A Sweet Little Maid | Page 8

you there on my back."
"And maybe we'll find some eggs," spoke up Florence, who dearly liked to hunt eggs. "We found two yesterday. Indeed, uncle, I think you do need more hens, for auntie said yesterday that she didn't get all the eggs she wanted."
They found old Speckle ready to be quite flustered when they took her off the nest, for they found that four little chicks were already hatched, and the shells of several other eggs were chipped.
Mr. Dallas gave the children each two of the little chicks to carry up to the house, that they might be kept safely till Speckle came off with the rest of the brood, and Bubbles, who had followed them, trotted along behind with her hands full of the eggs they were fortunate enough to find.
The new building was begun at once, and Dimple found it hard to keep away from it, but she resolutely stuck to her promise. One day, to be sure, she did not venture nearer than usual, but suddenly she exclaimed in a loud voice, "Get thee hence, satan!" and turning ran directly into Bubbles who, as usual, had followed her.
"What dat yuh call me, Miss Dimple," exclaimed Bubbles, in an aggrieved tone.
"You! Oh, I wasn't talking to you."
This seemed rather a lame excuse to Bubbles, since no one else was near. "Yass 'm, yuh is call me sumpin'," she insisted. "Dey ain't nobody else."
"There was somebody else," Dimple replied, with dignity. "And don't you contradict me. I reckon I know what I'm talking about better than you do."
This puzzled Bubbles, but it also silenced her, although she looked furtively around to see where Dimple's hidden acquaintance might be; that somebody else to whom she spoke so defiantly. "Hit's dat no 'count little niggah Jim, I'll be bound," she muttered, under her breath. "He done shy a stone at the de birds and dat mek Miss Dimple mad. She don't 'low nobody 'buse de birds." Thus settling the matter, she cheerfully smiled when Dimple gave her a glance, and Dimple laughed. Then she stood still.
"Bubbles," she said, "papa never said you mustn't go near that house, did he?"
"No 'm."
"Well, just go peep in and tell me what it looks like. From the looks of the outside, I should say that it is nearly done. You peep in at the window."
Bubbles obeyed, and came back with the information. "Hit's got a flo' an' a stove."
"Ah!" Dimple pondered. "Oh yes, that's to keep the baby chicks warm, I suppose. I wish I could see for myself. Is that all, Bubbles?"
"Yass 'm."
"I wish I hadn't told you to peep in," Dimple remarked, after a pause. "I don't believe it was quite honest for me to do it, and I'll have to be uncomfortable till I tell mamma or papa. You oughtn't to have peeped, Bubbles."
"Yuh tole me to."
"So I did, but--well, you shouldn't have done it, just the same."
Bubbles rolled her eyes reproachfully, and began to mutter.
"There, never mind. It wasn't your fault," Dimple confessed, hastily. But although Bubbles' countenance cleared, Dimple herself did not feel at ease till she had told her mother, which she did that night at bedtime.
"It was not right," her mother told her, "and was a bad example to Bubbles. That is where the trouble often comes in. Not so much in the actual wrong we do, but its effect upon others."
"I do want to see, so very much. Papa never made it so hard for me before."
"I know it, dear. I have realized very clearly all along how hard it must be for you, but I think when you do know you will be so pleased that you will forget this part of it. I am glad my little girlie was brave enough to tell of her asking Bubbles to peep."
And kissing her good-night, Mrs. Dallas left her little girl feeling comforted.
CHAPTER III
A Quarrel
"Raining! Isn't that too bad?" said Florence, leaning on one elbow in bed, and looking out of the window.
"Hm, hm," said Dimple, sleepily, from her pillow.
Florence slipped out of bed and stood looking dolefully at the falling drops.
"What do you suppose the birds do, Dimple?" she asked, going up to her, and softly shaking her.
"Oh," said Dimple, now awake, and sitting up in bed, rubbing her eyes, "I suppose they get under the leaves just as we do under an umbrella, or they go under the eaves, and places like that. I have seen them lots of times. It is raining, isn't it, Florence?"
"I said so, long ago," answered Florence; "now we can't go out of doors to play, and it is so nice outdoors. I don't see the sense of its raining in summer."
"Why," returned Dimple, sitting down on the floor to put on her shoes and stockings, "that is the very