Dotty Dimple Out West.
by Sophie May.
CHAPTER I.
STARTING.
One beautiful morning in October the sun came up rejoicing.
Dotty Dimple watched it from the window with feelings of peculiar pleasure.
"I should think that old sun would wear out and grow rough round the edges. Why not? Last week it was ever so dull; now it is bright. I shouldn"t wonder if the angels up there have to scour it once in a while."
You perceive that Dotty"s ideas of astronomy were anything but correct.
She supposed the solar orb was composed of a very peculiar kind of gold, which could be rubbed as easily as Norah"s tin pans, though so intensely hot that one"s fingers would, most likely, be scorched in the operation.
On this particular morning she felt an unusual interest in the state of the weather. It had been decided that she should go West with her father, and this was the day set for departure. "I am happy up to my throat:" so she said to Prudy. And now all this happiness was to be b.u.t.toned up in a cunning little casaque, with new gaiters at the feet, and a hat and rosette at the top. Forty pounds or so of perfect delight going down to the depot in a carriage.
"Don"t you wish you could go, Zip Parlin? I"d like to hear you bark in the cars; and I"d like to hear _you_ talk, Prudy, too!"
As Dotty spoke, the faintest possible shadow flickered across her radiant face; but it was only for a moment. She could not have quite everything she wanted, because she could not have Prudy; but then they were to take a basket of cold boiled eggs, sandwiches, and pies; and over these viands, with a napkin between, were two picture-books and a small spy-gla.s.s. There was a trunk with a sunshade in it, and some pretty dresses; among them the favorite white delaine, no longer stained with marmalade. There were presents in the trunk for Grace, Horace, and Katie, which were to take them by surprise. And more and better than all, Miss Dotty had in her own pocket a little porte-monnaie, containing fifty cents in scrip, with full permission to spend it all on the way.
She also had a letter from Susy to be read at Boston, and one from Prudy to be read at Albany.
Yes, there was everything to be thankful for, and nothing to regret.
She was quite well by this time. The rich, warm color had come back to her cheeks. She did not need the journey for the sake of her health; her papa was to take her because he chose to give her the same pleasure he had once given Prudy. It was Susy"s private opinion that it was rightfully her turn this time, instead of Dotty"s; but she was quite patient, and willing to wait.
It was a long journey for such a little child; and Mrs. Parlin almost regretted that the promise had been made; but the young traveller would only be gone three or four weeks, and in her aunt"s family was not likely to be homesick.
It was a very slow morning to Dotty. "Seems to me," said she, vibrating between the parlor and the kitchen like a discontented little pendulum,--"seems to me it was a great deal later than this yesterday!"
She had eaten as many mouthfuls of breakfast as she possibly could in her excited condition, had kissed everybody good by twice over, and now thought it was time to be starting.
Just as her patience was wearing to a thread the hack arrived, looking as black and glossy as if some one had been all this time polishing it for the occasion. Dotty disdained the help of the driver, and stepped into the carriage as eagerly as Jack climbed the bean-stalk. She flirted her clean dress against the wheel, but did not observe it. She was as happy as Jack when he reached the giant"s house; happier too, for she had mounted to a castle in the air; and everybody knows a castle in the air is gayer than all the gold houses that ever grew on the top of a stalk. To the eye of the world she seemed to be sitting on a drab cushion, behind a gray horse; but no, she was really several thousand feet in the air, floating on a cloud.
Her father smiled as he stepped leisurely into the hack; and he could not forbear kissing the little face which sparkled with such antic.i.p.ation.
"It is a real satisfaction," thought he, "to be able to make a child so happy."
The group at the door looked after them wistfully.
"Be a good child," said Mrs. Parlin, waving her handkerchief, "and do just as papa tells you, my dear."
"Remember the three hugs to Gracie, and six to Flyaway," cried Prudy; "and don"t let anybody see my letter."
Dotty threw kisses with such vigor that, if they had been anything else but air, somebody would have been hit.
The hack ride did not last long. It was like the preface to a story-book; and Dotty did not think much about it after she had come to the story,--that is to say, to the cars.
Her father found a pleasant seat on the shady side, hung the basket in a rack, opened a window; and very soon the iron horse, which fed on fire, rushed, snorting and shrieking, away from the depot. Dotty felt as if she had a pair of wings on her shoulders, or a pair of seven-league boots on her feet; at any rate, she was whirling through s.p.a.ce without any will of her own. The trees nodded in a kindly way, and the gra.s.s in the fields seemed to say, as it waved, "Good by, Dotty, dear! good by!
