"O, dreadful good you are, Miss Parlin! Good"s the minister! Ah! guess I"ll get out and sleep on the floor!"
Dotty made no reply, but rolled over to the front of the bed, and Jennie pushed herself to the back of it. There the little creatures lay in silence, each on an edge of the bedstead, and a whole mattress between. Sleep did not come at once.
"She"s left that money on the floor," thought Dotty; "what if a mouse should creep down the chimney, and gnaw it all up? But she must take care of it herself. _I_ shan"t!"
And Jennie thought, wrathfully, "Dotty says such long prayers she can"t stop to pick up that scrip! If she expects me to get out of bed, she"s made a mistake; I won"t touch her old money."
About nine o"clock grandma Parlin came quietly into the room with a lamp. A smile crept round the corners of her mouth, as she saw the little girls sleeping so widely apart, their faces turned away from each other.
"How is this?" said she, as the two bills caught her eye. "Of all the foolish children! Dropping money about the room like waste paper!"
The light awoke Jennie, who had only just fallen asleep. "Now is the time," said she to herself; and without waiting for a second thought, which would have been a worse one, she sprang out of bed, and caught Mrs. Parlin by the skirts.
"That money is yours, Mrs. Parlin," said she, bravely. "Yours; I found it in the rag-bag. Something naughty came into me this morning, and made me want to keep it; but I"m ever so sorry, and never"ll do it again. Will you forgive me?"
Then grandma Parlin seated herself in a rocking-chair, took Jennie right into her lap, and talked to her a long while in the sweetest way. Jennie curled her head into the good woman"s neck, and sobbed out all her wretchedness.
"She knew she was real bad, and people didn"t like to have her play with their little girls, and Dotty Dimple thought she was awful; but _was_ she the wickedest girl in this town?"
"No; O, no!"
"Wasn"t Dotty some bad, too?"
"Yes, Dotty often did wrong."
Then Jenny wept afresh.
"She knew she _was_ worse than Dotty, though. She wished,--O, dear, as true as she lived,--she wished she was dead and buried, and drowned in the Red Sea, and the gra.s.s over her grave, and shut up in jail, and everything else."
Then Mrs. Parlin soothed her with kind words, but told the truth with every one.
"No "m," Jennie said; "it wasn"t right to take fruit-cake without leave, or tell wrong stories either; she wouldn"t any more. Yes"m, she would try to be good--she never had tried much.--Yes "m, she would ask G.o.d to help her. Should you suppose He would do it?
"Yes "m, she would ask Him not to let her have much temptation. She did believe she would rather be a good girl--a real good girl, like Prudy, _not like Dotty_!--than to have a velvet dress with spangles all over it."
All this while Dotty did not waken. In the morning she was surprised to see her little bedfellow looking so cheerful.
"I"ve told your grandmother all about it," said Jennie with a smile.
"I knew I did wrong, but I don"t believe I should have meant to if you hadn"t acted so your _own_ self--now that"s a fact."
"You haven"t seen my grandmother," returned Dotty, not noticing the last clause of her friend"s remark. "You dreamed it."
"No, she came in here and forgave me. She"s the best woman in this world. What do you think she said about you, Dotty Dimple? She said there were other little girls full as good as you are. There!"
"O!"
"Said you "often did wrong," that"s _just_ what," added Jennie, correcting herself, and making sure of the "white truth."
Step by step Dotty came down from the mountain-top, and, before breakfast was ready, had led her visitor through the morning dew to the playhouse under the trees, chatting all the way as if nothing had happened.
It proved that the money belonged to Abner. He had missed it several weeks before, and ever since that had been suspecting old Daniel McQuilken, a day laborer, of stealing it.
"I"m ashamed of it now," said Abner to Ruth, "though I didn"t tell anybody but you. I wish you"d mix a pitcher of sweetened water, and let me take it out to the field to old Daniel. I feel as if I wanted to make it up to him some way."
Ruth laughed; and when Abner came into the house at ten o"clock, she had a pitcher of mola.s.ses and water ready for him, also a plate of cherry turnovers. Flyaway insisted upon toddling over the ground with one of the turnovers in her ap.r.o.n.
"Man," said she, when they reached the field, and she saw the Irishman with his funny red and white hair, "what"s your name, man?"
He wiped his face with his checked shirt-sleeve, and took a turnover from her hand, bowing very low as he did so.
"Thank ee, my little lady; sense you"re plazed to ask me,--my name"s Dannul."
"O, are you?" said Flyaway, looking up in surprise at the large and oddly-dressed stranger. "Are you Daniel? My mamma"s just been reading about you. You was in the lions" den--_wasn"t_ you, Daniel?"
Mr. McQuilken smiled at bareheaded, flossy-haired little Katie, and replied, with a wink at Abner,--
"Fath, little lady, and I suppose I"m that same Dannul; but "twas so long ago I"ve clane forgot aboot it entirely."
"O, did you? Well, you _was_ in the lions" den, Daniel, but they didn"t bite you, you know, "cause you prayed so long and so loud, with your winners up; and then G.o.d wouldn"t let "em bite."
Old Daniel laid both his huge hands on Katie"s head.
"Swate little chirrub," said he, "don"t she look saintish?"
Katie moved away; she did not like to have her hair pulled, and Daniel was unconsciously drawing it through the big cracks in his fingers, as if he was waxing silk.
"I guess I"ll go home now," said she, with a timid glance at the man whom the lions did not bite; "they"ll be spectin" me."
Abner and Daniel both watched the tiny figure across the fields till Ruth came out to meet it, and it fluttered into the east door of the house.
"There, she"s safe," said Abner; "she needs as much looking after as a young turkey."
"She runs like a little sperrit, bliss her swate eyes," said Daniel.
"I had one as pooty as her, but she"s at Mary"s fate, Hivven rist her sowl!"
The moment Flyaway reached the house, she rushed into the parlor to tell her mother the news.
"The man you readed about in the book, mamma, he"s out there! Daniel, that the lions didn"t bite, mamma, "cause he prayed so long and so loud with his winners up; he"s out there--got a hat on."
"O, no, my child; it is thousands of years since Daniel was in the lions" den; he died long and long ago."
"But he said he did, mamma; he told me so. I _fought_ he was dead, mamma, but he said he wasn"t."
Mrs. Clifford shook her head. "I dare say his name is Daniel, but he was never in a lion"s den."
Flyaway opened and closed her eyes in the slowest and most impressive manner. "Mamma," said she, solemnly, "does--folks--tell--lies?"
It was an entirely now idea to the innocent child: it stamped itself upon her mind like a motto on warm sealing-wax, "Folks--does--tell--lies."