Dotty Dimple at Her Grandmothers | Page 6

to Mrs. Gordon's to ask her what she supposed Horace Clifford had been doing, which Dotty Dimple did not wish to hear talked about, and which made her run away when she was questioned.
"I can't imagine," said Mrs. Gordon, very much surprised. "He is a frolicsome boy, but I never thought there was anything wicked about Horace."
Then by and by she remembered how Miss Louise Parlin had lost a breastpin in a very singular manner, and both the ladies wondered if Horace could have taken it.
"One never can tell what mischief children may fall into," said Mrs. Gray, rubbing her cheek-bone; "and that reminds me how anxious I am about my little Charlie; he ought to have been at home an hour ago."
While Mrs. Gray was saying this in Mrs. Gordon's parlor, there was a scene of some confusion in Mr. Parlin's door-yard.
"Who's this coming in at the gate?" cried Dotty.
It was Deacon, but Deacon was only a part of it; the rest was two meal-bags and a small boy. The meal-bags were full, and hung dangling down on either side of the horse, and to each was tied a leg of little Charlie Gray. It was droll for a tiny boy to wear such heavy clogs upon his feet, but droller still to see him resting his curly head upon the horse's mane.
"Ums the Charlie boy," said Katie; "um can't sit up no more."
"Ah, my boy, seems to me you take it very easy," said Abner, who was just coming in from the garden, giving some weeds a ride in the "one-wheeled coach," or wheel-barrow.
"Why don't you hold your head up, darling?" said Dotty.
"O, bring the camphor," screamed Susy; "he's fainted away! he's fainted away!"
"Not exactly," said Abner, untying the strings which held him to the bags. "Old Deacon has done very well this time; the boy is sound asleep."
As soon as Abner had wheeled away his weeds, he mounted the horse and trotted to Mrs. Gray's with the meal-bags, singing for Katie's ear,--
"Ride away, ride away; Charlie shall ride; He shall have bag of meal tied to one side; He shall have little bag tied to the other, And Charlie shall ride to see our grandmother."
The little boy stood rubbing his eyes.
"Why, Charlie, darling," said Prudy, "who tied you on?"
"The man'th boy over there. Hally didn't come cauthe he played ball; and then the man'th boy tied me on."
Charlie made up a lip.
"Let's take him out to the swing," said Prudy. "That will wake him up, and then we'll make a lady's chair and carry him home."
"Don't want to thwing," lisped Charlie.
"What for you don't?" said wee Katie.
"Cauthe the ladieth will thee me."
"O, you's a little scat crow!"
"Hush, Katie," said the older children; "do look at his hair; it curls almost as tight as dandelion stems."
"Thee the dimple in my chin!"
"Which chin?" said Prudy; "you've got three of them."
"And the wuffle wound my neck! Gueth what we've got over to my houthe? Duckth."
"O, ducks?" cried Dotty; "that's what I want to make me happy. There, Prudy, think of their velvet heads and beads of eyes, waddling about this yard."
"People sometimes take ducks' eggs and put them in a hen's nest," said Prudy, reflectively.
"O, there now," whispered Dotty, "shouldn't you think Mrs. Gray might give me three or four eggs for carrying the milk every single night?"
"Why, yes, I should; and perhaps she will."
"I gueth my mamma wants me at home," said Charlie, yawning.
Prudy and Dotty went with him; and in her eagerness concerning the ducks' eggs, Dotty quite forgot the secret draughts of milk she and Katie had quaffed under the acorn-tree, calling it nectar. But this was not the last of it.
CHAPTER III.
THE WHITE TRUTH.
Dotty continued to go to Mrs. Gray's every night with the milk. Sometimes Katie went with her, and then they always paused a while under the acorn-tree and played "King and Queen." Dotty said she wished they could ever remember to bring their nipperkins, for in that case the milk would taste a great deal more like nectar. The "nipperkins" were a pair of handled cups which the children supposed to be silver, and which they always used at table.
Dotty knew she was doing wrong every time she played "King and Queen." She knew the milk was not hers, but Mrs. Gray's; still she said to herself, "Ruthie needn't give so much measure, all pressed down and run over. If Queenie and I should drink a great deal more, there would always be a quart left. Yes, I know there would."
Mrs. Gray never said anything about the milk; she merely poured it out in a pan, and gave back the pail to Dotty, asking her at the same time as many questions as the child would stay to hear.
One night Dotty begged Prudy