Dotty Dimple at Play - Sophie May
"Yes, sir; yes, indeed," said Susy. "I _always_ knew that."
"Now, before I carve the turkey, what if I ask the question all around
what we feel most thankful for to-day? We will begin with grandmamma."
"If thee asks me first," said grandma Read, clasping her blue-veined,
beautiful old hands, "I shall say I have everything to be thankful for;
but I am most thankful for peace. Thee knows how I feel about war."
The children thought this a strange answer. They had almost forgotten
there had ever been a war.
"Now, Mary, what have you to say?" asked Mr. Parlin of his wife.
"I am thankful we are all alive," replied Mrs. Parlin, looking at the
faces around the table with a loving smile.
"And I," said her husband, "am thankful we all have our eyesight. I have
thought more about it since I have visited two or three Blind Asylums.
Susy, it is your turn."
"Papa, I'm thankful I'm so near thirteen."
Mr. Parlin stroked his mustache to hide a smile. He thought that was a
very _young_ remark.
"And you, Prudy?"
"I'm so thankful, sir," answered Prudy, reflecting a while, "so thankful
_this_ house isn't burnt up."
"Bless your little grateful heart," said her father, leaning towards her
and stroking her cheek. "For my part, I think one fire is quite enough
for one family. I confess I never should have dreamed of being thankful
we hadn't had _two_. Well, Alice, what have you to say? I see a thought
in your eyes."
"Why, papa," said Dotty, laying her forefingers together with emphasis,
"I've known what I'm thankful for, for two days. I'm thankful Mrs.
Rosenberg isn't my mother!"
A smile went around the table.
"But, papa, I am, truly. What should I want _her_ for a mother for?"
"Indeed, I see no reason, my child, since you already have a pretty good
mother of your own."
"Pretty good, papa!" said Dotty, in a tone of mild reproof. "Why, if she
was YOUR mother, you'd think she was _very_ good."
"Granted," returned Mr. Parlin.
"I don't think you'd like it, papa, to have her scold so she shakes
down cobwebs."
"Who?"
"Mrs. Rosenberg."
"Never mind, my dear; we will not discuss that woman to-day. I hope you
will some time learn to pronounce her name."
Then followed a few remarks from Mr. Parlin upon our duty to the Giver
of all good things; after which he began at last to carve the turkey.
The children thought it was certainly time he did so. They were afraid
their thankfulness would die out if they did not have something to eat
pretty soon.
CHAPTER X.
GRANDMA'S OLD TIMES.
Grandma Read was in her own room, sitting before a bright "clean" fire.
She did not like coal; she said it made too much dust; so she always used
wood. She sat with her knitting in her hands, clicking the needles
merrily while she looked into the coals.
People can see a great many things in coals. Just now she saw the face of
her dear husband, who had long ago been buried out of her sight. He had a
broad-brimmed hat on his head, and there was a twinkle in his eye, for he
had been a funny man, and very fond of a joke. Grandma smiled as if she
could almost hear him tell one of his droll stories.
Presently there was a little tap at the door. Grandma roused herself, and
looked up to see who was coming.
"Walk in," said she; "walk in, my dear."
"Yes'm, we came a-purpose to walk in," replied a cheery voice; and
Prudy and Dotty danced into the room, with their arms about each
other's waists.
"O, how pleasant it seems in here!" said Prudy; "when I come in I always
feel just like singing."
"Thee likes my clean fire," said grandma.
"But, grandma," said Dotty, "I should think you'd be lonesome 'thout
anybody but _you_."
"No, my dear; the room is always full."
"Full, grandma?"
"Yes; full of _memories_."
The children looked about; but they only two sunny windows; a table with
books on it, and a pair of gold fishes; a bed with snowy coverlet and
very high pillows; a green and white carpet; a mahogany bureau and
washing-stand; and then the bright fireplace, with a marble mantel, and a
pair of gilt bellows hanging on a brass nail.
It was a very neat and cheerful room; but they could not understand why
there should be any more memories in it than there were in any other part
of the house.
"We old people live very much in the past," said grandma Read. "Prudence,
if thee'll pick up this stitch for me, I will tell thee what I was
thinking of when thee and Alice came in."
So saying, she held out the little red mitten she was knitting, and at
the same time took the spectacles off her nose and offered them to
Prudy. Prudy laughed.
"Why, grandma! my eyes are as good as can be. I don't wear glasses."
"So thee doesn't, child, surely. I am a little absent-minded, thinking of
old mother Knowles."
"Grandma, please wait a minute," said Prudy, after she had picked up the
stitch. "If you are going to tell a story, I want to get my work and
bring it in here. I'm in a hurry about that scarf for mamma."
"It is nothing very remarkable," said Mrs. Read, as the children seated
themselves, one on each side of her, Prudy with her crocheting of
violet and white worsted, and Dotty with nothing at all to do but play
with the tongs.
"Mrs. Knowles was a very large, fleshy woman, who lived near my father's
house when I was a little girl. Some people were very much afraid of
her, and thought her a witch. Her sister's husband, Mr. Palmer, got very
angry with her, and declared she bewitched his cattle."
"Did she, grandma?" asked Dotty.
"No, indeed, my dear; and couldn't have done it if she had tried."
"Then 'twas very _unpertinent_ for him to say so!"
"He was a lazy man, and did not take proper care of his animals.
Sometimes he came over and talked with my mother about his trials with
his wicked sister-in-law. He said he often went to the barn in the
morning, and found his poor cattle had walked up to the top of the
scaffold; and how could they do that unless they were bewitched?"
"Did they truly do it? I know what the scaffold is; it is a high place
where you look for hen's eggs."
"Yes; I believe the cows did really walk up there; but this was the way
it happened, Alice: They were not properly fastened into their stalls,
and being very hungry, they went into the barn for something to eat. The
barn floor was covered with hay, and there was a hill of hay which led
right up to the scaffold; so they could get there well enough without
being bewitched."
"Did your mother--my great-grandma--believe in witches?" asked Prudy.
"What did she say to Mr. Palmer?"
"O, no! she had no faith in witches; thy great grandmother was a sensible
woman." She said to him, "Friend Asa, thee'd better have some good strong
bows made for thy cattle, and put on their necks; and then I think
thee'll find they can't get out of their stalls. Thee says they are as
lean as Pharaoh's kine, and I would advise thee to feed them better.
Cattle that are well fed and well cared for will never go bewitched."
"Did Mrs. Knowles know what people said about her?" asked Prudy.
"Yes; she heard the stories, and it made her feel very badly."
"How did she look?"
"A little like thy grandmother Parlin, if I remember, only she was
much larger."
"Did she know anything?"
"O, yes; it was rather an ignorant neighborhood; but she was one of the
most intelligent women in it."
"Did she ever go anywhere?"
"Yes; she came to my mother for sympathy. I remember just how she looked
in her tow and linen dress, with her hair fastened at the back of the
head with a goose-quill."
"There, there!" cried Dotty, "that was what made 'em call her a witch!"
"O, no; a goose-quill was quite a common fashion in those times, and a
great deal prettier, too, than the waterfalls thee sees nowadays. Mrs.
Knowles dressed like other people, and looked like other people, for
aught I know; but I wished she would not come to our house so much."
"Didn't you like her?"
"Yes; I liked her very well, for she carried peppermints in a black bag
on her arm; but I was afraid the stories were true, and she might bewitch
my mother."
"Why, grandma, I shouldn't have thought that of _you_!"
"I was a very small girl then, Prudence; and the children I played with
belonged, for the most part, to ignorant families."
"Grandma was like an apple playing with potatoes," remarked Dotty, one
side to Prudy.
