RIDING ON JACK FROST.
Fly slept in a little cot beside her hostess's bed. Mrs. Pragoff, poor
lady, reclined half the night on her elbow, watching the child's
breathing; but, to her inexpressible relief, nothing happened that was
at all alarming. Fly only waked once in the night, and asked in a drowsy
tone, "Have I got a measle?"
But just as Mrs. Pragoff was enjoying a morning nap, a pair of little
feet went pricking over the floor, towards the girls' room, but soon
returned, and a sweet young voice cried,--
"O, Miss Perdigoff, I can't wake up Dotty!"
"Can't wake her, child!"
"No'm, I can't; nor Prudy can't: we can't wake up Dotty."
Mrs. Pragoff roused at once, with a new cause for alarm.
"Why, what does this mean? Did you try hard to wake her?"
"Yes'm; I shaked her."
Mrs. Pragoff now remembered, with terror, that there had been a little
trouble with Dotty's windpipe. Could she have choked to death?
Rising instantly, she threw on her wrapper, and was hurrying across the
passage, when Fly added,--
"'Haps she'll let _you_ wake her; she wouldn't let me 'n' Prudy."
"You little mischief, is that what you mean? She won't _let_ you wake
her?"
"No'm, she won't," replied artless Fly; "she said she wouldn't be
_bovvered_."
Mrs. Pragoff went to bed again, laughing at her own folly.
Dotty, it seems, was feeling very much like a bitter-sour apple. It had
always been a peculiarity of hers to visit her own sins upon other
people. Prudy did not suspect in the least what the matter was, but
knew, from experience, it was safest to ask no questions.
"I'm going back to auntie's, this morning."
"Why, Dotty, Uncle Augustus and auntie won't be home till night. Mrs.
Pragoff said she would take us to the Park and the Museum, you know."
"I don't care how much you go to parks and museums, Prudy; I want to be
at home long enough to get my hair brushed and put away my things."
Prudy looked up in surprise; but the rousing-bell sounded, and both the
little girls had as much as they could do to get ready for breakfast.
When Mrs. Pragoff met them in the parlor, she saw two lovely dimples
playing in Dotty's cheeks; for the child was old enough, and had pride
enough, to conceal her disagreeable feelings from strangers. All very
well, only she might have carried the concealment a little farther, and
spared poor Prudy much discomfort.
Not that Prudy thought of complaining,--for really her younger sister's
temper was greatly improved. For a year or two she had scarcely been
known to get seriously angry, and Prudy did not mind a sharp retort now
and then, or even an hour's sulks.
While Dotty sipped her chocolate from a cup so delicate that it looked
like a gilded bubble, she was wondering how she could get home. She did
not know the way, and could not ask any one to go with her without
making up an excuse.
"I could say I am sick, but that wouldn't be true, and me eating muffins
and honey. I'm afraid 'twasn't quite true last night. I did feel rather
funny, though, in my windpipe, now honest."
There seemed to be no other way but to wait and go home with the rest of
the children. Dotty tried to think there might be time enough, after
all, to find the rings.
They started for the Park.
"May I depend upon you, Master Horace, to take the entire charge of your
little sister!" said Mrs. Pragoff, fastening her ermine cloak with
fingers which actually trembled; "I confess I haven't the courage; and
I see you understand managing her perfectly."
Of course Horace always expected to take care of Topknot. He would
gladly have done a much harder thing for a lady who was so polite, and
appreciated him so well.
Mrs. Pragoff gave a hand to Prudy and Dotty, saying gayly, as they all
five took a car for the Park,--
"'Sound the trumpet, beat the drum;
Tremble, France; we come! we come!'"
There was just enough snow to whiten the ground, but none to spare.
Everybody was determined to make the most of it while it lasted, and the
Park was full of people sleigh-riding. It was really a wonderful sight.
There were miles and miles of sleighs of all sorts, shaped like
sea-shells, cradles, boats, water-lilies, or any other fanciful things.
The people in them were so gay with various colors, that they looked
like long lines of rainbows. Many of the horses had silver-mounted
harnesses, and on their necks stood up little silver trees, branching
out into sleigh-bells, and sprinkling the air with merry music.
"See, children, let us ride in this beautiful sleigh; it is shaped like
a Spanish gondola, and we ought to have music as we float."
"Fly can sing the 'Shepherd's Pipe coming over the Mountains,'" said
Dotty; and forthwith the child began to warble the softest, sweetest
music from her wonderful little throat. Dotty queried privately why it
should be called the shepherd's _pipe_: how could a shepherd smoke
while he sang?
"O, how beautiful!" said everybody, when the music ceased.
They meant that everything was beautiful. The air was so balmy, and the
sky so soft, that you might fancy the sun was walking in his sleep,
writing his dreams on the white clouds.
"Splendid!" exclaimed Fly, forgetting, perhaps, that she was not a
flying-fish, and trying to dive head first out of the gondola.
"Tell me, children, if you don't think our Park is very fine?"
"Yes'm," was the faint reply in chorus.
"Why don't you say, 'We never saw the like before?'"
"O, we have, you know, ma'am," said Prudy; "it's just like riding round
Willow-brook."
"Fie! don't tell me there's anything so beautiful in Maine! I expect
you to be enchanted every step of the way. Look at this pond, with, the
swans sailing on it."
"O, yes; those are beauties," cried Dotty; "I never saw any but cotton
flannel ones before. But do you think the pond is as pretty as
Bottomless Pond, Prudy, where Uncle Henry goes for pitcher-plants?"
