Dotty Dimples Flyaway | Page 2

and Gracie would grow
littler and littler; and O, how nice it would be when she could do all the
work, and Gracie had to sit in mamma's lap and be rocked!
"Flywer'll do some help," said she. "Flywer'll take 'are of g'amma's
things."
While she stood musing thus, with a dreamy smile, and turning the
handle of the mill as fast as it would go round, somebody sprang at her
very unexpectedly. It was Ruth, the kitchen-girl. She seized Katie by
the shoulders, carried her through the air, and set her on her feet in the
sink.
"There, little Mischief," said she, "you'll stay there one while! We'll see
if we can't put a stop to this coffee-grinding! Why, you're enough to
wear out the patience of Job!"
Katie had often heard about Job; she supposed it was something
dreadful, like a lion, or a whale. She looked up at Ruth, and saw her
black eyes flashing and the rosy color trembling in her cheeks. Cruel
Ruth! She did not know Katie was her best friend, working and helping
get dinner as fast as she could. "Ruthie," sobbed she, "you didn't ask
please."
"Well, well, child, I'm in a hurry; and when you set things to flying,
you're enough to wear out the patience of Job."
Job again.
"You've said so two times, Ruthie! Now I don't like you tall, tenny
rate."

This was as harsh language as Katie dared use; but she frowned
fearfully, and a tuft of hair, rising from her head like a waterspout,
made her look so fierce that Ruth seemed to be frightened, and ran
away with her apron up to her face.
The sink was so high that Katie could not get out of it alone,--"course
indeed she couldn't."
"It most makes me 'fraid," said she to herself: "Ruthie's a big woman,
I's a little woman. When I's the biggest I'll put Ruthie in my sink."
Very much comforted by this resolve, she dried her eyes and began to
look about her for more housework. "Let's me see; I'll pump a bushel o'
water."
There was a pail in the sink; so, what should she do but jump into that,
and then jerk the pump-handle up and down, till a fine stream poured
out and sprinkled her all over!
"Sing a song, O sink-spout," sang she, catching her breath: but
presently she began to feel cold.
"O, how it makes me shivvle!" said she.
"Katie!" called out a voice.
"Here me are!" gurgled the little one, her mouth under the pump-nose.
When Horace came in she was standing in water up to the tops of her
long white stockings. He took her out, wrung her a little, and set her on
a shelf in the pantry to dry.
"Oho!" said she, shaking her wet plumage, like a duckling; "what for
you look that way to me? I didn't do nuffin,--not the leastest nuffin!
The water kep' a comin' and a comin'."
"Yes, you little naughty girl, and you kept pumping and pumping."
"I'm isn't little naughty goorl," thought Katie, indignantly; "but Ruthie's

naughty goorl, and Hollis velly naughty goorl."
"O, here you are, you little Hop-o'-my-thumb," said Mrs. Clifford,
coming into the pantry; "a baby with a cough in her throat and pills in
her pocket musn't get wet."
Flyaway thrust her hand into her wet pocket to make sure the wee vial
of white dots was still there.
"I fished her out of a pail of water," said Horace; "to-morrow I shall
find her in a bird's nest."
Mrs. Clifford sent for some fresh stockings and shoes. Her
baby-daughter was so often falling into mischief that she thought very
little about it. She did not know this was a remarkable occasion, and the
baby had to-day begun to remember. She did not know that if Flyaway
should live to be an old lady, she would sometimes say to her
grandchildren,--
"The very first thing I have any recollection of, dears, is grinding coffee
in your great-grandmamma's kitchen at Willowbrook. The girl, Ruth
Dillon, took me up by the shoulders, carried me through the air, and set
me in the sink, and then I pumped water over myself."
This is about the way little Flyaway would be likely to talk, sixty years
from now, adding, as she polished her spectacles,--
"And after that, children, things went into a mist, and I don't remember
anything else that happened for some time."
Why was it that things "went into a mist"? Why didn't she keep on
remembering every day? I don't know.
But the next thing that really did happen to Miss Thistleblow Flyaway,
though she went right off and forgot it, was this: She persuaded her
mother to write a letter for her to "Dotty Dimpwill."