Read Ebook: Scientific Sprague by Lynde Francis Shrader E Roscoe Edwin Roscoe Illustrator

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Ebook has 798 lines and 86867 words, and 16 pages

"O, unwetted, and un-comb-bid, and un-parted."

"That's because you fly about like such a little witch."

"I doesn't do the leastest nuffin, Dotty Dimpwill! Folks ought to let me to go to churches."

"No, he wouldn't, too! I'd sit stiller'n two, free, five hundred mouses," pleaded Flyaway, climbing up the back of a chair to show how quiet she could be.

"O, it's no use to talk about it, darling. Give me one kiss, and I'll go get my sun-shade."

"Can't, Dotty Dimpwill! My mamma's kiss I'll keep; it's ahind my mouf; she's gone to 'Dusty.

"O, 'cause I so sweet," replied Flyaway, promptly; but she was not thinking of her own sweetness, just then; she was wondering if she could manage to run away to church.

Strange such an innocent-looking child could be so sly! She ran down the path with Horace, kissing her little hand to everybody for good by, all the while thinking how she could steal off to church without being seen.

"You may go up stairs and lie down with me on my bed," said grandma, who was not very well. So Katie climbed upon the bed.

"My dee gamma, I so solly you's sick!" said she, stroking Mrs. Parlin's face, and picking open her eyelids. But after patting and "pooring" the dear lady for some time, she thought she had made her "all well," and then was anxious to get away. Mrs. Parlin wished to keep her up stairs as long as possible, because Ruth had a toothache.

"Shan't I tell you a story, dear?" said she.

"Yes, um; tell 'bout a long baby--no, a long story 'bout a short baby."

"Well, once there was a king, and he had a daughter--"

Grandma smiled, and wondered if people, in the good old Bible days, were in the habit of using pet names, and if Pharaoh's daughter ever called the Hebrew boy "Mosey." She was about to begin another story, when Flyaway said, "Guess I'll go out, now," and slid off the bed. There was an orange on the table. She took it, held it behind her, and walked quickly to the door. Looking back, she saw that her grandmother was watching her.

"What you looking at, gamma? 'Cause I'm are goin' to bring the ollinge right back."

And so she did, but not because it was wrong to keep it. Flyaway had no conscience, or, if she had any, it was very small, folded up out of sight, like a leaf-bud on a tree in the spring.

"Ask Ruthie to wash your face and hands, and then come right back to grandma and hear the story."

"Yes um."

Down stairs she pattered. The moment Ruth had kissed her, and turned away to make a poultice, she crept into the nursery, and put on Horace's straw hat. Then she took from a corner an old cane of her grandfather's, and from the paper-rack a daily newspaper, and started out in great glee. The "Journal" she hugged to her heart, and her short dress she held up to her waist, "'Cause I s'pect I mus' keep it out o' the mud," said she, as anxiously as any lady with a train.

She had no trouble in finding the church, for the road was straight, but the cane kept tripping her up.

"Naughty fing! Wisht I hadn't took you, to-day, you act so bad!" said she, picking herself up for the fifth time, and slinging the "naughty fing" across her shoulder like a gun. When she came to the meeting-house there was not a soul to be seen. "Guess they's eatin' dinner in here," decided Flyaway, after looking about for a few seconds. "Guess I'll go up chamer, see where the folks is."

Up stairs she clattered, hitting the balusters with her cane. Good Mr. Lee was preaching from the text, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy," and people could not imagine who was naughty enough to make such a noise outside--thump, thump, thump.

But just at that minute she had reached the top of the stairs, and was standing in the doorway.

She trembled, and was about to run away with her newspaper and cane; but her eyes, in roving wildly about, fell upon grandpa Parlin and all the rest of them, in a pew very near the pulpit. Then she thought it must be all right, and, taking courage, she marched slowly up the aisle, swinging the cane right and left.

Everybody looked up in surprise as the droll little figure crept by. Grandpa frowned through his spectacles, and aunt Louise shook her head; but Horace hid his face in a hymn-book and Dotty Dimple actually smiled.

And with that she fluttered into the pew.

"Naughty, naughty girl," said aunt Louise, in an awful whisper.

She longed to take up the morsel of naughtiness, called Katie, in her thumb and finger, shake it, and carry it out. But there was a twinkle in the little one's eye that might mean mischief; she did not dare touch her.

"O, what a child!" said aunt Louise, taking off the big hat and setting Flyaway down on the seat as hard as she could.

Flyaway looked up, through her veil of flossy hair, at her pretty auntie with the roses round her face.

"Hush!" said aunt Louise, giving Flyaway another shake, which frightened her so that she dropped her head on her brother's shoulder, and sat perfectly still for half a minute.

Aunt Louise was sadly mortified, and so were Susy and Prudy. They dared not look up, for they thought everybody was gazing straight at the Parlin pew, and laughing at their crazy little relative. Horace and Dotty Dimple did not care in the least; they thought it very funny.

"They shan't scold at my cunning little Topknot," whispered Horace, consolingly. "Sit still, darling, and when we get home I'll give you a cent."

"Yes um, I will," replied poor brow-beaten Flyaway, and held up her head again with the best of them. Perhaps she had been naughty; perhaps folks were going to snip her fingers; but "Hollis" was on her side now and forever. She began to feel quite contented. She had got inside the church at last, and was very well pleased with it. It was even queerer than she had expected.

"What was that high-up thing the prayer-man was a-standin' on?"

Flyaway merely asked this of her own wise little brain. She concluded it must be "a chimley."

"Great red curtains ahind him," added she, still conversing with her own little brain. "Lots o' great big bubbles on the walls all round. Big's a tea-kiddle! Lamps, I s'pose. There's that table. Where's the cups and saucers for the supper? And the tea-pot?

Flyaway's airy brain went dancing round and round. She slid away from Horace's shoulder, spread her little length upon the seat, closed her wondering, tired eyes, and sailed off to Noddle's Island. A fly, buzzing in from out doors, had long been trying to settle on Flyaway's restless nose. He never did settle: Horace kept guard with a palm-leaf fan, and "all the other bodies" in the pew sat as still as if they had been nailed down; so anxious were they to keep the little sleeper safely harbored at Noddle's Island.

"Such a relief!" thought aunt Louise, venturing to look up once more.

Flyaway did not waken till the last prayer, when Horace held her fast, lest she should make a sudden rush upon a speckled dog, which came trotting up the aisle.

On the steps they met Ruth, with wild eyes and face tied up in a scarf, hunting for Flyaway. Mrs. Parlin, she said, was going up the hill, so frightened that it would make her "down sick."

When grandma got home, all out of breath, she found Flyaway looking very downcast. Her heart was heavy under so many scoldings. "O, Katie," said grandma, "how could you run away?"

"There, if that isn't a cunning baby, where'll you find one?" whispered brother Horace to Prudy. "Grandmother can't punish her after such a 'cute speech."

But grandmother could, and did. She took her by the little soft hand, led her to the china closet, and locked her in.

"Half an hour you must stay there," said she, "and think what a naughty girl you've been!"

"Yes um," said Flyaway, meekly, and wiped off a tear with the hem of her frock.

But the moment she was left alone, her quick, observing eyes saw something which gave her a thrill of delight. It was a jar of quince jelly, which had been left by accident on the lower shelf.

"'Cause I spect I likes um," said she, serenely, after eating all she possibly could.

At the end of half an hour grandma came and turned the key.

"Have you been thinking, dear, and are you sorry and ready to come out?"

"Katie Clifford!" said grandma, sternly; and then she opened the door, and faced Flyaway.

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