Dotty Dimple's Flyaway Part 4

Flyaway answered her own question. "Diny, dat worm gone see his mamma."

Dinah did not care anything about the family feelings of the "worms;"

so she kept her red silk mouth shut; but she grew very heavy--so heavy, indeed, that once her little mother dropped her in the sand, but picking her up, shook her and trudged on. Presently she dropped something else, and this time it was the kitty. Flyaway turned about in dismay.

"Shtop," cried she, scowling through her "spetty-curls," as she saw three white paws and one blue one go tripping over the road. "Shtop!"

But the paws kept on.

"O, Diny," said Flyaway, as p.u.s.s.y's tail disappeared round a corner,--"O, Diny, her don't want to go to heaven!"

Then Flyaway sat down in the sand, and pulled off one of the big boots.

"Um won't walk," said she; but, before she had time to pull off the second one, a dog came along and frightened her so she tried to run, though she only hopped on one foot, and dragged the other. She did not know what the matter was till she fell down and the boot came off of itself, after which she could walk very well. What cared she that both "Hollis's" new boots were left in the road, ready to be crushed by wagon wheels?

She kept on and kept on; but where was that blue hill going to? It moved faster than she did.

"Makes me povokin'," said she, giving Dinah a shake. "Um runs away and away, and all off!"

Sometimes she remembered she was going to heaven, and sometimes she forgot it. She was on the way to the "Pines," and many little flowers grew by the road-side. She began to pick a few, but the thorns on the raspberry bushes tore her tender hands, and one of the naughty branches caught Dinah by the frizzly hair, and carried her under. What did Flyaway spy behind the bushes? Dotty Dimple and Jennie Vance. They were eating wintergreen leaves; they did not see her. Flyaway kept as still as if she were sitting for a photograph, picked up Dinah, gave her a hug, and crept on.

She went so quietly that n.o.body heard her. When she was out of sight she purred for joy. She had got ahead of the girls on the way to heaven! She took the stick of candy out of her pocket and nibbled it to celebrate the occasion. "A little hump-backed b.u.mblebee" saw her do it. He wanted some too, and followed Flyaway as if she had been a moving honeysuckle. For half a mile or more she "gaed" and she "gaed,"

all the while nibbling the candy; but now she was growing very tired, and did it to comfort herself. Suddenly she remembered it was Charlie's candy. She held it up to her tearful eyes.

"O dee," said she, "it was big, but it keeps a-gettin' little!"

The hungry b.u.mblebee, who was just behind her, thought this was his last chance: so he pounced down upon Charlie's candy; and being cross, and not knowing Flyaway from any other little girl, he stung her on the thumb. Then how she cried, "'Orny 'ting me! 'Orny 'ting me!" for she had been treated just so before by a hornet. "O my dee mamma! My dee mamma!"

But her "dee" mamma could not hear her; she was in the city of Augusta; and as for the rest of the family, they supposed Flyaway was playing "catch" with Dotty Dimple in the barn.

CHAPTER IV.

"A RAILROAD SAVAGE."

It now occurred to little Flyaway, with a sudden pang, that she must have come to the end of the 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 b.u.mblebee. 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 pa.s.s. 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 G.o.d'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!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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,--