Dotty Dimple's Flyaway Part 12

Mrs. Clifford was sorry to see the look of distrust on the young face.

"Listen to me, little Flyaway. I think the man was in sport; he was only playing with you, as Horace does sometimes, when he calls himself your horse."

Flyaway said no more, but she pressed her eyelids together again, and felt that she had been trifled with. Half an hour afterwards Prudy heard her repeating, slowly, to herself, "Folks--does--tell--lies."

"Why, here she is," called Dotty from the piazza; "come, Fly; we're going wheel-barrowing."

"Wait a minute, cousin Dotty," said Mrs. Clifford; "Flyaway must put on a clean frock; she is not coming home with you, but you are to leave her at aunt Martha's. I shall meet her there at dinner time."

"O, mamma, may I? I love you a hundred rooms full. Let me go bring my _b.u.t.toner bootner_ quick's a minute."

Flyaway was not long in getting ready. She was never long about anything.

"You said we might have all the money, we three--didn't you, grandma?"

asked Dotty again, at the last moment, thinking how glad she was Jennie had gone home, and would not claim a share.

"Yes," replied patient grandma for the fifth time; "you may do anything you like with it, except to buy colored candy."

As they were trundling the wheelbarrow out of the yard, Horace came up from the garden.

"Prudy," said he, with rather a shame-faced glance at his favorite cousin, "you girls will cut a pretty figure, parading through the streets like a gang of pedlers. Come, let me be the driver."

"O, we thought you couldn't leave your flower-beds, sir," replied Prudy, sweeping a courtesy.

"Well, the weeds _are_ pretty tough, ma'am; roots 'way down in China, and the Emperor objects to parting with 'em; but--"

"Poh! we don't need any boys," cried the self-sustained Miss Dimple; "if your hands are too soft, Prudy, you mustn't push. Wait and see what Dotty Dimple can do."

"O, then, if you spurn me and my offer, good by. I suppose my little Topknot goes for _surplusage_," said Horace, who liked now and then to puzzle Dotty with a new word. He meant that Flyaway was of no use, but rather in the way.

"No, she needn't do any such thing," returned Dotty. "Jump in, Fly, and sit on the bag." And off moved the gay little party, "the middle-aged sister" laughing so she could hardly push, Flyaway dancing up and down on the rag-bag, like a humming-bird balancing itself on a twig; Grace and Susy looking down from the "green chamber" window, and saying to each other, with wounded family pride, "_Should_ you think grandma would allow it?" Out in the street the young rag-merchants were greeted by a cow lowing dismally. Flyaway, in her rustic carriage, felt as secure as the fabled "kid on the roof of a house;"

so she called out, "Don't cry, old cow; I 'shamed o' you."

At this Prudy and Dotty laughed harder than ever.

"'Sh right up, old cow," said Flyaway, standing on her "tipsy-toes,"

and making a threatening gesture with her little arms; "'Sh right up!--O, why don't that cow mind in a minute?"

In her earnestness the little girl pushed the bag to one side, and Prudy and Dotty, shaking with laughter, tipped over the wheelbarrow.

No harm was done except to give Flyaway a dust-bath in her nice clean frock. Just as they were struggling with the bag, to get it in again, they were overtaken by a droll-looking equipage. It was a long house on wheels, and instantly reminded Dotty of Noah's ark.

"O, a house a-ridin'! a house a-ridin'!" exclaimed Flyaway, gazing after it with the greatest astonishment.

Dotty thought the world was going topsy-turvy. She looked at the trees to see if they stood fast in the ground. But Prudy explained it as soon as she could stop laughing.

"Only a photograph saloon," said she. "Didn't you ever see one before?

We don't have them in the city going round so, but things are different in the country. Let's watch and see where it stops."

"O, dear me," said Dotty; "I shouldn't want to live in a house that couldn't stand still! Stove tipping over, and the gingerbread falling out of the oven! There, I declare!"

The look of wonder on Dotty's face was so amusing that Prudy was obliged to hold on to her sides.

"There, look!" said she; "it has stopped down by the corner. Now the man can bake his gingerbread if he wants to, and the stove won't tip over. Jump in, Flyaway, and finish your ride."

"No-o," said Flyaway, wavering between her fear of the cow, some yards ahead, and her fear of the rocking, unsteady wheelbarrow. "Guess I won't get in no more, Prudy; it wearies me."

"Wearies you?"

"Yes: don't you know what 'wearies' means, Prudy? It means it makes me a--a--little--scared!"

And in her "weariness" Flyaway nestled between her two cousins, and kept fast hold of their skirts till the cow was safely pa.s.sed and the red store reached.

"Bravo!" exclaimed Mr. Bradley, the merchant, as he came out and dragged the rag-bag into the store; "so you've taken the business into your own hands, my little women? Ah, this is a progressive age! Walk in--walk in."

Prudy blushed, Dotty smiled, and Flyaway took off her hat, as she usually did when she did not know what else to do.

"Take some seats, young ladies," said Mr. Bradley, placing three chairs in a row, and bowing as if to the most distinguished visitors.

Two or three men, who were lounging about the counter, looked on with a smile. Dotty was very well satisfied, for she enjoyed attention; but Prudy, who was older, and had a more delicate sense of propriety, blushed and cast down her eyes. She had thought nothing of driving a wheelbarrow through the street, but now, for the first time, a feeling of mortification came over her. If Mr. Bradley would only keep quiet!

"A fine morning, my young friends! Rather warm, to be sure. And so you have brought rags to sell? Would you like the money for them, or do you think we can make a trade with some articles out of the store?"

"Grandma said we could have the money between us, we three," replied Dotty, with refres.h.i.+ng frankness, "and buy anything we please except red and yellow candy."

"I want a _music_," said Flyaway, in an eager whisper; "a music, and a ollinge, and a pig."

"Hus.h.!.+" said Prudy, for the man with a piece of court-plaster on his cheek was certainly laughing.

Mr. Bradley took the bag into another room to weigh it. A boy was in there, drawing mola.s.ses. "James," said Mr. Bradley, "run down cellar, and bring up some beer for these young ladies."

There was a smile on James's face as he drove the plug into the barrel. Prudy saw it through the open door, and it went to her heart.

The cream beer was excellent, but Prudy did not relish it. She and Dotty had been whispering together.

"We will take two thirds of the rags in money, if you please," said Prudy, in such a low tone that Mr. Bradley had to bend his ear to hear.

"Because," added Dotty, who wished to have everything clearly explained, "because we want to have our tin-types taken, sir. We saw a saloon riding on wheels, and we thought we'd go there, and see if the man wasn't ready to take pictures."

"And our little cousin may use her third, and buy something out of the store, if you please," said the blus.h.i.+ng Prudy.

CHAPTER IX.

TIN-TYPES.

Mr. Bradley said he did not often allow any one behind his counter, as all the boys in the village could testify; but these young ladies were welcome in any part of the store.

"That little one is the spryest child I ever saw," said the man with the court-plaster, as Flyaway hovered about the candy-jars, like a b.u.t.terfly over a flower-bed. "She isn't a Yankee child--is she?"