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Page 26
They found a sharp-nosed woman cooking corn-dodgers for a family of nine
children. Whether it was their breakfast or dinner hour, it was hard to
tell. When Mr. Parlin asked for water, the woman wiped her forehead with
her apron, and replied, "O, yes, stranger," and one of the little girls,
whose face was stained with something besides the kisses of the sun,
brought some water from the spring in a gourd.
"Well, Dotty Dimple," said Mrs. Clifford, when they were all on their
way again, "what did you see in the house?"
"O, I saw a woman with a whittled nose, and a box of flowers in the
window."
"And children," said Katie; "four, five hunnerd chillen."
"The box was labelled 'Assorted Lozenges,'" said Mr. Parlin; "but I
observed that it contained a black imperial rose; so the occupants have
an eye for beauty, after all. I presume they cannot trust their flowers
out of doors on account of the pigs."
"They brought me water in a squash-shell," cried Dotty; "it _is_ so
funny out West!"
"_I_ dinked in a skosh-shell, too; and I fink it's _velly_ funny out
West!" said little Echo.
They were riding behind the other carriage, and at some distance, in
order to avoid the dust from its wheels.
"Henry has stopped," said Mrs. Clifford. "We have reached 'Small's
Enlargement,' and cannot comfortably ride any farther. The lot next to
this is ours, and it is there we are going for the pecans."
Dotty could hardly wait to be lifted out, so eager was she to walk on
the "Small Enlargement." She spoke of it afterwards as an "ensmallment;"
and the confusion of ideas was very natural. It was the place where
Grace and the "Princess of the Ruby Seal" had gone, some years before,
to have their fortunes told. It was a wild picturesque region, overgrown
with tulip trees, Judas trees, and scrub oaks.
CHAPTER IX.
IN THE WOODS.
The party walked leisurely along till they came to a log
church, which Mr. Parlin paused to admire. It was in harmony, he said,
with the roughness of the landscape.
"I should like to attend service here by moonlight; I think it would be
very sweet and solemn in such a lonely place. There would be no sound
outside; and as you looked through the open door, you would only see a
few quiet trees listening to the words of praise."
"The evenings here must seem like something holy," said Mrs. Clifford,
"'the nun-like evenings, telling dew-beads as they go.'"
"O, my shole!" cried Katie, dancing before the church door, and clapping
her hands; "that's the bear's house, the _bear's_ house! Little boy went
in there, drank some of the old bear's podge, so _sour_ he couldn't
drink it." Here she looked disgusted, but added with a honeyed smile,
"Then bimeby drank some o' _little_ bear's podge, and '_twas_ so sweet
he drank it aw--all up!"
Everybody laughed, it was so absurd to think of looking for bears and
porridge in a building where people met to worship. Dotty had just been
saying to herself, "How strange that God is in this mizzable house out
West, just as if it was in Portland!" But Katie had rudely broken in
upon her meditations.
"O, what a Flyaway!" said she; "you don't do any good."
"Yes, I does."
"Well, what?"
"O, I tell 'tories."
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