"I used to watch Mrs. Knowles," continued Mrs. Read, "hoping to see her
cry; for they said if she was really a witch, she could shed but three
tears, and those out of her left eye."
"Did you ever catch her crying?"
"Once," replied grandma, with a smile; "and then she kept her
handkerchief at her face. I was quite disappointed, for I couldn't tell
which eye she cried out of."
"Please tell some more," said Dotty.
"They said Mrs. Knowles was often seen in a high wind riding off on a
broomstick. It ought to have been a strong broomstick, for she was a very
large woman."
"Why, grandma," said Prudy, thrusting her hook into a stitch, "I can't
help thinking what queer days you lived in! Now, when I talk to _my_
grandchildren, I shall tell them of such beautiful things; of swings and
picnics, and Christmas trees."
"So shall I to _my_ grandchildren," said Dotty; "but not always. I shall
have to look sober sometimes, and tell 'em how I had the sore throat, and
couldn't swallow anything but boiled custards and cream toast. 'For,'
says I, 'children, it was _very_ different in those days.'"
"Ah, well, you little folks look forward, and we old folks look
backward; but it all seems like a dream, either way, to me," said
grandma Read, binding off the thumb of her little red mitten--"like a
dream when it is told."
"Speaking of telling dreams, grandma, I had a funny one last night," said
Prudy, "about a queer old gentleman. Guess who it was."
"Thy grandfather, perhaps. Does thee remember, Alice, how thee used to
sit on his knee and comb his hair with a toothpick?"
"I don't think 'twas me," said Dotty; "for I wasn't born then."
"It was I," replied Prudy. "I remember grandpa now, but I didn't use to.
It wasn't grandpa I dreamed about--it was Santa Claus."
Grandma smiled, and raised her spectacles to the top of her forehead.
"We never talked about fairies in my day," said she. "I never heard of a
Santa Claus when I was young."
"Well, grandma, he came down the chimney in a coach that looked like a
Quaker bonnet on wheels--but he was all a-dazzle with gold buttons; and
what do you think he said?"
"Something very foolish, I presume."
"He said, 'Miss Prudy, I'm going to be married.' Only think! and he such
a very old bachelor."
"Did thee dream out the bride?"
"It was Mother Goose."
"Very well," said Mrs. Read, smiling. "I should think that was a very
good match."
"She did look so funny, grandma, with a great hump on her nose, and one
on her back! Santa Claus kissed her; and what do you think she said?"
"I am sure I can't tell; I am not acquainted with thy fairy folks."
"Why, she shook her sides, and, said she, 'Sing a song o' sixpence.'"
"That was as sensible a speech as thee could expect from that quarter."
"O, grandma, you don't care anything about my dream, or I could go on and
describe the wedding-cake; how she put sage in it, and pepper, and
mustard, and baked it on top of one of our registers. What do you suppose
made me dream such a queer thing?"
"Thee was probably thinking of thy mother's wedding."
"O, Christmas is going to be splendided than ever, this year," said
Dotty; "isn't it grandma? Did you have any Christmases when you
were young?"
"O, yes; but we didn't make much account of Christmas in those days."
"Why, grandma! I knew you lived on bean porridge, but I s'posed you had
something to eat Christmas!"
"O, sometimes I had a little saucer-pie, sweetened with molasses, and the
crust made of raised dough."
"Poor, dear grandma!"
"I remember my father used to put a great backlog on the fire Christmas
morning, as large as the fireplace would hold; and that was all the
celebration we ever had."
"Didn't you have Christmas presents?"
"No, Alice; not so much as a brass thimble."
"Poor grandma! I shouldn't think you would have wanted to live! Didn't
anybody love you?" said Dotty, putting her fingers under Mrs. Read's cap,
and smoothing her soft gray hair; "why, I love every hair of your head."
"I am glad thee does, child; but that doesn't take much love, for thee
knows I haven't a great deal of hair."
