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Page 9
"Sweetest cherub!" said the fond mother, as if the child had done a
good deed, "Take off your hat, little girl. I'll hang it in the rack."
Dotty was glad to obey. But baby was just as well satisfied with his new
friend's hair as he had been with the hat. It was capable of being
pulled; and that is a quality which delights the heart of infancy. Dotty
bore the pain heroically, till she bethought herself of appearances;
for, being among so many people, she did not wish to look like a gypsy.
She smoothed back her tangled locks as well as she could, and tried
every art of fascination to attract the baby's attention to something
else.
"You are a pretty little girl, and a nice little girl," said the
gratified mother. "You have a wonderful faculty for 'tending babies.
Now, do you think, darling, you could take care of him a few minutes
alone, and let me try to get a nap? I am very tired, for I got up this
morning before sunrise, and had baking to do."
"O, yes'm," replied Dotty, overflowing with good nature; "you can go to
sleep just as well as not. Baby likes me--don't you, baby? And we'll
play pat-a-cake all so nice!"
"It isn't every day I see such a handsome, obliging little dear,"
remarked the oily-tongued woman, as she folded up a green and yellow
plaid shawl, and put it on the arm of the seat for a pillow. "I should
like to know what your name is; and some time, perhaps, I can tell your
mother how kind you were to my baby."
"My name is Alice Parlin," replied our enraptured heroine, "and I live
in Portland. I'm going out West, where the Hoojers live. I--"
Dotty stopped herself just in time to avoid "putting on airs."
"H--m! I _thought_ I had seen you before. Well, your mother is proud of
you; I know she is," remarked the new acquaintance, settling herself for
a nap.
Dotty looked at her as she lay curled in an ungraceful heap, with her
eyes closed. It was a hard, disagreeable face. Dotty did not know why it
was unpleasing. She only compared it with the child's usual standard,
and thought, "She is not so handsome as my mamma," and went on making
great eyes at the baby.
She was not aware that the person she was obliging was Mrs. Lovejoy, an
old neighbor of the Parlins, who had once been very angry with Susy,
saying sarcastic words to her, which even now Susy could not recall
without a quiver of pain.
For some time Dotty danced the lumpish baby up and down, sustained in
her tedious task by remembering the honeyed compliments its mother had
given her.
"I should think they _would_ be proud of me at home; but nobody ever
said so before. O, dear, what a homely baby! Little bits of eyes, like
huckleberries. 'Twill have to wear a head-dress when it grows up, for it
hasn't any hair. I'm glad it isn't my brother, for then I should have to
hold him the whole time, and he weighs more'n I do."
Dotty sighed heavily.
"That woman's gone to sleep. She'll dream it's night, and p'rhaps she
won't wake up till we get to Boston. Hush-a-by, baby, your cradle is
green! O, dear, my arms'll ache off."
A boy approached with a basket of pop-corn and other refreshments.
Dotty remembered that she had in her pocket the means to purchase very
many such luxuries. But how was she to find the way to her pocket? Baby
required both hands, and undivided attention. Dotty looked at the boy
imploringly. He snapped his fingers at her little charge, and passed on.
She looked around for her father. He was at the other end of the car,
talking politics with a group of gentlemen.
"Please stop," said she, faintly, and the boy came to her elbow again.
"I want some of that pop-corn so much!" was the plaintive request. "I
could buy it if you'd hold this baby till I put my hand in my pocket."
The youth laughed, but, for the sake of "making a trade," set down his
basket and took the "infant terrible." There was an instant attack upon
his hair, which was so long and straggling as to prove an easy prey to
the enemy.
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