Dotty Dimples Flyaway | Page 4

Mosey!"

Grandma smiled, and wondered if people, in the good old Bible days,
were in the habit of using pet names, and if Pharaoh's daughter ever
called the Hebrew boy "Mosey." She was about to begin another story,
when Flyaway said, "Guess I'll go out, now," and slid off the bed.
There was an orange on the table. She took it, held it behind her, and
walked quickly to the door. Looking back, she saw that her
grandmother was watching her.
"What you looking at, gamma? 'Cause I'm are goin' to bring the ollinge
right back."
And so she did, but not because it was wrong to keep it. Flyaway had
no conscience, or, if she had any, it was very small, folded up out of
sight, like a leaf-bud on a tree in the spring.
"Ask Ruthie to wash your face and hands, and then come right back to
grandma and hear the story."
"Yes um."
Down stairs she pattered. The moment Ruth had kissed her, and turned
away to make a poultice, she crept into the nursery, and put on Horace's
straw hat. Then she took from a corner an old cane of her grandfather's,
and from the paper-rack a daily newspaper, and started out in great glee.
The "Journal" she hugged to her heart, and her short dress she held up
to her waist, "'Cause I s'pect I mus' keep it out o' the mud," said she, as
anxiously as any lady with a train.
She had no trouble in finding the church, for the road was straight, but
the cane kept tripping her up.
"Naughty fing! Wisht I hadn't took you, to-day, you act so bad!" said
she, picking herself up for the fifth time, and slinging the "naughty
fing" across her shoulder like a gun. When she came to the
meeting-house there was not a soul to be seen. "Guess they's eatin'
dinner in here," decided Flyaway, after looking about for a few seconds.
"Guess I'll go up chamer, see where the folks is."

[Illustration: RUNNING AWAY TO CHURCH.]
Up stairs she clattered, hitting the balusters with her cane. Good Mr.
Lee was preaching from the text, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep
it holy," and people could not imagine who was naughty enough to
make such a noise outside--thump, thump, thump.
"Who's that a-talkin'?" thought Flyaway, startled by Mr. Lee's voice. "O,
ho! that's the prayer-man a-talkin'. He makes me kind o' 'fraid!"
But just at that minute she had reached the top of the stairs, and was
standing in the doorway.
"O, my shole! so many folks!"
She trembled, and was about to run away with her newspaper and cane;
but her eyes, in roving wildly about, fell upon grandpa Parlin and all
the rest of them, in a pew very near the pulpit. Then she thought it must
be all right, and, taking courage, she marched slowly up the aisle,
swinging the cane right and left.
Everybody looked up in surprise as the droll little figure crept by.
Grandpa frowned through his spectacles, and aunt Louise shook her
head; but Horace hid his face in a hymn-book and Dotty Dimple
actually smiled.
"They didn't know I was a-comin'," thought Flyaway, "but I camed!"
And with that she fluttered into the pew.
"Naughty, naughty girl," said aunt Louise, in an awful whisper.
She longed to take up the morsel of naughtiness, called Katie, in her
thumb and finger, shake it, and carry it out. But there was a twinkle in
the little one's eye that might mean mischief; she did not dare touch her.
"O, what a child!" said aunt Louise, taking off the big hat and setting
Flyaway down on the seat as hard as she could.

Flyaway looked up, through her veil of flossy hair, at her pretty auntie
with the roses round her face.
"Nobody didn't take 'are o' me to my house," said she, in a loud whisper,
"and that's what is it!"
"Hush!" said aunt Louise, giving Flyaway another shake, which
frightened her so that she dropped her head on her brother's shoulder,
and sat perfectly still for half a minute.
Aunt Louise was sadly mortified, and so were Susy and Prudy. They
dared not look up, for they thought everybody was gazing straight at
the Parlin pew, and laughing at their crazy little relative. Horace and
Dotty Dimple did not care in the least; they thought it very funny.
"They shan't scold at my cunning little Topknot," whispered Horace,
consolingly. "Sit still, darling, and when we get home I'll give you a
cent."
"Yes um, I will," replied poor brow-beaten Flyaway, and held up her
head again with the best of them. Perhaps she had been naughty;
perhaps folks were going to snip her fingers; but "Hollis" was on her