"Too bad! Naughty folks to give you _skilmick_."
"I had to scour all the knives too. I did it by drawing them back and forth into a sand-bank back of the house. This Isaac I speak of was a lazy boy, and very unkind to me; but his mother wouldn"t hear a word against him. One day I brushed a traveller"s coat, and got a silver quarter for my trouble. I thought everything of that quarter. I had never had so much money before in my life. I had half a mind to put it in the Savings Bank; "and who knows," thought I, "but I can add more to it, one of these days, and buy my time.""
"Why, Miss Polly, I didn"t know you could _buy_ time!"
"But you knew you could throw it away, I suppose," said Polly, with a sad smile. "What I mean is this: I wanted to pay Mrs. Potter some money, so I could go free before I was eighteen."
"Then you would be _unbound_, aunt Polly."
"Yes; but one day Isaac found my money,--I kept it in an old tobacco-box,--and, just to hector me, he kept tossing it up in the air, till all of a sudden it fell through a crack in the floor; and that was the last I saw of it."
[Ill.u.s.tration: "HERE HE IS!"]
"What a naughty, careless boy!"
After Dotty had said this, she blushed.
"Naughty, careless boy!" echoed Flyaway. "Here he is!" holding up a paper doll shaped very much like a whale, with the fin divided for legs, the ears of a cat, and the arms of a windmill. "Here he is!"
"He didn"t look much like that," said Polly, laughing. "He had plenty of money of his own, and I tried to make him give me back a quarter; but do you believe he wouldn"t, not even a ninepence? And when I teased him, that was the time he bit my arm."
"He oughtn"t to bitted your arm, course, indeed not!"
"But, aunt Polly," faltered Dotty, whose efforts to forget the ten-cent piece had proved worse than useless, "but it didn"t do Isaac any good to lose your money down a crack."
"No, it was sheer mischief."
"And if it doesn"t do folks any good to lose things, you know, why, what"s the use--to--to--go and get his own money to pay it back with?--Isaac I mean."
"What do you say, Dotty Parlin? You, a child that goes to Sabbath school! Don"t you know it is a sin to steal a pin? And if we lose or injure other people"s things, and don"t make it up to them, we"re as good as thieves."
"As good?"
"As bad, then."
"But s"posin"--s"posin" folks lose things when they _don"t_ toss "em up in the air, and don"t mean to,--the wind, you know, or a kind of an accident, Miss Polly,--"
"Well?"
"And s"posin" I didn"t have any more money "n I wanted myself, and Prudy had the most--H"m--"
"Well?"
"Then it isn"t as bad as thieves; now is it? She"s got the most.
Prudy"s older "n I am--"
"Honesty is honesty," said Miss Polly, firmly, "in young or old. If you"ve lost your sister"s money, you must make it up to her."
"O, must I, Miss Polly? Such a tinty-tonty mite of money as I"ve got,--only sixty-five cents."
"Honesty is honesty," repeated Miss Polly, "in rich or poor."
"Dear me! will my mother say so, too?"
"Your mother is on the right side, Dotty. The Bible tells us to "deal justly." There"s nothing said there about excusing poor folks."
"O, dear! do you s"pose the Bible expects me to pay Prudy Parlin ten cents, when it just blew out of my hands, and didn"t do me a speck of good?"
"Why, Dotty, you surprise me! Any one would think you were brought up a heathen! If you were a small child I could understand it."
"I knew I should have to do it," moaned Dotty.
"I advise you to lose no time about it, then; that is the cause of your blues, I guess. We can"t be happy out of the line of our duty,"
sighed Miss Polly, who regarded herself as a pattern of cheerfulness.
"I"ll tell you what I"m going to do," said Dotty, resolutely; "I"m going right off to pay that money to Prudy, and then I"ll be in the line of my duty."
CHAPTER XII.
FULL NIPPERKIN.
Prudy scorned to take the ten cents. "Did you think your "middle-aged"
sister would do such a thing, when she has more money than you have, Dotty Dimple? If you"re only sorry, that"s all I ask. I didn"t like to have you laugh, as if you didn"t care."
"But, Prudy, I want to be honest."
"And so you have been, dear child," said grandma Parlin, with an approving smile. "If Prudy chooses now to give you the money, receive it as a present, and say, "Thank you.""
"O, thank you, Prudy Parlin, over and over, and up to the moon," cried Dotty, throwing her arms around her kind sister"s neck. "I"ll never lose anything of yours again; no, never, never!"
This lesson was laid away on a shelf in Dotty"s memory. Close beside it was another lesson, still more wholesome.
"Dotty Dimple isn"t the best girl that ever lived. She had to be talked to and talked to, before she was willing to do right. She isn"t any better than Jennie Vance, after all. Why did she pray that naughty prayer, just to make Jennie feel bad? G.o.d must have thought it was very strange!"
Grandma saw that Dotty"s "blues" were dissolving like a morning mist; still she knew the child was in need of patchwork, and told her so.
"Let us all take our work," said she, "and sit together in the nursery, so we may forget the dull weather."
Grace brought her pique ap.r.o.n down stairs to make, Susy her tatting, Prudy a handkerchief, Dotty a square of patchwork, while Flyaway danced about for a needle and thread.
"What a happy group!" said Mrs. Clifford, looking up from her sewing.
She had forgotten Polly Whiting, who was mournfully toeing off a sock for Horace, while he sat on the floor, at her feet, mending her double-covered basket.
"Why, Katie, darling," said Grace, "what are you doing with that beautiful ribbon?"