"But, grandma, how could you live without Christmas trees and things?"
"I was happy enough, Alice."
"But you'd have been a great deal happier, grandma, if you'd had a Santa
Claus! It's so nice to believe what isn't true!"
"Ah! does thee think so? There was one thing I believed when I was a very
little girl, and it was not true. I believed the cattle knelt at
midnight on Christmas eve."
"Knelt, grandma? For what?"
"Because our blessed Lord was born in a manger."
"But they didn't know that. Cows can't read the Bible."
"It was an idle story, of course, like the one about Mother Knowles. A
man who worked at our house, Israel Grossman, told it to me, and I
thought it was true."
Here grandma gazed into the coals again. She could see Israel Grossman
sitting on a stump, whittling a stick and puffing away at a short pipe.
"Well, children," said she, "I have talked to you long enough about
things that are past and gone. On the whole, I don't say they were good
old times, for the times now are a great deal better."
"Yes, indeed," said Prudy.
"Except one thing," added grandma, looking at Dotty, who was snapping the
tongs together. "Children had more to do in my day than they have now."
Dotty blushed.
"Grandma," said she, "I'm having a playtime, you know, 'cause there can't
anybody stop to fix my work. But mother says after the holidays I'm going
to have a stint every day."
"That's right, dear. Now thee may run down and get me a skein of red yarn
thee will find on the top shelf in the nursery closet."
CHAPTER XI.
THE CRYSTAL WEDDING.
As the crystal wedding was to take place on the twenty-fourth, the
Christmas tree was deferred till the night after, and was not looked
forward too by the children as anything very important. They had had a
tree, a Kris Kringle, or something of the sort, every year since they
could remember; but a wedding was a rare event, and to be a bridesmaid
was as great an honor, Dotty thought, as could be conferred on any
little girl.
It was intended that everything should be as much as possible like the
original wedding. Mrs. Parlin was to wear the same dove-colored silk and
bridal veil she had worn then, and Mr. Parlin the same coat and white
vest, though they were decidedly out of fashion by this time. Dotty was
resplendent in a white dress with a long sash, a gold necklace of her
aunt Eastman's, and a pair of white kid slippers. Johnny was to be
groomsman. He was a boy who was always startling his friends with some
new idea, and this time he had "borrowed" a silver bouquet-holder out of
his mother's drawer, and filled it with the loveliest greenhouse flowers.
Until Dotty saw this, she had been happy; but the thought of standing up
with a boy who held such a beautiful toy, while her own little hands
would be empty--this was too much.
"Johnny Eastman," said she, with a trembling voice, "how do you think it
will look to be holding flowers up to your nose when the minister's
a-praying? I'd be so 'shamed, so 'shamed, Johnny Eastman!"
"You want the bouquet-holder yourself, you know you do," said Johnny;
"you want everything you see; and if folks don't give right up to you,
then there's a fuss."
"O, Johnny Eastman, I'm a girl, and that's the only reason why I want the
bouquet-holder! If I was a boy, do you s'pose I'd touch such a thing? But
I can't wear flowers in the button-holes of my coat--now can I?"
The children were in the guest chamber, preparing to go down--all but
Prudy, who was in her mother's room, assisting at the bridal toilet. Susy
and Flossy stood before the mirror, and Johnny and Dotty in the middle of
the room, confronting each other with angry brows.
[Illustration: DOTTY WANTS THE BOUQUET-HOLDER.]
"Hush, children!" said Susy, in an absentminded way, and went on
brushing her hair, which was one of the greatest trials in the whole
world, because it would not curl. She had frizzed it with curling-tongs,
rolled it on papers, and drenched it with soap suds till there was
danger of its fading entirely away; still it was as straight, after all,
as an Indian's.
"O, dear!" said she; "it sticks up all over my head like a skein of yarn.
Children, do hush!"