"You prosy little creature," said Mrs. Pragoff, laughing; "I am afraid
you don't admire these picturesque rocks and tree-stumps as you should."
Dotty thought this was certainly a jest.
"Pity there's so many. Why don't they hire men to dig 'em up by the
roots?"
Horace smiled on Dotty patronizingly.
"They'll do it some time, Dot. The Park is new. Things can't be finished
in a minute, even in New York."
Mrs. Pragoff smiled quietly, but was too polite to tell Horace the
rocks had been brought there as an ornament, at great expense.
"I like the Park, if it isn't finished," said Prudy, summoning all her
enthusiasm; "I know you'll laugh, Horace, but I like it better for the
rocks; they make it look like home."
The ride would have seemed perfect to everybody; only a wee sleigh
passed them, drawn by a pair of goats, and Fly thought at once how much
better a "goat-hossy" must be than a "growned-up hossy, that didn't have
no horns." She thought about it so much, that at last she could contain
herself no longer. "There was little girls in that pony-sleigh, Miss
Perdigoff, with a boy a-drivin.' 'Haps they'd let me go, too, if _you_
asked 'em, Miss Perdigoff. My mamma don't 'low me to trouble nobody,
and I shan't; only I thought I'd let you know I wanted to go, Miss
Perdigoff."
Mrs. Pragoff laughed heartily, and thought Fly should certainly have a
ride, "ahind the goat-horses;" but it was not possible, as the cunning
little sleigh was engaged for hours in advance.
A visit to the Zoological Gardens comforted the little one, however,
after she got over her first fear of the animals. There they saw a
vulture, like a lady in a cell, looking sadly out of a window, the train
of her grey and brown dress trailing on the ground. Horace thought of
Lady Jane Grey in prison.
There was a white stork holding his red nose against his bosom, as if to
warm it. A red macaw peeling an apple with his bill. Brown ostriches,
like camels, walking slowly about, as if they had great care on their
minds.
Green monkeys biting sticks and climbing bars. A spotted leopard,
licking his feet like a cat. A fierce panther, looking out of a window
in the same discontented mood as the vulture.
"See him stoop down," said Dotty; "he makes as much bones of himself as
he can."
A horned owl, with eyes like auntie's when she looks "'stonished."
An eagle, with a face, Horace said, like a very cute lawyer.
A "speckled bear," without any spectacles. A "nelephant" like a great
hill of stone, and a baby "nelephant," with ears like ruffled aprons.
An anaconda that "kept making a dandelion of himself."
A great grizzly bear hugging a young grizzly daughter.
"Who made that _grizzle_?" asked Fly, disgusted.
"God."
"Why did He? I wouldn't!--Miss Perdegoff, which does God love best,
great ugly _grizzles_ or hunkydory little parrots?"
"O, fie!" said Mrs. Pragoff, really shocked; "where did a well-bred
child like you ever hear such a coarse word as that?"
"Hollis says hunkydory," replied Fly, with her finger in her mouth,
while Horace pretended to be absorbed in a monkey.
Mrs. Pragoff turned the subject.
"Tell me, children, which do you consider the most wonderful animal you
have ever seen?"
"The lion," replied Prudy.
"The whale," said Dotty. "Which do you, Mrs. Pragoff?"
"This sort of animal, that _thinks_," replied the lady, touching Dotty's
shoulder: "this shows the most amazing power of all."
"You don't mean to call me an animal," said Dotty, with a slight shade
of resentment in her voice.
"Why, little sister, I just hope you're not a vegetable! Don't you know
we are all animals that breathe?"
"O, are we? Then I don't care," said Dotty, and serenely followed the
others up stairs, "where the dried things were."
Next they went to Wood's Museum, and saw greater wonders still.
The "Sleeping Beauty," dreaming of the Prince, with lips just parted and
breath very gently coming and going. Dotty would not believe at first
that her waxen bosom palpitated by clockwork.
There were distorted mirrors, which Horace held Flyaway up to peep
into, that he might enjoy her bewilderment when she saw her face twisted
into strange shapes.
The Cardiff Giant, which Horace said "you might depend upon was a hoax."
An Egyptian dromedary, which Fly "just knew" had a sore throat; and a
stuffed gorilla in "buffalo coat and leather gloves."
Then they had a lunch at Delmonico's, quite as good, Prudy admitted, "as
what you found in Boston."
After this, to Dotty's dismay, they went to the Academy of Design, and
criticised pictures.
The statue of Eve Horace regarded with some contempt. "No wonder she
didn't know any better than to eat the apple! What do you expect of a
woman with such a small head as that? Look here who do you suppose was
Eve's shoemaker? Cain?"
"Shoemaker? Why, Horace, she's barefoot."
"So she is, now, Dot; but she's worn shoes long enough to cramp her
toes."
"Strange I never noticed that before," said Mrs. Pragoff. "I think the
sculptor ought to know your criticism, Master Horace."
"She's a woman that understands what a boy is worth," thought Horace,
very much flattered. "Tell you what, I never saw a more sensible person
than Mrs. Pragoff."
"Now, dears, shall we go to Stewart's?"
"O, no'm; please don't," cried Dotty. "Because," added she, checking
herself, "their curtains are all down; and don't you s'spose Mr.
Stewart and the clerks have gone off somewhere?"
Mrs. Pragoff laughed, but, concluding the child was very tired, proposed
going home; and, to Dotty's great joy, they started at once.
"I shall so grieve to part with you!" said Mrs. Pragoff, as they went
along. "I wish you were mine to keep, every soul of you."
But Dotty noticed that while she spoke she was looking at Prudy.