CHAPTER I.

BEGINNING TO REMEMBER.

Katie Clifford was a very bright child. She almost knew enough to keep out of fire and water, but not quite. She looked like other little girls, only so wise,—O, so very wise!—that you couldn't tell her any news about the earth, or the sun, moon, and stars, for she knew all about it "byfore."

Her hair was soft and flying like corn-silk, and when the wind took it you would think it meant to blow it off like a dandelion top. She was so light and breezy,[8] and so little for her age, that her father said "they must put a cent in her pocket to keep her from flying away;" so, after that, the family began to call her Flyaway. She thought it was her name, and that when people said "Katie," it was a gentle way they had of scolding.

Everybody petted her. Her brother Horace put his heart right under her feet, and she danced over it. Her "uncle Eddard" said "she drove round the world in a little chariot, and all her friends were harnessed to it, only they didn't know it."

Her shoulders were very little, but they bore a crushing weight of care. From the time she began to talk, she took upon herself the burden of the whole family. When Mrs. Clifford had a headache, Flyaway was so full of pity that nothing could keep her from climbing upon the[9] sufferer, stroking her face, and saying, "O, my dee mamma," or perhaps breaking the camphor bottle over her nose.

She sat at table in a high chair beside her father, and might have learned good manners if it had not been for the care she felt of Horace. She could scarcely attend to her own little knife and fork, because she was so busy watching her brother. She wished to see for herself that he was sitting straight, and not leaning his elbows on the table. If he made any mistake she cried, "Hollis!" in a tone as sweet as a wind-harp, though she meant it to be terribly severe, adding to the effect by shaking the corn-silk on her head in high displeasure. If she could correct him she thought she had done as much good in the family as if she had behaved well herself. He received all re[10]bukes very meekly, with a "Thank you, little Topknot. What would be done here without you to preserve order?"

Flyaway could remember as far back as the beginning of the world,—that is to say, she could remember when her world began.

It is strange to think of, but the first thing she really knew for a certainty, she was standing in a yellow chair, in her grandmother Parlin's kitchen! It was as if she had always been asleep till that minute. People did say she had once been a baby, but she could not recollect that, "it was so many years ago."

Her mind, you see, had always been as soft as a bag of feathers; and nothing that she did, or that any one else did, made much impression. But now something remarkable was taking place, and she would never forget it.[11]

It was this: she was grinding coffee. How prettily it pattered down on the floor! What did it look like? O, like snuff, that people sneezed with. This was housework. Next thing they would ask her to wash dishes and set the table. She would grow larger and larger, and Gracie would grow littler and littler; and O, how nice it would be when she could do all the work, and Gracie had to sit in mamma's lap and be rocked!

"Flywer'll do some help," said she. "Flywer'll take 'are of g'amma's things."

While she stood musing thus, with a dreamy smile, and turning the handle of the mill as fast as it would go round, somebody sprang at her very unexpectedly. It was Ruth, the kitchen-girl. She seized Katie by the shoulders, carried her through the air, and set her on her feet in the sink.[12]

"There, little Mischief," said she, "you'll stay there one while! We'll see if we can't put a stop to this coffee-grinding! Why, you're enough to wear out the patience of Job!"

Katie had often heard about Job; she supposed it was something dreadful, like a lion, or a whale. She looked up at Ruth, and saw her black eyes flashing and the rosy color trembling in her cheeks. Cruel Ruth! She did not know Katie was her best friend, working and helping get dinner as fast as she could. "Ruthie," sobbed she, "you didn't ask please."

"Well, well, child, I'm in a hurry; and when you set things to flying, you're enough to wear out the patience of Job."

Job again.

"You've said so two times, Ruthie! Now I don't like you tall, tenny rate."[13]

This was as harsh language as Katie dared use; but she frowned fearfully, and a tuft of hair, rising from her head like a waterspout, made her look so fierce that Ruth seemed to be frightened, and ran away with her apron up to her face.

The sink was so high that Katie could not get out of it alone,—"course indeed she couldn't."

"It most makes me 'fraid," said she to herself: "Ruthie's a big woman, I's a little woman. When I's the biggest I'll put Ruthie in my sink."

Very much comforted by this resolve, she dried her eyes and began to look about her for more housework. "Let's me see; I'll pump a bushel o' water."

There was a pail in the sink; so, what should she do but jump into that, and then jerk the pump-handle up and down,[14] till a fine stream poured out and sprinkled her all over!

"Sing a song, O sink-spout," sang she, catching her breath: but presently she began to feel cold.

"O, how it makes me shivvle!" said she.

"Katie!" called out a voice.

"Here me are!" gurgled the little one, her mouth under the pump-nose.

When Horace came in she was standing in water up to the tops of her long white stockings. He took her out, wrung her a little, and set her on a shelf in the pantry to dry.

