A FLY IN TRINITY CHURCH.
The children went to bed that night cheered by a remark which Mrs.
Fixfax dropped as if by accident.
"The cook is to fry buckwheat cakes in the morning. I dare say you would
like omelettes, too. Do you drink chocolate?"
"She takes it for granted we are going to eat down stairs," thought
Prudy. And now her troubles were over. Life bloomed before her once more
like a garden of roses.
Horace did not rest remarkably well. In the first place, the bed was too
warm. Mrs. Fixfax had rolled Fly into a big bundle, with nothing out
but the end of her nose, and was toasting her with soapstones.
"Buried alive," Horace said, "with gravestones at her head and feet."
"I'm all of a _personation_," gasped the child. "My mamma never did me
so, Hollis. She gave me little tinty tonty pills,--sugar clear
through,--not the big ones Miss Fixfix eats."
"Well, lie still, Topknot, and don't roll towards me."
For an hour or two Fly lay gasping; then she said, softly,--
"Hollis, Hollis, is He looking now?"
"Yes, dear; but don't be afraid of the good God."
"I didn't, Hollis, if I wasn't naughty. When I'm good I'm willin' He
should look."
"Naughty, Topknot?"
"Yes, Hollis; I _solomon_ promised I wouldn't go ou' doors; but that
new Miss Fixfix, she let me gwout, athout nuffin on my head, 'n' I got a
awful cold."
"O, little Fly!"
"I know it, Hollis. I was defful sorry all the time. I ate ollinges,
too; so for course I got the sore froat."
"I'm glad you told me, Fly; now I know what ails you. But you mustn't
ever disobey again."
"Yes, um," said Fly, rolling towards her brother, and crying till the
tears ran down on the flannel which was bound around her neck. A few
moments after she whispered,--
"Now I don't feel any 'fraid, Hollis; I've telled God. I feel better,
'n' I'm willin' He should look."
"Well, then, dear, that's right--go to sleep."
"And now, Hollis, do you s'pose He'll send my spirrick back to me?"
"What are you talking about, Topknot? Your spirit's in your body, child.
Go to sleep."
"No, it isn't in my body, too! I want my nice good little spirrick to
come back," murmured the child. "Auntie said 'twould stay to me if I's
good."
Fly was thinking of her unseen guardian angel.
It was a troubled night for Horace. Fly waked him no less than three
times, to ask him if she had the measles.
"No, child, no; don't wake me for that again."
"Well, you ought to not go to sleep 'fore I do. You're a fast boy,
Hollis!"
Morning came, and Fly was rather languid, as might have been expected
after such a night.
"I don't see," mused Mrs. Fixfax, "where she caught this dreadful cold,
unless it was your keeping the room so hot yesterday, children."
Fly hid her face in her brother's back hair, for she was riding
pickaback down stairs.
"And can we go to see that Poland lady?" said Dotty.
"If you asked _me_, I answer, No," said Horace, bluntly. "At any rate,
Fly mustn't stir a step out of the house to-day."
"I didn't ask you, Horace. I asked Mrs. Fixfax. She is the one that has
the care of us."
"I really don't know what to say about it," replied the housekeeper,
hesitating. "We will wait and see how she seems after breakfast."
"Rather a cool way of setting my opinion one side," thought Horace,
indignantly.
Fly ate only two small buckwheat cakes, but seemed lively enough, as
she always did when there was a prospect of going anywhere.
"I don't suppose it is exactly the thing, after steaming her so," said
Mrs. Fixfax, as if talking to herself,--she did not even look at
Horace;--"but really I don't know what else to do. I couldn't keep her
at home unless the rest of the children staid; and if I did I presume
she'd get killed some other way. She's one of the kind that's never
safe, except in bed, with the door locked, and the key in your pocket."
"Let her manage it to suit herself," thought brother Horace, deeply
wounded; "she knows _my_ opinion."
When Madam Pragoffyetski came, the housekeeper went down to the parlor
to introduce the children--a step which Horace thought highly
unnecessary. He was charmed at once with the foreign lady's affable
manners, and would have liked to go with her, if only Fly could have
been left behind. Mrs. Fixfax explained that the child had been sick,
and must be treated like a hot-house plant.
"We thought last night she was in danger of her _life_," said Dotty.
"You expected she was going to die, Horace; you know you did."
"Well, I wasn't going to," returned Fly, coughing. "I knew I should
live--I always do live."
"What was the matter?" said Mrs. Pragoffyetski, in alarm; for she knew
as much about children's ailments as she did about the volcanoes in the
sun.
"Only a little sore throat," answered the housekeeper, still looking
anxious, and not at all sure she was doing right.
"Yes'm, sore froat. And Dotty wanted me to have the measles, too; but I
wouldn't."
"That is right," said Mrs. Pragoffyetski, with a musical laugh. "Indeed,
your little cousin was cruel to ask such a thing of you. I'm glad you
didn't do it."
They took a street-car, and Dotty pressed her face against a window,
expecting to see gay sights all the way. But no; the shops had their
eyes shut. Yesterday how quickly everybody had moved! Now, men and women
were walking quietly along, and there was no confusion anywhere.
"How strange!" said Prudy. "I should think it was Sunday, only the boys
are blowing tin trumpets."
"Yes; and the babies are going to visit their grandmammas," said Mrs.
