Read Ebook: Dotty Dimple At Home by May Sophie

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 703 lines and 24680 words, and 15 pages

"You mizzable Cath'lic girl! You--you--you--"

Words were choked in the smoke and flame of her anger. I mean to say that dreadful "lion," which had not come out in his full strength for years, suddenly sprang up, and shook his mane. Dotty could not speak. She lost her reason. Her head was on fire. Her hands and feet began to fly out. She danced up and down. Her terrific screams brought her mother down in haste, to see what was the matter. Dotty's face was crimson; her eyes shining fiercely; her voice hoarse from screaming.

"Indeed, ma'am," said Norah, really alarmed, "I've no means of knowing what's put her in such a way, ma'am."

"She called me everything!" cried Dotty, getting her voice again. "I was Miss Flippet! I was all the wicked girls in this town!"

Norah looked a little mortified. She knew her mistress was very "particular," and did not allow any one in her house to "call names." But just now Mrs. Parlin had no time to give Norah a mild reproof, her whole attention being devoted to the half-insane Dotty, whose most unusual exhibition of temper filled her with dreadful apprehensions.

"Alas," thought the good mother, "is this child going to live over again those dreadful days of her babyhood? The Lord give me wisdom to know what to do with her!"

Mrs. Parlin soon succeeded in quieting the turbulent Dotty; and deep silence fell upon the wash-room.

In half an hour Dotty had such a look of heartache in her face that Prudy longed to comfort her, only speech was forbidden. The little creature was out in the front yard, poking dirt with a stick, and secretly wondering if she could make a hole deep enough to lie down in and die.

A SAD STORY.

After dinner, Mrs. Parlin was seated on the lounge in the nursery, looking very sad. Raising her eyes, she saw Dotty standing before her, twisting a corner of her apron. The child had entered as quietly as her own shadow, and her mother had not heard a footfall.

"My dear little girl, I am going to tell you a story."

"Yes, 'm."

Dotty looked steadily at her finger-nails.

"A true story about a child who let her temper run away with her."

"Yes, 'm," replied Dotty again, giving her mother a view of her rosy right ear.

Mrs. Parlin saw that Dotty was very much ashamed. Her face did not look as it had looked in the early morning. Then

"There was a hardness in her eye, There was a hardness in her cheek:"

now she appeared as if she would be very much obliged to the nursery floor if it would open like a trap-door and let her fall through, out of everybody's sight.

"The little girl I am going to tell you about, Dotty, lived in this state. Her name was Harriet Snow. Her father and mother were both dead. She had occasional fits of temper, which were very dreadful indeed. At such times she would hop up and down and scream."

Dotty tied the two corners of her apron into a hard knot. The story was rather too personal.

"Was the little girl pretty?" said she, trying to change the subject.

"Not very pretty, I think. Her skin was dark; her eyes were black, and remarkably bright. When I saw her, she was thirteen years old; and you may know, Dotty, that by that time her face could not well be very pleasant: temper always leaves its marks."

Dotty looked at her little plump hands, as if she expected to see black spots on them.

"Sometimes Harriet beat her head against the wall so violently that there seemed to be danger of her dashing her brains out."

"Wasn't she crazy, mamma?"

Mrs. Parlin shook her head.

"No, I am afraid not, dear. Only, when she allowed anger to stay in her heart, it made her feel blind and dizzy. Perhaps she was crazy for the time."

Dotty hung her head again. She remembered how blind and dizzy she herself had felt while screaming at Norah that morning.

Dotty's chin drooped, and rested in the hollow of her neck.

"I don't want to tell you, mamma."

Dotty shuddered, though she had known this before. Her mother had often read to her from the Bible, that "whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer."

"Well, there was no one to love this poor Harriet; she was not lovable."

"There was no one to love her; so a woman took her, and was paid for it by the town."

"She was paid for it by men in the town. I don't know whether this woman tried to teach Harriet in the right way or not. It may be she had so much to do that she thought it less trouble to punish her when she was naughty than to instruct her how to be good."

"O, yes; I s'pose she struck her with a stick," said Dotty, patting her forefingers together--"just this way."

"Harriet had the care of one of Mrs. Gray's children, a lively little boy about two years old."

"Was he cunning? As cunning as Katie Clifford? Did he say, 'If you love me, you give me hunnerd dollars; and I go buy me 'tick o' canny'?"

"Very likely he was quite as cunning as Katie. You would hardly think any one could get out of patience with such a little creature--would you, my daughter?"

"No, indeed!" cried Dotty, eagerly, and feeling that she was on safe ground, for she loved babies dearly, and was always patient with them.

"I don't know but Harriet was envious of Mrs. Gray's little boy, because he had nicer things to eat than she had."

"Well, it ought to have nicer things, mamma, 'cause it hadn't any teeth."

"And she got tired of running after him."

"No matter if she did get tired, mamma; the baby was tireder than she was!"

"And the parents think now it is very likely she was in the habit of striking him when nobody knew it."

"What a naughty, wicked, awful girl!" cried Dotty, her eyes flashing.

"She had a fiery temper, my child, and had never learned to control it."

Dotty looked at her feet in silence.

"The baby was afraid of his little nurse; but he could not speak to tell how he was abused; all he could do was to cry when he was left with Harriet. But one day Mrs. Gray was obliged to go away to see her sick mother. She charged Harriet to take good care of little Freddy, and give him some baked apples and milk if he was hungry."

"With bread in?" suggested Dotty.

"Yes, I suppose so. Then she kissed her baby. He put his arms around her neck, and cried to go too; but she could not take him."

"I s'pose he cried 'cause he 'xpected that awful girl was a-going to shake him," said Dotty, indignantly.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet