Little Folks Astray | Page 5

I marry anybody, I'll marry my
own brother Hollis. I mean if I don't be a ole maid!"
"And what is 'a ole maid,' you little witch?"
"I don' know; some folks is," was the wise reply. Flyaway was about to
add "Gampa Clifford," but did not feel well enough acquainted to talk
of family matters.
When the Bonnycastles left, at Cleveland, Horace thought that was the
last of them. Miss Gerty was "decent-looking, looked some like Cassy
Hallock; but he couldn't bear to see folks giggle; hoped he never should
set eyes on those people again." Whether he ever did, you shall hear
one of these days.
"O, Topknot," said he, "your hair looks like a mop. Do you want all
creation laughing at you? You'll mortify me to death."
"You ought to water it. If you don't take better care o' your little sister, I
won't never ride with you no more, Hollis Clifford!"
"Well, see that you don't, you little scarecrow," said the suffering boy,
out of all patience. "If you are going to act in New York as you have on
the road, I wish I was well out of this scrape."
Flyaway was really a sight to behold. How she managed to tear her
dress off the waist, and loose five boot buttons, and last, but not least,

the very hat she wore on her head, would have been a mystery if you
hadn't seen her run.
When they reached the city, Horace put the soft, flying locks in as good
order as he could, and tied them up in his handkerchief.
"I wisht I hadn't come," whined Fly; "I don't want to wear a hangerfiss;
'tisn't speckerble!"
"Hush right up! I'm not going to have you get cold!--My sorrows!
Shan't I be thankful when I get where there's a woman to take care of
her?"
On the platform at the depot, aunt Madge, Prudy, and Dotty Dimple,
were waiting for them. A hearty laugh went the rounds, which Fly
thought was decidedly silly. Aunt Madge took the young travellers
right into her arms, and hugged them in her own cordial style, as if her
heart had been hungry for them for many a day.
"We're so glad!--for it did seem as if you'd never come," exclaimed
Dotty Dimple.
"And I'd like to know," said Horace, "how you happened to get here
first."
"O, we came by express--came yesterday."
"By 'spress?" cried Flyaway, pulling away from aunt Madge, who was
trying to pin her frock together; "we came by a 'ductor.--Why, where's
Flipperty's ticket?"
Horace seized Prudy with one hand, and Dotty Dimple with the other,
turning them round and round.
"I don't see anything of the express mark, 'Handle with care.' What has
become of it?"
"O, we were done up in brown paper," said Prudy, laughing, "and the
express mark was on that; but aunt Madge took it off as soon as she got

the packages home."
"Why, what a story, Prudy Parlin! We didn't have a speck of brown
paper round us. Just cloaks and hats with feathers in!"
Dotty spoke with some irritation. She had all along been rather
sensitive about being sent by express, and could not bear any allusion
to the subject.
"There, that's Miss Dimple herself. Let me shake hands with your
Dimpleship! Didn't come to New York to take a joke,--did you?"
"No, her Dimpleship came to New York to get warm," said Peacemaker
Prudy; "and so did I, too. You don't know how cold it is in Maine."
By this time they were rattling over the stones in their aunt's elegant
carriage. It was dusk; the lamps were lighted, the streets crowded with
people, the shops blazing with gay colors.
"I didn't come here to get warm, either," said Dotty, determined to have
the last word: "I was warm enough in Portland. I s'pose we've got a
furnace,--haven't we?--and a coal grate, too."
"I do hope Horace hasnt't got her started in a contrary fit," thought
Prudy; "I brought her all the way from home without her saying a cross
word."
But aunt Madge had a witch's broom, to sweep cobwebs out of the sky.
Putting her arm around Dotty, she said,--
"You all came to bring sunshine into my house; bless your happy
hearts."
That cleared Dotty's sky, and she put up her lips for a kiss; while
Flyaway, with her "hangerfiss" on, danced about the carriage like a fly
in a bottle, kissing everybody, and Horace twice over.
"'Cause I spect we've got there. But, Hollis," said she, with the comical
shade of care which so often flitted across her little face, "you never put

the trunk in here. Now that 'ductor has gone and carried off my
nightie."
CHAPTER III.
THE FROLIC.
If Aunt Madge had