Dotty Dimples Flyaway | Page 8

world. "Yes, cerdily!" The world was full of folks and houses,--this place was nothing but trees. The world had horses and wagons in it,--this place hadn't. "O dee!"
Where was the hill gone, on the top of which stood that big house they called heaven,--the house where Charlie lived and played in the garden? Why, that hill had just walked off, and the house too! She parted the bushes and peeped through. Nothing to be seen but trees. Flyaway began to cry from sheer fright, as well as pain. "'Tis a defful day! I can't stay in this day!"
More trouble had come to her than she knew how to bear; but worst of all was the cruel stab of the bumblebee. She pitied her aching "fum," and kissed it herself to make it feel better; but all in vain; "the pain kept on and on;" the "fum" grew big as fast as the candy had grown little.
"Somebody don't take 'are o' me," wailed she; "somebody gone off, lef' me alone!"
She was dreadfully hungry. "When was it be dinner time?" She would not have been in the least surprised, but very much pleased, if a bird had flown down with a plate of roast lamb in his bill, and set it on the ground before her. Simple little Flyaway! Or if her far-away mother had sprung out from behind a tree with a bed in her arms, the tired baby would have jumped into the bed and asked no questions.
But nothing of the sort came to pass. Here she was, without any heaven or any mother; and the great yellow sun was creeping fast down the sky.
"I'm tired out and sleepy out," wailed the young traveller, the tears rolling over the rims of her "spetty-curls,"--"all sleepy out; and I can't get rested 'thout--my--muvver!"
She sat down and hid her head in her black dolly's bosom.
"Diny, you got some ears? We wasn't here by-fore!"
This was all the way she had of saying she was lost.
The sky suddenly grew dark; a shower was coming up.
"Where has the bwight sun gone?" said Flyaway, with a shudder.
She was answered by a peal of thunder,--wagon-wheels, she supposed.
"Here I is!" shouted she.
Some one had come for her. Perhaps it was Charlie, and they meant to give her a ride up to heaven. A flash of light, and then another crash. Flyaway understood it then. It was logs. People were rolling logs up in the sky, on the blue floor. She had seen logs in a mill. Such a noise!
Then she dropped fast asleep, and somebody came right down out of the clouds and gave her a peach turnover as big as a dinner basket, or so she thought. Just as she was about to cut it, she was awakened by the rain dripping into her eyes. She started up, exclaiming, "If you pees um, I want some cheese um."
But the turnover had gone! Then the feeling of desolation swept over her again. She had come to the end of the world, and dinner, and mother, and heaven had all gone off and left her.
"O, Diny," sobbed she, turning to her unfeeling dolly for sympathy. "I's free years old, and you's one years old. Don't you want to go to heaven, Diny, and sit in God's lap? What a great big lap he must have!"
A gust of wind lifted the frizzles on Dinah's forehead, but that was all.
"O dee, dee, dee! you don't hear nuffin 't all, Diny," said Flyaway--the only sensible remark she had made that day. It was of no use talking to Dinah; so she began to talk to herself.
"What you matter, Flywer Clifford?" said she, scowling to keep her courage up. "What you matter?"
And after she had said that, she cried harder than ever, and crept under the bushes, moaning like a wounded lamb.
"I'm defful wetter, but I'm colder'n I's wetter; makes me shivvle!"
After a while the clouds had poured out all the rain there was in them, and left the sky as clear as it was before; but by that time the sun had gone to bed, and the little birds too, sending out their good nights from tree to tree. Then the new moon came, and peeped over the shoulder of a hill at Flyaway. She sprang out from the bushes like a rabbit.
"O, my shole!" cried she, clapping her hands, "the sun's camed again! A little bit o' sun. I sawed it!"
[Illustration: LOST IN THE WOODS.]
Inspired with new courage, she and Dinah concluded to start for home; that is to say, they turned round three or four times, and then struck off into the woods.
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Now you may be sure all this could not happen without causing great alarm at grandpa Parlin's. When the dinner bell rang, everybody asked, twice