"Oho!" said she, shaking her wet plumage, like a duckling; "what for you look that way to me? I didn't do nuffin,—not the leastest nuffin! The water kep' a comin' and a comin'."[15]

"Yes, you little naughty girl, and you kept pumping and pumping."

"I'm isn't little naughty goorl," thought Katie, indignantly; "but Ruthie's naughty goorl, and Hollis velly naughty goorl."

"O, here you are, you little Hop-o'-my-thumb," said Mrs. Clifford, coming into the pantry; "a baby with a cough in her throat and pills in her pocket musn't get wet."

Flyaway thrust her hand into her wet pocket to make sure the wee vial of white dots was still there.

"I fished her out of a pail of water," said Horace; "to-morrow I shall find her in a bird's nest."

Mrs. Clifford sent for some fresh stockings and shoes. Her baby-daughter was so often falling into mischief that she thought very little about it. She did not[16] know this was a remarkable occasion, and the baby had to-day begun to remember. She did not know that if Flyaway should live to be an old lady, she would sometimes say to her grandchildren,—

"The very first thing I have any recollection of, dears, is grinding coffee in your great-grandmamma's kitchen at Willowbrook. The girl, Ruth Dillon, took me up by the shoulders, carried me through the air, and set me in the sink, and then I pumped water over myself."

This is about the way little Flyaway would be likely to talk, sixty years from now, adding, as she polished her spectacles,—

"And after that, children, things went into a mist, and I don't remember anything else that happened for some time."

Why was it that things "went into a[17] mist"? Why didn't she keep on remembering every day? I don't know.

But the next thing that really did happen to Miss Thistleblow Flyaway, though she went right off and forgot it, was this: She persuaded her mother to write a letter for her to "Dotty Dimpwill." As it was her first letter, I will copy it.

"My dear Dotty Dimpwill first, then My Prudy:

"I'm going to say that I dink milk, and that girl lost my pills.

"I see a hop-toad. He hopped. Jennie took her up in his dress.

"And 'bout we put hop-toad in wash-dish. He put his foots out, stwetched, honest! He was a slippy fellow. First thing we knowed it, he hopped on to her dress. Isn't that funny?[18]

"Now 'bout the chickens; they are trottin' round on the grass: they didn't be dead. We haven't got any only but dead ones; but Mis' Gray has.

"I like Dr. Gray ever so much!

"Mis' Gray gave me the kitty to play with. I bundled it all up in my dress, 'cause I didn't want the cat to get it. When I went home I gave it to the cat. [You got that wroten?]

"There wasn't any dead little kittens. She gave me a cookie, and I eated it, and I told her to give me another to bring home, 'cause I liked her cookies; they was curly cookies. [Got it wroted, mamma?]

"Now 'bout I pumped full a pail full o' water.

"[She knows we've got a house?]

"Now say good by, and I kiss her a pretty little kiss. O, no; I want her to[19] come and see me,—her and Prudy,—two of 'em! I's here yet. ['Haps she knows it!]

"That's all—I feel sleepy.

(Signed) "From

"Dotty Dimpwill to Flywer."

This letter "went into a mist," and so did the next performance, which you will read in the following chapter.

[20]

CHAPTER II.

RUNNING AWAY TO CHURCH.

The little Parlins came the next week. One Sunday morning Dotty Dimple stood before the glass, putting on her hat for church. Katie came and peeped in with her, opening her small mouth and drawing her lips over her teeth, as her grandfather did when he shaved.

"See, Flyaway, you haven't any dimples at all!" said Dotty, primping a little. "Your hair isn't smooth and curly like mine; it sticks up all over your head, like a little fan."

"O, my shole!" sighed Flyaway, scowl[21]ing at herself. She did not know how lovely she was, nor how

"I wisht 'twouldn't get out," said she.

"What do you mean by out?"

"O, unwetted, and un-comb-bid, and un-parted."

"That's because you fly about like such a little witch."

"I doesn't do the leastest nuffin, Dotty Dimpwill! Folks ought to let me to go to churches."

"I should laugh, Fly Clifford, to see you going to churches! All the ministers would come down out of the pulpits and ask what little mischief that was, and make aunt 'Ria carry you home!"

"No, he wouldn't, too! I'd sit stiller'n[22] two, free, five hundred mouses," pleaded Flyaway, climbing up the back of a chair to show how quiet she could be.

"O, it's no use to talk about it, darling. Give me one kiss, and I'll go get my sun-shade."

"Can't, Dotty Dimpwill! My mamma's kiss I'll keep; it's ahind my mouf; she's gone to 'Dusty.

"Well, 'keep it ahind your mouf,' then; and here's another to put with it. What do you s'pose makes me love to kiss you so?"

"O, 'cause I so sweet," replied Flyaway, promptly; but she was not thinking of her own sweetness, just then; she was wondering if she could manage to run away to church.

