybody but herself."
Ruthie did not praise children as a general thing; but she loved Prudy
in spite of herself.
Aunt Maria had brought Dotty a beautiful doll. "Because," said she, "I
knew you would try to take good care of my little Katie."
"O, thank you ever so much, Aunt 'Ria," cried Dotty, handing the dolly
at once to Prudy to be admired. But next minute her conscience pricked
her. She had no right to a present. True, Katie ought to have known
better than to try to swim; still, as Dotty acknowledged,--
"I needn't have felt so sober, I s'pose, and then I should have taken
care of her."
Dotty was learning to pay heed to these little pricks of conscience.
Slowly and sadly she walked back to her Aunt Maria, who was standing on
the piazza training the clematis.
"I s'pose, auntie, you thought I took care of the baby; but I didn't. I
let her swim. Miss Polly said _she_ had the 'blues,' and so did I."
Aunt Maria smiled. "Very well," said she; "then keep the doll as a
recompense for the suffering you have endured. I hope you will not see
two such gloomy days again during the summer."
"O, you darling auntie! May I keep the dolly?"
There was no sting now to mar Dotty's pleasure in her new possession.
Her troubles seemed to be over; life was blossoming into beauty once
more.
"Good news! Good news!" she cried, rushing into the house, her head,
with its multitude of curl-papers, looking like a huge corn-ball. "Two
duckies have pecked out!"
"You don't say so!" said Susy, coolly. "High time, I should think!"
So thought the patient and astonished old hen, who had been wondering
every day for a week if this wasn't an uncommonly "backward season." But
at last the eggs, like riches, had taken to themselves wings.
The soft, speckled creatures found plenty of admiring friends to welcome
them as they tried their first "peep" at the world. They did not see
much of the world, however, for some time, it must be confessed, on
account of the corn-meal dough which the children sprinkled into their
eyes.
"We won't let you starve, our ony dony Ducky Daddleses," said Dotty.
"Our deenty doiny Diddleses," said Katie after her, running hither and
thither like a squirrel.
It was a time of great satisfaction. Dotty regretted that Jennie Vance
had gone to Boston, for it would have been pleasant to see Jennie
envious. What were gold rings compared to ducklings? The blunt little
beaks pecked out very fast. As soon as they were all out, except the two
eggs which were addled, the step-mother hen gathered her family
together and went to house-keeping, gipsy fashion, in the back yard. She
clucked to the ducklings, and they followed her, their little feet going
pat, pat, on the soft grass. A nice time they had, no doubt, eating
picked-up dinners, with now and then a banquet of corn-meal dough. There
were eleven ducklings, five for Dotty, five for Prudy, and one for
Katie, the little girl with flying hair.
After they had been alive two days, Prudy thought they ought to have a
bath; so she took the large iron pan which Ruth used for baking
johnny-cakes, filled it with water, put the tiny creatures in, and bade
them "swim," to Madam Biddy's great alarm. They did it well, though they
were as badly crowded as the five and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.
Katie wished the Charlie boy to see the ducklings, which were "velly
difrunt from a piggie;" but dear Charlie was very ill, and when the
children went with the milk, they were not allowed to see him.
I may as well give you here the history of the ducklings.
The next morning after their "swim" there were only ten left, and
Dotty's lamentations could be heard all over the house. It was Katie's
odd one, she said, that was gone, the one with a black picture on his
back that looked like a clover. Next morning there were nine; and on the
tenth day there was but one solitary duckling left to pipe out his
sorrows all alone. The anguish of the children was painful to be behold.
Dotty's grief affected her somewhat like the jumping toothache. Who
could have carried away those dear, dear little duckies?
Who indeed? About this time the unprincipled old cat was found in the
cellar, wiping her lips and purring over a little soft, speckled down.
"It was you that did it, was it, you wicked mizzable kitty?" burst forth
the bereaved Dotty behind the swinging broomstick. "I must strike you
with the soft end. I will! I will! If I'd known before that you'd eat
live duckies! O, pussy, pussy, when I've given you my own little bones
on a plate with gravy!"
"Whose little bones did you say, my dear!" asked Abner.
"Chickens and turkeys, and so forth!" replied Dotty, dancing about in
her rage.
"Why, dear little damsel, do I really understand you to say you eat
chickens? Then you are as bad as the cat."
"Why, Abner!"
"And worse, for you have no claws."
"No claws?"
"No--have you? If you had, I should conclude they had been made to tear
little birds and mice in pieces."
"Is that what kitty's claws were made for?"
"So I am told. The truth is, she behaves much better for a cat than you
do for a little girl."
Dotty scowled at her feet and patted them with the broom.
"And better than I do for a young man."
"But she ate my duckies--so there!"
"And Prudy's too," said Abner. "But Prudy doesn't beat her for it. It
isn't pleasant to see nice little girls show so much temper, Dotty. Now
I'm going to tell you something; all those ducklings were a little
crazy, and it didn't make much difference what became of them."
"Crazy?"
"Yes, their minds were not properly balanced. There's one left, I
believe. I'm going to make a lunatic asylum for him, and put him in this
very day."
Dotty calmed herself and watched Abner as he made a pen with high
stakes, and set in one corner of it a pan of water for swimming
purposes.
The "speckling," as she called him, was Dotty's own; and when he was put
into this insane hospital, all safe from the cat, his little mistress
was in a measure consoled.
"I am sorry he is crazy," said she; "but I s'pose the hen didn't hatch
him well. Maybe he'll get his senses by and by."
All this while dear little Charlie Gray was very ill. But I will tell
you more about him in another chapter.