Dotty Dimples Flyaway | Page 9

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.
* * * * *
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 over, "Why, where is little Fly?" and Dotty Dimple answered, as
innocently as if it were none of her affairs,--

"Why, isn't she in the house? We s'posed she was. Jennie Vance and I
have just been out in the garden, under your little crying willow,
making a wreath. Thought she was in the barn, or somewhere."
"But you haven't been in the garden all the while?"
"No'm; once we went up in the Pines,--grandma, you said we
might,--but we haven't seen Fly,--why, we haven't seen her for the
longest while!"
Grace had dropped her knife and fork and was looking pale.
"It was Susy and I that had the care of her, grandma; when you went
out to see the sick lady, you charged us, and we forgot all about it."
"Pretty works, I should think!" cried Horace, springing out of his chair;
"I wouldn't sell that baby for her weight in gold; but I reckon you
would, Grace Clifford, and be glad of it, too."
Grandma held up a warning finger. "I declare," said aunt Louise, very
much agitated, "I never shall consent to have Maria go out of town
again, and leave Katie with us. If she will try to swim in the
watering-trough, she is just as likely to take a walk on the ridgepole of
the house."
Horace darted out of the room with a ghastly face, but came back
looking relieved. He had been up in the attic, and climbed through the
scuttle, without finding any human Fly on the roof, or on the dizzy tops
of the chimneys, either.
But where was the child? Had Ruth seen her? Had Abner?
No; the last that could be remembered, she had been playing by herself
in the green chamber, soaking Dinah's feet in a glass of water. The
"blue kitty," the only creature who had anything to tell, sat washing her
face on the kitchen hearth, and yawning sleepily. Fly's shaker was gone
from the "short nail," and aunt Louise discovered some bank-bills in a
wash-bowl,--"Fly's work, of course." But this was all they knew.

Grandpa searched the barn, Abner the fields, Ruth the cellar; aunt
Louise and Horace ran down to the river. In half an hour several of the
neighbors had joined in the search.
"I always thought there would be a last time," said poor Mrs. Dr. Gray,
putting on her black bonnet, and joining Grace and Susy. "That child
seems to me like a little spirit, or a fairy, and I never thought she would
live long. She and Charlie were too lovely for this world."
"O, don't, Mrs. Gray," said Grace. "If you knew how often she'd been
lost, you would not say so! We always find her, after a while,
somewhere."
Horace, who had gone on in advance, now came running back,
swinging his boots in the air.
"A trail!" cried he. "I've found a trail! Who planted these boots in the
road, if it wasn't Fly Clifford?"
"Perhaps she has gone to aunt Martha's," said Mrs. Parlin, "or tried to.
Strange we did not think of that!"
But aunt Martha had not seen her, nor had any one else. Horace and
Abner went up to the Pines, but the forest beyond they never thought of
exploring; it did not seem probable that such