Dotty Dimple at Her Grandmothers | Page 4

it back in my box, I do!"
CHAPTER II.
PLAYING KING AND QUEEN.
"What are you hunting for on your hands and knees, Alice?" said grandmamma, next day.
"O, nothing, only pins, grandma; but I can't find any. Isn't this a hidden-mist carpet?"
"No, dear; a hit-and-miss carpet is made of rags. But what do you want of pins?"
"She has given away what Aunt Ria paid her for Christmas," said Prudy, speaking for her; "she gave it all to the beggar."
"Yes, she did; one, two, free, four, nineteen, tenteen," said Katie; "and the gemplum didn't love little goorls."
"Why, Alice! to that man who was here yesterday?"
Dotty was frowning at Prudy behind a chair. "Yes, 'm," she answered, in a stifled voice.
"Were you sorry for him?"
"No, ma'am."
"Did you hear me say I did not believe he was in need of charity?"
"Yes, 'm."
Grandma looked puzzled, till she remembered that Alice had always been fond of praise; and then she began to understand her motives.
"Did you suppose Jennie Vance and your sisters would think you were generous?" asked she, in a low voice.
Dotty looked at the carpet, but made no reply.
"Because, if that was your reason, Alice, it was doing 'your alms before men, to be seen of them.' God is not pleased when you do so. I told you about that the other day."
Still the little girl did not understand. Her thoughts were like these:
"Grandma thinks I'm ever so silly! Prudy thinks I'm silly! But isn't Jennie silly too? And O, she takes cake, all secret, out of her new mother's tin chest. I don't know what will become of Jennie Vance."
Mrs. Parlin was about to say more, when Miss Flyaway, who had been all over the house in two minutes, danced in, saying, "the Charlie boy" had come!
It was little lisping Charlie Gray, saying, "If you pleathe, 'm, may we have the Deacon to go to mill? And then, if we may, can you thpare uth a quart 'o milk every thingle night? Cauthe, if you can't, then you muthn't."
Deacon was the old horse; and as Mr. Parlin was quite willing he should go to mill, Harry Gray came an hour afterwards and led him away. With regard to the other request, Mrs. Parlin had to think a few minutes.
"Yes, Charlie," said she, at last; "you may have the milk, because I would like to oblige your mother; and you may tell her I will send it every night by the children."
Now, Mrs. Gray was the doctor's wife. She was a kind woman, and kept one closet shelf full of canned fruit and jellies for sick people; but for all that, the children did not like her very well. Prudy thought it might be because her nose turned up "like the nose of a tea-kettle;" but Susy said it was because she asked so many questions. If the little Parlins met her on the street when they went of an errand, she always stopped them to inquire what they had been buying at the store, or took their parcels out of their hands and felt them with her fingers. She was interested in very little things, and knew how all the parlors in town were papered and carpeted, and what sort of cooking-stoves everybody used.
Dotty hung her head when her grandmother said she wished her to go every night to Mrs. Gray's with a quart of milk.
"Must I?" said she. "Why, grandma, she'll ask me if my mother keeps a girl, and how many teaspoons we've got in the house; she will, honestly. Mayn't somebody go with me?"
"Ask me will I go?" said Katie, "for I love to shake my head!"
"And, grandma," added Dotty, "Mrs. Gray's eyes are so sharp, why, they're so sharp they almost prick! And it's no use for Katie to go with me, she's so little."
"O, I'm isn't much little," cried Katie. "I's growing big."
"I should think Prudy might go," said Dotty Dimple, with her finger in her mouth; "you don't make Prudy do a single thing!"
"Prudy goes for the ice every morning," replied Mrs. Parlin. "I wish you to do as I ask you, Alice, and make no more remarks about Mrs. Gray."
"Yes, 'm," said Dotty in a dreary tone; "mayn't Katie come too? she's better than nobody."
Katie ran for her hat, delighted to be thought better than nobody. The milk was put into a little covered tin pail. Dotty watched Ruth as she strained it, and saw that she poured in not only a quart, but a great deal more. "Why do you do so?" said Dotty. "That's too much."
"Your grandmother told me to," replied Ruth, washing the milk-pail. "She said 'Good measure, pressed down and running over.' That's her way of doing things."
"But I don't believe grandma 'spected you to press it down and run it all over. Why,