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 pa.s.sing a dismal day. She had been told that she must not go away; and it happened that n.o.body 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 amus.e.m.e.nt.
"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 gra.s.s 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"."