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Page 7
Dotty looked keenly at the captain's son. He was certainly in earnest;
but there was something about it she did not exactly understand.
"Why, if there wasn't any world all the time, where did _C'lumbus_ come
from?" faltered she, at last.
"It is not generally known," replied Adolphus, taking off his hat, and
hiding his face in it.
Dolly sat for some time lost in thought.
"O, I forgot to say," resumed Adolphus, "the north pole isn't driven in
so hard as it ought to be. It is so cold up there that the frost
'heaves' it. You know what 'heaves' means? The ground freezes and then
thaws, and that loosens the pole. Somebody has to pound it down, and
that makes the noise we call thunder."
Dotty said nothing to this; but her youthful face expressed surprise,
largely mingled with doubt.
"You have heard of the _axes_ of the earth? That is what they pound the
pole with. Queer--isn't it? But not so queer to me as the Red Sea."
Adolphus paused, expecting to be questioned; but Dotty maintained a
discreet silence.
"The water is a very bright red, I know; but I never _could_ believe
that story about the giant's having the nose-bleed, and coloring the
whole sea with blood. Did you ever hear of that?"
"No, I never," replied Dotty, gravely. "You needn't tell it, Dollyphus.
I'm too tired to talk."
Adolphus felt rather piqued as the little girl turned away her head and
steadily gazed out of the window at the trees and houses flying by. It
appeared very much as if she suspected he had been making sport of her.
"She isn't a perfect ignoramus, after all." he thought; "that last lie
was a little too big."
After this he sat for some time watching his little companion, anxious
for an opportunity to assure her that these absurd stories had been spun
out of his own brain. But Dotty never once turned her face towards him.
She was thinking,--
"P'rhaps he's a good boy; p'rhaps he's a naughty boy: but I shan't
believe him till I ask my father."
At Portsmouth, Captain Lally and son left the cars, much to Dotty's
relief, though they did carry away the beautiful Spanish rabbit; and it
seemed to the child as if a piece of her heart went with it.
"Is my little girl tired?" said Mr. Parlin, putting an arm around Dotty.
"No, papa, only I'm thinking. The north pole is top of the world--isn'
it? As much as five hundred miles off?"
"A great deal farther than that, my dear."
"There, I thought so! And we couldn't hear 'em pound it down with an
axe--could we? That isn't what makes thunder? O, what a boy!"
Mr. Parlin laughed heartily.
"Did Adolphus tell you such a story as that?"
"Yes, sir, he did," cried Dotty, indignantly, "and said there was a
dipper to it, with a handle on, as large as a tub. And a man tied it
that came from I-don't-know-where, and found this world. I know _that_
wasn't true, for he didn't say anything about Adam and Eve. What an
awful boy!"
"What did you say to Adolphus?" said Mr. Parlin, still laughing. "Hadn't
you been putting on airs? And wasn't that the reason he made sport of
you?"
"I don't know what 'airs' are, papa."
"Perhaps you told him, for instance, that you were travelling out West,
and asked him if _he_ ever went so far as that."
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