LITTLE FOLKS' BOOKS.

LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS. BOSTON.

[1]

[2]

DOTTY DIMPLE STORIES.

CONTENTS.

[7]

CHAPTER I.

DOTTY'S PIN-MONEY

Everything was very fresh and beautiful one morning in May, as if God had just made the world. The new grass had begun to grow, and the fields were dotted over with short, golden-topped dandelions.

The three Parlin children had come to their grandmother's much earlier in the season than usual; and now on this bright Sabbath morning they were going to church.

Dotty Dimple, otherwise Alice, thought[8] the fields looked like her Aunt Maria's green velvet toilet-cushion stuck full of pins. The spiders had spread their gauzy webs over the grass, and the dew upon them sparkled in the sunshine like jewels. "Such nice tablecloths as they would have made for the fairies," thought Dotty, "if there only were any fairies."

"The world is ever so much handsomer than it was a week ago," said Prudy, pointing towards the far-off hills. "I'd like to be on that mountain, and just put my hand out and touch the sky."

"That largest pick," said Dotty, "is Mount Blue. It's covered with blueberries, and that's why it's so blue."

"Who told you that?" asked Susy, smiling. "It isn't time yet for blueberries; and if it was, we couldn't see them forty miles off without a telescope."[9]

"Jennie Vance told me," said Dotty; "and she ought to know, for her father is the judge."

By this time the children had reached the church, and were waiting on the steps for the rest of the family. It was pleasant to watch the people coming from up and down the street, looking so neat and peaceful. But when Jennie Vance drew near with her new summer silk and the elegant feather in her hat, Dotty's heart gave a quick double beat, half admiration, half envy. Jennie's black eyes were shining with vanity, and her nicely gaitered feet tripped daintily up the steps.

"How d'ye do?" said she, carelessly, to Dotty, and swept by her like a little ship under full sail.

"Jennie Vance needn't talk so about her new mother," whispered Prudy, "for she[10] gives her fifty-two new dresses, one for every Sunday."

Dotty's brow darkened. Just now it seemed to her one of the greatest trials in the whole world that the dress she wore had been made over from one of Prudy's. It was a fine white organdie with a little pink sprig, but there was a darn in the skirt. Then there was no feather in her hat, and no breastpin at her throat.

Poor Dotty! She did not hear much of the sermon, but sat very quiet, counting the nails in the pews and the pipes in the organ, and watching old Mr. Gordon, who had a red silk kerchief spread over his head to guard it against the draught from the window. She listened a little to the prayers, it is true, because she knew it was wrong to let her thoughts wander when Mr. Preston was speaking to God.[11]

When the services were over, and she was going to her Sabbath school class, she passed Jennie Vance in the aisle.

"Where are you going, Jennie?" said she.

"Going home. My mamma says I needn't stay to say my lessons and miss a warm dinner."

Jennie said this with such a toss of the head that Dotty longed to reply in a cutting manner.

"It isn't polite to have warm dinners on Sunday, Jennie Vance! But you said your father had a step-wife, and perhaps she doesn't know!"

"I didn't say my papa had a step-wife, Dotty Dimple."

But this was all Jennie had time to retort, for Dotty now entered the pew where her class were to sit. Miss Preston was the teacher, and it was her custom to have each[12] of her little pupils repeat a half dozen verses or so, which she explained to them in a very clear manner. The children did not always understand her, however; and you shall see hereafter how Dotty's queer little brain grew befogged. The last clause of one of her verses to-day was this:—

"The Lord loveth a cheerful giver."

"Suppose," said Miss Preston, "there were two little girls living in a beautiful house, with everything nice to eat and wear, and there should come a poor man in rags, and beg for charity. One of the little girls is so sorry for him that she runs to her mamma and asks, as a favor, to be allowed to give him some of her Christmas money. The other little girl shakes her head, and says, 'O, sister what makes you do so? But if you do it I must.' Then she pours out half her money for the beggar, but scowls all the while.—Which is the 'cheerful giver?'"[13]

"The first little girl. O, of course, Miss Preston." Then Dotty fell to thinking:—

"I don't have much to give away but just pieces of oranges; but I don't scowl when I do it. I'm a great deal more 'cheerful' than Jennie Vance; for I never saw her give away anything but a thimble after the pig had chewed it. 'There, take it, Lu Piper,' said she, 'for it pinches, and I don't want it.' I shouldn't think that was very cheerful, I am sure."

Thus Dotty treasured up the lesson for the sake of her friend. It was really surprising how anxious she was that Jennie should always do right.

