Dotty Dimple Out West | Page 7

great eyes at the baby.
She was not aware that the person she was obliging was Mrs. Lovejoy, an old neighbor of the Parlins, who had once been very angry with Susy, saying sarcastic words to her, which even now Susy could not recall without a quiver of pain.
For some time Dotty danced the lumpish baby up and down, sustained in her tedious task by remembering the honeyed compliments its mother had given her.
"I should think they would be proud of me at home; but nobody ever said so before. O, dear, what a homely baby! Little bits of eyes, like huckleberries. 'Twill have to wear a head-dress when it grows up, for it hasn't any hair. I'm glad it isn't my brother, for then I should have to hold him the whole time, and he weighs more'n I do."
Dotty sighed heavily.
"That woman's gone to sleep. She'll dream it's night, and p'rhaps she won't wake up till we get to Boston. Hush-a-by, baby, your cradle is green! O, dear, my arms'll ache off."
A boy approached with a basket of pop-corn and other refreshments. Dotty remembered that she had in her pocket the means to purchase very many such luxuries. But how was she to find the way to her pocket? Baby required both hands, and undivided attention. Dotty looked at the boy imploringly. He snapped his fingers at her little charge, and passed on. She looked around for her father. He was at the other end of the car, talking politics with a group of gentlemen.
"Please stop," said she, faintly, and the boy came to her elbow again. "I want some of that pop-corn so much!" was the plaintive request. "I could buy it if you'd hold this baby till I put my hand in my pocket."
The youth laughed, but, for the sake of "making a trade," set down his basket and took the "infant terrible." There was an instant attack upon his hair, which was so long and straggling as to prove an easy prey to the enemy.
[Illustration: DOTTY IN THE CARS. Page 44.]
"Hurry, you!" said he to Dotty, with juvenile impatience. "I can't stand any more of this nonsense."
Dotty did hurry; but before she received the baby again he had been well shaken, and his temper was aroused; he objected to being punished for such a harmless amusement as uprooting a little hair. There was one thing certain: if his eyes were small, his lungs were large enough, and perfectly sound.
Startled by his lusty cries, his mamma opened one of her eyes, but immediately closed it again when she saw that Dotty was bending all the powers of her mind to the effort of soothing "the cherub."
"I do wish my dear mamma was travelling with us," thought the perplexed little girl. "She wouldn't 'low me to hold this naughty, naughty baby forever 'n' ever! Because, you know, she never'd go off to the other end of the car and talk pol'tics."
The little girl chirruped, cooed, and sang; all in vain. She danced the baby "up, up, up, and down, down, downy," till its blue cloak was twisted like a shaving. Still it cried, and its unnatural mother refused to hear.
"I never'll hold another baby as long's I live. When ladies come to our house, I'll look and see if they've brought one, and if they have I'll always run up stairs and hide."
As a last resort, she gave the little screamer some pop-corn. Why not? It refused to be comforted with other devices. How should she know that it was unable to chew, and was in the habit of swallowing buttons, beads, and other small articles whole?
Baby clutched at the puffy white kernels, and crowed. It knew now, for the first time, what it had been crying for. There was a moment of peace, during which Master Freddie pushed a handful of corn as far as the trap-door which opened into his throat. Then there was a struggle, a gasp, a throwing up of the little hands; the trap-door had opened, but the corn had not dropped through; there was not space enough. In other words, Freddy was choking.
The young nurse was so frightened that she almost let the small sufferer slip out of her arms. She screamed so shrilly that half a dozen people started from their seats to see what was the matter. Of course the sleepy woman was awake in a moment. All she said, as she took the child out of Dotty's arms, was this:--
"You good-for-nothing, careless little thing! Don't you know any better than to choke my baby?"
As Dotty really supposed the little one's last hour had come, and she herself had been its murderess, her distress and terror are not to be told. She paced the aisle, wringing her hands, while Mrs. Lovejoy