"I'se a-goin' there myse'f! Sit still's a—a—" She looked around for a com[23]parison, and saw a grasshopper on the window-sill: "still's a gas-papa. Man won't say nuffin' to me, see 'f he does!"

Strange such an innocent-looking child could be so sly! She ran down the path with Horace, kissing her little hand to everybody for good by, all the while thinking how she could steal off to church without being seen.

"You may go up stairs and lie down with me on my bed," said grandma, who was not very well. So Katie climbed upon the bed.

"My dee gamma, I so solly you's sick!" said she, stroking Mrs. Parlin's face, and picking open her eyelids. But after patting and "pooring" the dear lady for some time, she thought she had made her "all well," and then was anxious to get away. Mrs. Parlin wished to keep her up stairs[24] as long as possible, because Ruth had a toothache.

"Shan't I tell you a story, dear?" said she.

"Yes, um; tell 'bout a long baby—no, a long story 'bout a short baby."

"Well, once there was a king, and he had a daughter—"

"O, no, gamma, not that! Tell me 'bout baby that didn't be on the bul-yushes; I don't want to hear 'bout 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[25] 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[26] 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."

Running away to Church.

[27]

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[28] 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.

[29]

"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. Hor[30]ace 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 side now and forever. She began to feel quite contented. She had got inside the church at last, and was very well pleased with it. It was even queerer than she had expected.

"What was that high-up thing the prayer-man was a-standin' on?"

Flyaway merely asked this of her own wise little brain. She concluded it must be "a chimley."[31]

"Great red curtains ahind him," added she, still conversing with her own little brain. "Lots o' great big bubbles on the walls all round. Big's a tea-kiddle! Lamps, I s'pose. There's that table. Where's the cups and saucers for the supper? And the tea-pot?

"All the bodies everywhere had their bonnets on; why for? Didn't say a word, and the prayer-man kep' a-talkin' all the time; why for? Flywer didn't talk; no indeed. Folks mus'n't. If folks did, then the man would come down out the chimley and tell the other bodies to carry 'em home. 'Cause it's the holy Sabber-day,—and that's what is it."

Flyaway's airy brain went dancing round and round. She slid away from Horace's shoulder, spread her little length upon the seat, closed her wondering, tired eyes, and[32] sailed off to Noddle's Island. A fly, buzzing in from out doors, had long been trying to settle on Flyaway's restless nose. He never did settle: Horace kept guard with a palm-leaf fan, and "all the other bodies" in the pew sat as still as if they had been nailed down; so anxious were they to keep the little sleeper safely harbored at Noddle's Island.

"Such a relief!" thought aunt Louise, venturing to look up once more.

Flyaway did not waken till the last prayer, when Horace held her fast, lest she should make a sudden rush upon a speckled dog, which came trotting up the aisle.

On the steps they met Ruth, with wild eyes and face tied up in a scarf, hunting for Flyaway. Mrs. Parlin, she said, was going up the hill, so frightened that it would make her "down sick."[33]

When grandma got home, all out of breath, she found Flyaway looking very downcast. Her heart was heavy under so many scoldings. "O, Katie," said grandma, "how could you run away?"

"I didn't yun away," replied Flyaway, thrusting her finger into her mouth; "I walked away!"

"There, if that isn't a cunning baby, where'll you find one?" whispered brother Horace to Prudy. "Grandmother can't punish her after such a 'cute speech."

But grandmother could, and did. She took her by the little soft hand, led her to the china closet, and locked her in.

"Half an hour you must stay there," said she, "and think what a naughty girl you've been!"

"Yes um," said Flyaway, meekly, and wiped off a tear with the hem of her frock.[34]

But the moment she was left alone, her quick, observing eyes saw something which gave her a thrill of delight. It was a jar of quince jelly, which had been left by accident on the lower shelf.

"'Cause I spect I likes um," said she, serenely, after eating all she possibly could.

At the end of half an hour grandma came and turned the key.

"Have you been thinking, dear, and are you sorry and ready to come out?"

"Yes, um," replied the little culprit, with her mouth full, and feeling very brave as long as the door was shut between her and her jailer. "Yes, um, I've thought it all up,—defful solly. But you won't never shut me up no more, gamma Parlin!"

"Katie Clifford!" said grandma, sternly; and then she opened the door, and faced Flyaway.[35]

"'Cause—'cause—'cause," cried the little one, in great alarm; "you won't shut me up, 'cause I won't never walk away no more, gamma Parlin!"

Mrs. Parlin tried hard not to smile; but the mixture on Flyaway's little face of naughtiness, jelly, and fright, was very funny to see.

The child noticed that her grandmother's brows knit as if in displeasure, and then she remembered the jelly.

"I hasn't been a-touchin' your 'serves, gamma," said she.

Mrs. Parlin really did not know what to do,—Flyaway's conscience was so little and folded away in so many thicknesses, like a tiny pearl in a whole box of cotton wool. How could anybody get at it?