Now it happened that before the week was out a man came to Mr. Parlin's back door begging. Dotty wondered if it might not be the same man Miss Preston had mentioned, only he was in another suit of clothes.[14] She and Jennie were swinging, with Katie between them, and Susy and Prudy were playing croquet. They all ran to see what the man wanted. He was not ragged, and if it had not been for the green shade over his eyes and the crooked walking-stick in his hand, the children would not have thought of his being a beggar. He was a very fleshy man, and the walk seemed to have taken away his breath.

"Little maidens," said he, in gentle tones, "have you anything to give a poor tired wayfarer?"

There was no answer, for the children did not know what to say. But the man seemed to know what to do; he seated himself on the door-step, and wiped his face with a cotton handkerchief. Little Katie, the girl with flying hair, who was sometimes called 'Flyaway,' looked at him with surprise as he puffed at every breath.[15]

"When um breeves," said she to Dotty, "seems's um whissils."

"Come here, little maiden," said the beggar, pointing to Dotty; "you are the handsomest of all, and you may take this document of mine. It will tell you that I am a man of great sorrows."

Dotty, very much flattered, took the paper from his hands. It was greasy and crumpled, looking as if it had been lying beside bread and butter in a dirty pocket. She gave it to Susy, for she could not read it herself. It was written by one of the "selectmen" of a far-away town, and asked all kind people to take pity on the bearer, who was described as "a poor woman with a family of children." Susy laughed, and pointed out the word "woman" to Prudy.

"Why do you smile, little ladies? Isn't it writ right? 'Twas writ by a lawyer."[16]

"I will carry it in to my grandmother," said Susy; and she entered the house, followed by all the children.

"Who knows but he's a griller?" said Jennie.

"Lem me see paper," cried Katie, snatching at it, and holding it up to her left ear.

"O, dear!" sighed she, in a grieved tone; "it won't talk to me, Susy. I don't hear nuffin 'tall."

"She's a cunning baby, so she is," said Dotty. "She s'poses writing talks to people; she thinks that's the way they read it."

Grandmamma Parlin thought the man was probably an impostor. She went herself and talked with him; but, when she came back, instead of searching the closets for old garments, as Dotty had expected, she seated herself at her sewing, and did not offer to bestow a single copper on the beggar.[17]

"Susy," said she, "he says he is hungry, and I cannot turn him away without food. You may spread some bread and butter, with ham between the slices, and carry out to him."

"What makes her so cruel?" whispered Dotty.

"O, Grandma knows best," replied Prudy. "She never is cruel."

"What makes you put on so much butter?" said Jennie Vance; "I wouldn't give him a single thing but cold beans."

Dotty, whose Sunday school lesson was all the while ringing in her ears, looked at the judge's daughter severely.

"Would you pour cold beans into anybody's hands, Jennie Vance? Once my mamma gave some preserves to a beggar,—quince preserves,—she did."

Jennie only tossed her head.[18]

"I'm going to give him some money," continued Dotty, defiantly; "just as cheerfully as ever I can."

"O, yes, because he called you the handsomest."

"No, Jennie Vance; because I am not stingy."

"Um isn't stinchy," echoed Katie.

"I've got some Christmas money here. I earned it by picking pins off the floor, six for a cent. It took a great while, Jennie, but I wouldn't be selfish, like some little girls."

"Now, little sister," said Prudy, taking Dotty one side, "don't give your money to this man. You'll be sorry by and by."

But there was a stubborn look in Dotty's eyes, and she marched off to her money-box as fast as she could go. When she returned with the pieces of scrip, which amounted in[19] all to fifteen cents, the children were grouped about the beggar, who sat upon the door-step, the plate of sandwiches before him.

"Here's some money, sir, for your sick children," cried Dotty, with an air of importance.

"Blessings on your pretty face," replied the man, eagerly.

Dotty cast a triumphant glance at Jennie.

"Ahem! This is better than nothing," added the beggar, in a different tone, after he had counted the money. "And now haven't any of the rest of you little maidens something to give a poor old wayfarer that's been in the wars and stove himself up for his country?"

There was no reply from any one of the little girls, even tender Prudy. And as Dotty saw her precious scrip swallowed up in that dreadfully dingy wallet, it suddenly[20] occurred to her that she had not done such a very wise thing, after all.

"Why don't you eat your luncheon, sir?" said Jennie Vance; for the man, after taking up the slices of bread and looking at them had put them down again with an air of disdain.

"I thought, by the looks of the house, that Christians lived here," said he, shaking his head slowly. "Haven't you a piece of apple pie, or a cup custard, to give a poor man that's been in prison for you in the south country? Not so much as a cup of coffee or a slice of beefsteak? No. I see how it is," he added, wiping his face and rising with an effort; "you are selfish, good-for-nothing creeters, the whole of you. Here I've been wasting my time, and all I get for it is just dog's victuals, and enough scrip to light my pipe."[21]

With this he began to walk off, puffing. Dotty longed to run after him and call out, "Please, sir, give me back my money." But it was too late; and summoning all her pride, she managed to crush down the tears.