"Mine curls too tight, if anything; don't you think so?" asked Flossy,
trying not to look as well satisfied with herself as she really felt;
adding, by way of parenthesis, "Johnny, why can't you be quiet?"
"Are you going to let me have that bouquet-holder, Johnny Eastman?"
continued Dotty; "'cause I'm going right out to tell my mother. She'll
be so mortified she'll send you right home, if you hold it up to your
nose, when you are nothing but a boy."
"That's right, Dimple, run and tell."
"No, I shan't tell if you'll give it to me. And you may have one of the
roses in your button-hole, Johnny. That's the way the Pickings man had,
that wrote Little Nell; father said so. There's a good boy, now!"
Dotty dropped her voice to a milder key, and smiled as sweetly as the
bitterness of her feelings would permit. She had set her heart on the
toy, and her white slippers, and even her gold necklace, dwindled into
nothing in comparison.
"Whose mother owns this bouquet-holder, I'd like to know?" said Johnny,
flourishing it above his head. "And whose father brought home the flowers
from the green-house?"
"Well, any way, Johnny, 'twas my aunt and uncle, you know; and they'd be
willing, 'cause your mamma let me have her necklace 'thout my asking."
"I can't help it if they're both as willing as two peas," cried Johnny.
"I'm not willing myself, and that's enough."
"O, what a boy! I was going to put some of my nightly blue sirreup on
your hangerjif, and now I won't--see if I do!"
"I don't want anybody's sirup," retorted Johnny; "'tic'ly such a cross
party's as you are."
"Johnny Eastman, you just stop murdering me."
"Murdering you?"
"Yes; 'he that hateth his brother.'"
"I'm not your brother, I should hope."
"Well, a cousin's just as bad."
"No, not half so bad. I wouldn't be your brother if I had to be a
beggar."
"And I wouldn't let you be a brother, Johnny Eastman, not if I had to go
and be a heathen."
"O, what a Dotty!"
"O, what a Johnny!"
By this time the little bridesmaid's face was anything but pleasant to
behold. Both her dimples were buried out of sight, and she had as many
wrinkles in her forehead as grandma Head. Johnny danced about the room,
holding before her eyes the bone of contention, then drawing it away
again in the most provoking manner.
"If you act so, Johnny Eastman, I won't have you for my bridegroom."
"And I won't have you for my bride--so there!"
The moment these words were spoken, the angry children were frightened.
They had not intended to go so far. It had been their greatest pleasure
for several weeks to think of "standing up" at a wedding; and they would
neither of them have missed the honor on any account. But now, in their
foolish strife, they had made it impossible to do the very thing they
most desired to do. They had said the fatal words, and were both of them
too proud to draw back. There was one comfort. "The wedding will be
stopped," thought Dotty; "they can't be married 'thout Johnny and me."
The guests were all assembled. It was now time for the bridal train to go
down stairs and have the ceremony performed. As the children left the
chamber, uncertain what to do, but resolved that whichever "stood up,"
the other would sit down, Johnny seized a bottle of panacea which stood
on the mantel, and wet the corner of Dotty's handkerchief.
"There is some sirup worth having," said he; "stronger than yours. Rub
it in your eyes, and see if it isn't."
The boy did not mean what he said, or at any rate we will hope he did
not; but Dotty, in her haste and agitation, obeyed him without stopping
one moment to think.
Instantly the wedding was forgotten, the bouquet-holder, the anger, the
disappointment, and everything else but the agony in her eyes. It was so
dreadful that she could only scream, and spin round and round like a top.
A scene of confusion followed. The poor child was so frantic that her
father was obliged to hold her by main force, while her mother tried to
bathe her eyes with cold water. They were fearfully inflamed, and for a
whole hour the wedding was delayed, while poor Dotty lay struggling in
her father's arms, or tore about the nursery like a wild creature.
Johnny was very sorry. He said he did not know what was in the bottle; he
had sprinkled his cousin's handkerchief in sport.
