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Page 3
The group at the door looked after them wistfully.
"Be a good child," said Mrs. Parlin, waving her handkerchief, "and do
just as papa tells you, my dear."
"Remember the three hugs to Gracie, and six to Flyaway," cried Prudy;
"and don't let anybody see my letter."
Dotty threw kisses with such vigor that, if they had been anything else
but air, somebody would have been hit.
The hack ride did not last long. It was like the preface to a
story-book; and Dotty did not think much about it after she had come to
the story,--that is to say, to the cars.
Her father found a pleasant seat on the shady side, hung the basket in a
rack, opened a window; and very soon the iron horse, which fed on fire,
rushed, snorting and shrieking, away from the depot. Dotty felt as if
she had a pair of wings on her shoulders, or a pair of seven-league
boots on her feet; at any rate, she was whirling through space without
any will of her own. The trees nodded in a kindly way, and the grass in
the fields seemed to say, as it waved, "Good by, Dotty, dear! good by!
You'll have a splendid time out West! out West! out West!"
It was not at all like going to Willowbrook. It seemed as if these
Boston cars had a motion peculiar to themselves. It was a very small
event just to take an afternoon's ride to Grandpa Parlin's; but when it
came to whizzing out to Indiana, why, that was another affair! It wasn't
every little girl who could be trusted so far without her mother.
"If I was _some_ children," thought Dotty, "I shouldn't know how to part
my hair in the middle. Then my papa wouldn't dare to take me; for _he_
can't part my hair any mor'n a cat!"
Dotty smiled loftily as she looked at her father reading a newspaper. He
was only a man; and though intelligent enough to manage the trunks, and
proceed in a straight line to Indiana, still he was incapable of
understanding when a young lady's hat was put on straight, and had once
made the rosette come behind!
In view of these short-comings of her parent and her own adroitness at
the toilet, Dotty came to the conclusion that she was not, strictly
speaking, under any one's charge, but was taking care of herself.
"I wonder," thought she, "how many people there are in this car that
know I'm going out West!"
She sat up very primly, and looked around. The faces were nearly all new
to her.
"That woman in the next seat, how homely her little girl is, with
freckles all over her face! Perhaps her mother wishes she was as white
as I am. Why, who is that pretty little girl close to my father?"
Dotty was looking straight forward, and had accidentally caught a peep
at her own face in the mirror.
"Why, it's me! How nice I look!" smiling and nodding at the pleasant
picture.
"Sit up like a lady, Dotty, and you'll look very polite, and very
_style_ too."
Florence Eastman said so much about "style" that Miss Dimple had adopted
the word, though she was never know to use it correctly. I am sorry to
say there was a deal of foolish vanity in the child's heart. Thoughtless
people had so often spoken to her of her beauty, that she was inclined
to dwell upon the theme secretly, and to admire her bright eyes in the
glass.
"Yes, I do look very _style_," she decided, after another self-satisfied
nod. "Now I'd just like to know who that boy is, older'n I am, not half
so pretty. I don't believe but somebody's been sitting down on his hat.
What has he got in his lap? Is it a kitten? White as snow. I wish it
wasn't so far off. He's giving it something to eat. How its ears shake!
Papa, papa, what's that boy got in his lap?"
"What boy?"
"The one next to that big man. See his ears shake! He's putting
something in his mouth."
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