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Page 35
Dotty did not move.
"Don't go to being vexed, chickie; you're as bright as anybody, after
all."
Dotty smiled again.
"There," said Horace, "now we'll begin not to talk. We'll not say a
word, and next thing we know, we'll catch that eel."
But he was mistaken. They knew several other things before they knew
they had caught an eel. Horace knew it was growing late, and Dotty knew
it made her sleepy to sit without speaking.
"Enough of this," cried Horace, breaking the spell of silence at last.
"You may talk now as much as you please. I've had my line out two hours.
They say 'in mud eel is;' but I don't believe it."
"Nor I either."
But at that very moment an eel bit. Horace drew him in with great
satisfaction.
Dotty gave a little start of disgust, but had the presence of mind not
to scream at sight of the ugly creature, because she had heard Horace
say girls always did scream at eels.
"He will know now I _am_ as bright as anybody; as bright as a boy."
They started for home, well pleased with their evening's work.
"Did you notice," asked Dotty, "how I acted? I never screamed at that
eel once."
"You're a lady, Dotty. I don't know but you might be trusted to go
trouting. I never dared take Prudy, she is troubled so with palpitation
of the tongue."
A proud moment this for Dotty. More discreet than Sister Prudy. Praise
could no farther go!
An agreeable surprise awaited her at Aunt Maria's.
"Please accept with my love," said Grace, giving her a tiny box.
Dotty opened the box, and found, enveloped in rose-colored cotton, a
beautiful gold ring, dotted with a pearl.
"I was the thief, Cousin Dotty. I hope you will excuse the liberty I
took in going to your trunk."
"So it is my own oyster pearl," cried Dotty. "O, I never was so glad in
my life."
CHAPTER XII.
"A POST OFFICE LETTER."
The "far-off" feeling rather increased upon Dotty. It seemed to
her that she had never before reflected upon the immense distance which
lay between her and home. The house might burn up before ever she got
back. Prudy might have a lung fever, and mamma the "typo." It was
possible for Zip to choke with a bone, and for a thousand other dreadful
things to happen. And if Dotty were needed ever so much, she could not
reach home without travelling all those miles.
Then, what if one of the conductors should prove to be a "_non,_" and
she should never reach home at all, but, instead of that, should be
found lying in little pieces under a railroad bridge?
Sister Prudy had never troubled her head with such fancies. The dear God
would attend to her, she knew. He cared just as much about her one
little self as if she had been the whole United States. But Dotty did
not understand how this could be.
"I wish I hadn't come out West at all," thought she. "They're going to
take me up to Indi'nap'lis; and there I'll have to stay, p'raps a week;
for my father always has such long business! Dear, dear! and I don't
know but everybody's dead!"
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