Pragoff; "look at the one in the corner in its nurse's arms, with a
point-lace bib under its chin. That pretty blanket, embroidered so
heavily, must weigh more than the baby."
Dotty kept her gaze steadily fixed on the streets.
"It seems so funny for a steeple to be _preceding_ from the middle of
those stores. 'Tisn't a very pious place for a church!"
"Now I hope Dotty isn't going to be pert," thought Prudy.
"I know what street that is, down there," added Miss Dimple, jumping out
of the car with both feet; "that is Wall Street. Did they use to have
walls both sides of it? Horace, you scared me so yesterday, I like to
screamed. You said there were bulls and bears growling all the way
along; but there wasn't a single bear, only a stuffed one sitting on
top of a store, and he wasn't alive, and not on this street either."
Here Prudy gave her sister's little finger a squeeze, which was meant
for "hush;" but Dotty never could understand why it was not proper at
all times to say what she had on her mind, especially when people
listened so politely as this Polish lady.
"Mrs.--Mrs. Pragoff-yetski, I hope you'll excuse me, but I can't
remember your name."
"That is it; you have it exactly; but never mind about the last part, my
love. Pragoff is enough."
"Yes'm.--Well, I was going to ask you, Mrs. Yetski, will you please sit
between me and Fly when we go into church? O, you don't know how funny
she acts, or you never'd dare take her. I wouldn't laugh in church for
anything in this world; but Fly always makes me."
"Does she, indeed! Ah me, that is very unfortunate!" said the queenly
lady, looking down on little Miss Toddlekins as if she were actually
afraid of her. She took care to put Dotty out of harm's way, by placing
the untamable Fly between Horace and Prudy.
The interior of Trinity Church was so magnificent, the Christmas
decorations so fresh and beautiful, and the service so imposing, that no
one thought of such a thing as smiling.
"How could I have been so impatient, yesterday?" thought Prudy, as she
listened to the plaintive chant, "He was a man of sorrows, and
acquainted with grief."
"Why, if you only think of that, how our Saviour had trouble every
minute, it doesn't seem as if it makes so much difference whether we
people and children have a good time or not."
Here, as they were about to seat themselves at the close of the chant,
Fly, who, in spite of her brother's warnings, had been tilting back and
forth on a stool, suddenly tipped forward, and hit her nose furiously.
Blood flowed from the wound; and the sight of it, together with the
pain, made the child frantic. She forgot where she was and screamed.
Poor Mrs. Pragoffyetski! Though a good woman in the main, she was rather
proud of appearances, and had just been thinking the four children did
her credit. But now! The shrill cry of distress called everybody's
attention to her pew. The whole audience were looking up from their
prayer-books in astonishment.
"Tut, tut! My dear! My love! Hush, my babe, lie still,--O, can't you
stop crying?"
Horace, too, was trying to quiet the child; but Fly sincerely believed
she was bleeding to death; so what did she care for proprieties?
"O, my shole!" piped she aloud, plunging both hands into the stream of
blood, and afterwards into her hair.
Thus, by the time Mrs. Pragoff and Horace got her into the aisle, she
looked as if she had been murdered.
"I wish I was twenty-one," thought Horace, bitterly. "Mrs. Fixfax had no
business steaming this child. I believe it has gone to her brain."
The party of five marched out of church, for Mrs. Pragoff did not wish
to make a second sensation by coming back after Prudy and Dotty.
"I never go with Fly but I get mortified," thought Miss Dimple; "and
now, O dear, I shan't hear those Christmas chimes!"
But Prudy was thinking how sorry she was for Mrs. Pragoff and Horace.
They all went into a druggist's, and, after a few minutes spent in the
use of a sponge and water, poor Fly ceased to look like a murdered
victim, but very much like a marble image. When they reached Mrs.
Pragoff's, she was placed on a sofa, and for once in her life lay still.
Horace bent over her with the wildest anxiety, thinking some terrible
crisis was coming. As soon as she felt a little better, she began to
cry. "O, darling, what is it?" said he, glad to see her in motion once
more.
"Cause my Uncle 'Gustus is sick."
"Poh," said Dotty; "crying about that? See! _I_ don't cry."
"Well, you don't love Uncle 'Gustus so hard as I do," said Fly, with
another burst.
Mrs. Pragoff looked on with interest, and tried to remember whether she
had ever heard that children shed tears when they were "coming down"
with scarlet fever. This elegant mansion was a very interesting place to
visit. To say nothing of things which "made a noise," there was no end
of curiosities from the four quarters of the globe; and Mrs. Pragoff was
so truly well-bred that the children soon felt at home. Dotty was deeply
engaged in examining a sea-horse, when Prudy suddenly whispered,--
"Dotty, what did you do last night with those two rings?"
"Rings? What rings?"
Then a look of absolute terror spread over Dotty's face. She remembered
slipping off her auntie's rings when she washed the dishes; but where
had she put them?
"Why, Prudy, I _persume_ I left 'em in--in--where I ought to leave 'em."
"O, I'm glad you did," returned Prudy, quite satisfied, for she was
listening with one ear to the liquid notes of "The Wandering Sprite."
"Why didn't Prudy Parlin ask me before?" thought Dotty, in much
agitation; "and then I could have gone all round and looked to see if
I'd put them in the right place."
[Illustration: "DOTTY DIMPLE, YOU HERE?"]