"Tell the people in this house that I shake off the dust of my feet against them," wheezed the stranger, indignantly. "The dust of my feet—do you hear?"

"What a wicked, disagreeable old thing!" murmured Jennie Vance.

"Dish-gwee-bly old fing!" cried "Flyaway," nodding her head till her hair danced like little tufts of corn-silk.

"I'm glad I didn't give him any of my money," said Jennie, loftily.

"So am I," returned Susy.

Prudy said nothing.

"I didn't see him shake his feet," said Dotty, changing the subject; "and the dust wouldn't come off if he did shake 'em."[22]

"Have you any more Christmas money left, Dotty," said Jennie, twirling her gold ring on her finger.

"O, yes, ever so much at home. And I shall soon have more," added Dotty, with a great effort to be cheerful; "for people are always dropping pins."

"I've got any quantity of scrip," pursued Jennie; "and I don't have to work for it, either."

"O, dear," thought Dotty, "what's the use to be good? I 'sposed if I gave away my money cheerfully, they'd all feel ashamed of themselves; but they don't! I wish I had it back in my box, I do!"[23]

CHAPTER II.

PLAYING KING AND QUEEN.

"What are you hunting for on your hands and knees, Alice?" said grandmamma, next day.

"O, nothing, only pins, grandma; but I can't find any. Isn't this a hidden-mist carpet?"

"No, dear; a hit-and-miss carpet is made of rags. But what do you want of pins?"

"She has given away what Aunt Ria paid her for Christmas," said Prudy, speaking for her; "she gave it all to the beggar."

"Yes, she did; one, two, free, four, nineteen, tenteen," said Katie; "and the gemplum didn't love little goorls."[24]

"Why, Alice! to that man who was here yesterday?"

Dotty was frowning at Prudy behind a chair. "Yes, 'm," she answered, in a stifled voice.

"Were you sorry for him?"

"No, ma'am."

"Did you hear me say I did not believe he was in need of charity?"

"Yes, 'm."

Grandma looked puzzled, till she remembered that Alice had always been fond of praise; and then she began to understand her motives.

"Did you suppose Jennie Vance and your sisters would think you were generous?" asked she, in a low voice.

Dotty looked at the carpet, but made no reply.

"Because, if that was your reason, Alice,[25] it was doing 'your alms before men, to be seen of them.' God is not pleased when you do so. I told you about that the other day."

Still the little girl did not understand. Her thoughts were like these:

"Grandma thinks I'm ever so silly! Prudy thinks I'm silly! But isn't Jennie silly too? And O, she takes cake, all secret, out of her new mother's tin chest. I don't know what will become of Jennie Vance."

Mrs. Parlin was about to say more, when Miss Flyaway, who had been all over the house in two minutes, danced in, saying, "the Charlie boy" had come!

It was little lisping Charlie Gray, saying, "If you pleathe, 'm, may we have the Deacon to go to mill? And then, if we may, can you thpare uth a quart 'o milk every thingle night? Cauthe, if you can't, then you muthn't."[26]

Deacon was the old horse; and as Mr. Parlin was quite willing he should go to mill, Harry Gray came an hour afterwards and led him away. With regard to the other request, Mrs. Parlin had to think a few minutes.

"Yes, Charlie," said she, at last; "you may have the milk, because I would like to oblige your mother; and you may tell her I will send it every night by the children."

Now, Mrs. Gray was the doctor's wife. She was a kind woman, and kept one closet shelf full of canned fruit and jellies for sick people; but for all that, the children did not like her very well. Prudy thought it might be because her nose turned up "like the nose of a tea-kettle;" but Susy said it was because she asked so many questions. If the little Parlins met her on the street when they went of an errand, she always[27] stopped them to inquire what they had been buying at the store, or took their parcels out of their hands and felt them with her fingers. She was interested in very little things, and knew how all the parlors in town were papered and carpeted, and what sort of cooking-stoves everybody used.

Dotty hung her head when her grandmother said she wished her to go every night to Mrs. Gray's with a quart of milk.

"Must I?" said she. "Why, grandma, she'll ask me if my mother keeps a girl, and how many teaspoons we've got in the house; she will, honestly. Mayn't somebody go with me?"

"Ask me will I go?" said Katie, "for I love to shake my head!"

"And, grandma," added Dotty, "Mrs. Gray's eyes are so sharp, why, they're so sharp they almost prick! And it's no use for Katie to go with me, she's so little."[28]

"O, I'm isn't much little," cried Katie. "I's growing big."