"She talks so much about her 'nightly blue sirreup,'" said he to his
mother, "that I thought I would tease her a little speck."
"I don't know but you have put her eyes out," said his mother, severely.
"O, do you think so?" wailed Johnny. "O, don't say so, mother!"
"I hope not, my child; but panacea is a very powerful thing. I don't know
precisely what is in it, but you have certainly tried a dangerous
experiment."
"I didn't mean to, mother; I'll never do so again."
"That is what you always say," replied his mother, shaking her head; "and
that is why I am so discouraged about you. Nothing seems to make any
impression upon you. If you have really made your cousin blind for life I
hope it will be a lesson to you."
While Mrs. Eastman talked, looking very stately in her velvet dress,
Master Johnny was balancing himself on the hat-tree in the hall, as if he
scarcely heard what she said; but, in spite of his disrespectful manner,
he was really unhappy.
"I knew something would go wrong," continued Mrs. Eastman, "when it was
first proposed that you and Dotty should stand up together, and I did not
approve of the plan. What is the reason you two children must always be
quarrelling?"
"She is the one that begins it," replied Johnny. "If I could have stood
up with Prudy, there wouldn't have been any fuss."
"With Prudy, indeed! I dare say you would be glad to do so now, you
naughty boy. Your kind aunt Mary suggested it, but I told her, No. Since
you have hurt Dotty so terribly, you cannot be groomsman."
"O, mother!"
"No, my son. She is unable to perform her part, and you must give up
yours. Percy will take your place."
In spite of his manliness, Johnny dropped a few tears, which he
brushed away with the back of his hand; but his mother, for once in
her life, was firm.
I will not say that Johnny's disappointment was not some consolation to
Dotty, who lay on the sofa in the parlor with her eyes bandaged, while
the wedding ceremony was performed. If Johnny had been one of the group,
while her own poor little self was left out, necklace, slippers, and
all, she would have thought it unjust.
As it was, it seemed hard enough. She was in total darkness, but her
"mind made pictures while her eyes were shut." She could almost see how
the bride and bridegroom looked, holding each other by the hand, with the
tall Percy on one side, and the short Prudy on the other,--the dear
Prudy, who was so sorry for her sister that she could not enjoy taking
her place, though a fairer little bridesmaid than she made could hardly
be found in the city.
The same clergyman officiated now who had married Mr. and Mrs. Parlin
fifteen years before; and after he had married them over again, he made a
speech which caused Dotty to cry a little under her handkerchief; or, if
not the speech, it was the panacea that brought the tears--she did not
know which.
He said he remembered just how Edward Parlin and Mary Read looked when
they stood before him in the bloom of their youth, and promised to live
together as husband and wife. They had seemed very happy then; but he
thought they were happier now; he could read in their faces the history
of fifteen beautiful years. He did not wonder the time had passed very
pleasantly, for they knew how to make each other happy; they had tried to
do right, and they had three lovely children, who were blessings to them,
and would be blessings to any parents.
It was here that Dotty felt the tears start.
"I'm not a blessing at all," thought she; "he doesn't know anything about
it, how I act, and had temper up stairs with Johnny! Johnny's put my eyes
out for it, and I'll have to go to the 'Sylum, I suppose. If I do, I
shan't be a blessing so much as I am now! To anybody ever!"
By and by aunt Eastman presented the bride with a bridal rose, which
looked as nearly as possible like the one she had given her at the first
wedding, and which grew from a slip of the same plant. Dotty could not
see the rose, but she heard her aunt say she hoped to attend Mrs.
Parlin's Golden Wedding.
"I shall be ever so old by that time," thought the little girl.
"Fifteen from fifty leaves--leaves--I don't know what it leaves; but I
shall be a blind old lady, and wear a cap. Perhaps God wants to make a
very good woman of me, same as Emily, and that's why he let Johnny put
my eyes out."