Dotty Dimples Flyaway | Page 7

she tucked the "tinty folks" under her left arm. Then all was ready, and the little pilgrim started for heaven.
"Um's on the toppest hill," said she, looking at the far-off mountains, reaching up against the blue sky. One mountain was much higher than the others, and on that she fixed her eye. It was Mount Blue, and was really twenty miles away. If Flyaway should ever reach that cloud-capped peak, it was not her wee, wee feet which would carry her there. But the baby had no idea of distances. She went out of the yard as fast as the big boots would allow. She felt as brave as a little fly trying to walk the whole length of the Chinese Wall.
Where were Dotty Dimple and Jennie Vance? O, they were half way to heaven by this time; she must "hurry quick."
The fact was, they were "up in the Pines," picking strawberries. Nobody saw Flyaway but a caterpillar.
"O, my shole! there's a catty-pillow--what he want, you fink?"
Kitty winked and Dinah sulked, but there was no reply.
The next thing they met was a grasshopper. "O, dee, a gas-papa! Where you s'pose um goin'?"
Kitty winked again and Dinah sulked.
Flyaway answered her own question. "Diny, dat worm gone see his mamma."
Dinah did not care anything about the family feelings of the "worms;" so she kept her red silk mouth shut; but she grew very heavy--so heavy, indeed, that once her little mother dropped her in the sand, but picking her up, shook her and trudged on. Presently she dropped something else, and this time it was the kitty. Flyaway turned about in dismay.
"Shtop," cried she, scowling through her "spetty-curls," as she saw three white paws and one blue one go tripping over the road. "Shtop!" But the paws kept on.
"O, Diny," said Flyaway, as pussy's tail disappeared round a corner,--"O, Diny, her don't want to go to heaven!"
Then Flyaway sat down in the sand, and pulled off one of the big boots.
"Um won't walk," said she; but, before she had time to pull off the second one, a dog came along and frightened her so she tried to run, though she only hopped on one foot, and dragged the other. She did not know what the matter was till she fell down and the boot came off of itself, after which she could walk very well. What cared she that both "Hollis's" new boots were left in the road, ready to be crushed by wagon wheels?
She kept on and kept on; but where was that blue hill going to? It moved faster than she did.
"Makes me povokin'," said she, giving Dinah a shake. "Um runs away and away, and all off!"
Sometimes she remembered she was going to heaven, and sometimes she forgot it. She was on the way to the "Pines," and many little flowers grew by the road-side. She began to pick a few, but the thorns on the raspberry bushes tore her tender hands, and one of the naughty branches caught Dinah by the frizzly hair, and carried her under. What did Flyaway spy behind the bushes? Dotty Dimple and Jennie Vance. They were eating wintergreen leaves; they did not see her. Flyaway kept as still as if she were sitting for a photograph, picked up Dinah, gave her a hug, and crept on.
She went so quietly that nobody heard her. When she was out of sight she purred for joy. She had got ahead of the girls on the way to heaven! She took the stick of candy out of her pocket and nibbled it to celebrate the occasion. "A little hump-backed bumblebee" saw her do it. He wanted some too, and followed Flyaway as if she had been a moving honeysuckle. For half a mile or more she "gaed" and she "gaed," all the while nibbling the candy; but now she was growing very tired, and did it to comfort herself. Suddenly she remembered it was Charlie's candy. She held it up to her tearful eyes.
"O dee," said she, "it was big, but it keeps a-gettin' little!"
The hungry bumblebee, who was just behind her, thought this was his last chance: so he pounced down upon Charlie's candy; and being cross, and not knowing Flyaway from any other little girl, he stung her on the thumb. Then how she cried, "'Orny 'ting me! 'Orny 'ting me!" for she had been treated just so before by a hornet. "O my dee mamma! My dee mamma!"
But her "dee" mamma could not hear her; she was in the city of Augusta; and as for the rest of the family, they supposed Flyaway was playing "catch" with Dotty Dimple in the barn.
CHAPTER IV.
"A RAILROAD SAVAGE."
It now occurred to little Flyaway, with a sudden pang, that she must have come to the end of the