"I should think Prudy might go," said Dotty Dimple, with her finger in her mouth; "you don't make Prudy do a single thing!"

"Prudy goes for the ice every morning," replied Mrs. Parlin. "I wish you to do as I ask you, Alice, and make no more remarks about Mrs. Gray."

"Yes, 'm," said Dotty in a dreary tone; "mayn't Katie come too? she's better than nobody."

Katie ran for her hat, delighted to be thought better than nobody. The milk was put into a little covered tin pail. Dotty watched Ruth as she strained it, and saw that she poured in not only a quart, but a great deal more. "Why do you do so?" said Dotty. "That's too much."

"Your grandmother told me to," replied[29] Ruth, washing the milk-pail. "She said 'Good measure, pressed down and running over.' That's her way of doing things."

"But I don't believe grandma 'spected you to press it down and run it all over. Why, there's enough in this pail to make a pound of butter. Come, Katie."

"Let me do some help," said the little one, catching hold of the handle, and making the pail much heavier. Dotty endured the weight as long as she could; then, gently pushing off the "little hindering" hand, she said,—

"And now, as we go along, we might as well be playing, Flyaway."

"Fwhat?"

"Playing a play, dear. We'll make believe you're the queen with a gold crown on your head."

Katie put her hand to her forehead.

"O, no, dear; you haven't anything on[30] your head now but the broadest-brimmedest kind of a hat; we'll call it a crown. And I'm the king that's married to you."

"O, yes, mallied."

"And we're going—going—"

"Rouspin," suggested Flyaway.

"No; great people like us don't go raspberrying. Sit down here, Queenie, under this acorn tree, and I'll tell you; we're going to the castle."

"O, yes, the cassil?"

"Where we keep our throne, dear, and our gold dresses."

"Does we have any gold dollies to the cassil?"

"O, yes, Queenie; all sizes."

"Does we have," continued Flyaway, winking slowly, "does we have—dip toast?"

"Why, Queenie, what should we want of that? Yes, we can have dip toast, I s'pose;[31] the girl can make it on the gold stove, with a silver pie-knife. But we shall have nicer things than ever you saw."

"Nicer than turnipers?"

"Pshaw! turnovers are nothing, Queenie; we shall give them to the piggy. We shall live on wedding cake and strawberries. Tea and coffee, and such low things, we shall give to ducks. O, what ducks they will be! They will sing tunes such as canaries don't know how. We'll give them our tea and coffee, and we'll drink—what d'ye call it? O, here's some."

Dotty took up the pail.

"You see how white it is; sugar frosting in it. Drink a little, it's so nice."

"It tastes just like moolly cow's milk," said Flyaway, wiping her lips with her finger.

"No," said Dotty, helping herself; "it's[32] nectar; that's what Susy says they drink; now I remember."

"Stop!" said a small voice in the ear of Dotty's spirit; "that is what I should call taking other people's things."

"Poh!" said Dotty, sipping again; "it's grandpa's cow. When Jennie Vance takes cake, it's wicked, because—because it is. This is only play, you know."

Dotty took another draught.

"Come, Queenie," said she, "let's be going to the castle."

Katie sprang up so suddenly that she fell forward on her nose, and said her foot was "dizzy." It had been taking a short nap as she sat on the stump; but she was soon able to walk, and shortly the royal pair arrived at the castle, which was, in plain language, a wooden house painted white.

"So you have come at last," said Mrs.[33] Gray, from the door-way. "They don't milk very early at your house—do they?"

"No, ma'am, not so very."

"Have you seen anything of my little Charlie?"

"No, ma'am, not since a great while ago,—before supper."

"How is your grandfather?"

"Pretty well, thank you, ma'am."

"No, gampa isn't," said Katie, decidedly; "he's deaf."

"And what about your Aunt Maria? Didn't I see her go off in the stage this morning?"

"Yes, 'm," replied Dotty, determined to give no more information than was necessary.

"She's gone off," struck in Katie; "gone to Dusty, my mamma has."

"Ah indeed! to Augusta?" repeated[34] Mrs. Gray, thoughtfully. "Any of your friends sick there?"

"No, ma'am," replied Dotty, scowling at her shoes.

"She's gone," continued Katie, gravely, "to buy me Free Little Kittens."

Mrs. Gray smiled. "I should think your mother could find kittens enough in this town, without going to Augusta. I thought I saw Horace on the top of the stage, but I wasn't sure."

Dotty made no reply.

"Hollis was," cried Katie, eagerly; "he goed to Dusty too. I fink they put Hollis in jail!"

"In jail!" exclaimed Mrs. Gray, throwing up her hands.

"He stealed, Hollis did," added Katie, solemnly.