You"ll have a splendid time out West! out West! out West!"
It was not at all like going to Willowbrook. It seemed as if these Boston cars had a motion peculiar to themselves. It was a very small event just to take an afternoon"s ride to Grandpa Parlin"s; but when it came to whizzing out to Indiana, why, that was another affair! It wasn"t every little girl who could be trusted so far without her mother.
"If I was _some_ children," thought Dotty, "I shouldn"t know how to part my hair in the middle. Then my papa wouldn"t dare to take me; for _he_ can"t part my hair any mor"n a cat!"
Dotty smiled loftily as she looked at her father reading a newspaper. He was only a man; and though intelligent enough to manage the trunks, and proceed in a straight line to Indiana, still he was incapable of understanding when a young lady"s hat was put on straight, and had once made the rosette come behind!
In view of these short-comings of her parent and her own adroitness at the toilet, Dotty came to the conclusion that she was not, strictly speaking, under any one"s charge, but was taking care of herself.
"I wonder," thought she, "how many people there are in this car that know I"m going out West!"
She sat up very primly, and looked around. The faces were nearly all new to her.
"That woman in the next seat, how homely her little girl is, with freckles all over her face! Perhaps her mother wishes she was as white as I am. Why, who is that pretty little girl close to my father?"
Dotty was looking straight forward, and had accidentally caught a peep at her own face in the mirror.
"Why, it"s me! How nice I look!" smiling and nodding at the pleasant picture.
"Sit up like a lady, Dotty, and you"ll look very polite, and very _style_ too."
Florence Eastman said so much about "style" that Miss Dimple had adopted the word, though she was never know to use it correctly. I am sorry to say there was a deal of foolish vanity in the child"s heart. Thoughtless people had so often spoken to her of her beauty, that she was inclined to dwell upon the theme secretly, and to admire her bright eyes in the gla.s.s.
"Yes, I do look very _style_," she decided, after another self-satisfied nod. "Now I"d just like to know who that boy is, older"n I am, not half so pretty. I don"t believe but somebody"s been sitting down on his hat.
What has he got in his lap? Is it a kitten? White as snow. I wish it wasn"t so far off. He"s giving it something to eat. How its ears shake!
Papa, papa, what"s that boy got in his lap?"
"What boy?"
"The one next to that big man. See his ears shake! He"s putting something in his mouth."
"In whose mouth?"
Mr. Parlin looked across the aisle.
"That "big man" is my old friend Captain Lally," said he quite pleased; and in a moment he was shaking hands with him. Presently the captain and his son Adolphus changed places with the woman and the freckled girl, and made themselves neighbors to the Parlins. The two seats were turned _vis-a-vis_, the gentlemen occupying one, the children the other.
Now Dotty discovered what it was that Adolphus had in his lap; it was a Spanish rabbit; and if you never saw one, little reader, you have no idea how beautiful an animal can be. If there is any gem so soft and sparkling as his liquid Indian-red eyes, with the sunshine quivering in them as in dewdrops, then I should like to see that gem, and have it set in the finest gold, and send it to the most beautiful woman in the world to wear for a ring. This rabbit was white as a s...o...b..ll, with ears as pink as blush roses, and a mouth that was always in motion, whether Adolphus put lumps of sugar in it or not.
Dotty went into raptures. She forgot her "style" hat, and her new dignity, and had no greater ambition than to hold the lovely white ball in her arms. Adolphus allowed her to do so. He was very kind to answer all her questions, and always in the most sensible manner. If Dotty had been a little older, she would have seen that the captain"s son was a remarkably intelligent boy, in spite of his smashed hat.
After everything had been said that could possibly be thought of, in regard to rabbits and their ways, Dotty looked again, and very critically, at Adolphus. His collar was wrinkled, his necktie one-sided, he wore no gloves, and, on the whole, was not dressed ad well as Dotty, who had started from home that very morning, clean and fresh. He was every day as old as Susy; but Miss Dimple, as a traveller bound on a long journey, felt herself older and wiser still, and began to talk accordingly. Smoothing down the skirt of her dress with her neatly-gloved hands, she remarked:--
CHAPTER II.