"I'd like to," she replied, "but mamma won't let me. I haven't a dress that's fit."

Lou's face gleamed with surprise.

"O, my!" she said, "can't you ever take a hill-ride, or build a snow-man, or--" but Irene looked so sober that Lou's sympathies awoke.

"Never mind," she added, "you'll come up to your grandpa's again in the summer; then you'll wear _do-up_ clothes, and we'll have lots of fun."

"The _do-up_ clothes are the worst," replied Irene sadly. "Mamma don't want _them_ soiled."

Lou looked down at her plaid frock; she thought of the plentiful ginghams at home. Suddenly she turned and rushed headlong back to mamma.

"O my!" she began, "Irene Clarke can't have no fun! She ain't got no slide-dresses, she can't soil her _do-up_ clothes, and--O my!

mamma--it's all them ruffles and puffs! I wouldn't wear 'em for the world! No, I just wouldn't!"

Mamma could but smile.

"I am glad my little girl has changed," she said. "I feared, a while ago, that because she could not have ruffles and puffs on her dresses she was going to wear them up in her face."

The free little out-of-doors girl blushed; and then she could have hugged her plaid frock for very joy.

SUGAR RIVER.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Sugar River!" The little cup-bearing hand stood transfixed halfway from table to lip. The silver cup tilted part way over in sheer astonishment.

Drip, drip, drip, dripped the contents down into Tot's sc.r.a.p of ruffled and embroidered lap.

"Bless me! Look at that child!" cried Tot's papa. And Tot was looked at and hustled away, and the little silver mug tried to drown itself in a yellow stream of sunshine flowing across the table; and, failing in that, tried to sparkle just as Tot's eyes had sparkled, and failed in that, too. For that was O, very bright--nothing was brighter than Tot's eyes.

"Well, Totchen," said Tot's boy-uncle Will, looking up from his book as something pierced his knee, as only Tot's small elbow could pierce.

"Well, Totchen; what is it? Stories? Then _jump_!"

O, what happy state to sit enthroned upon a big boy-uncle's knee, and listen, listen, listen, with eyes like the dog's in the fairy story--"as big as the great round tower at Copenhagen"--more or less!

"What shall I tell you? Aladdin? Puss in Boots? Cin--"

"Soogar Wiver" interrupted Tot, promptly.

"_Soogar Wiver?_ Why, what a little pitcher for ears! What do you know about Soogar Wiver?"

"Oo said," said Tot, with decision, "that oo went fisin' in Soogar Wiver."

"Why, so I did," said the boy, reflectively.

"Is it vewy sweet?" asked Tot.

"Sweet?" echoed the boy, taking his wicked cue and with a prolonged drawing in of the lips. "I should say so! Why, its bed is solid sugar, with as many grades of sugar grains for sand as one finds in a grocer shop."

"Do wivers do to bed dus 'ike 'ittle dirls?" demanded Tot, whose young existence was embittered by that seemingly needless ceremony.

"You see," said the boy, with the air of communicating much useful information, "it is even worse than that. They never get up at all. Only once in a while they get into tantrums and break loose and make every one scatter; for a river is one of the quickest fellows at a run you ever saw. And well they might be, for they are at it all the time, asleep or awake."

"I sood 'ike to see Soogar Wiver," said Tot.

"Wouldn't you!" And Will, fairly launched, tossed all conscientious scruples overboard, and steered boldly out into the deep waters of wildest imagination. "You just would! Why, as I said, the river bed is solid sugar. Think how nice to be able to turn over and take a gnaw at your bed-post when you feel hungry! The pebbles are sugar plums, the bigger stones are broken sugar loaves, and the rocks, why, the rocks are made out of rock candy, of course."

Tot sighed, blissfully.

"It is the jolliest place to go fishing. You just lie down on a rock, nibble it occasionally, chew up a few pebbles, take a bite at a stone, and if you are thirsty--as, of course, you would be--there is a whole river of _eau sucre_--that is what the French call sweetened water--running right by, enough to supply all France. And, all the time, you are hauling up the fish just as fast as they can bite. They are a peculiar kind of fish, wouldn't look at a worm. Nothing short of taffy bait will tempt them. They look like those fishes you buy at the confectioners--penny apiece--very high-colored, very flat, and mostly tail; and, when cooked, they taste very much like them."

Tot still gazed up into the remorseless boy's face in unblinking confidence. And, indeed, from one who, for the last two weeks, together with Tot, had been on the most familiar footing with giants, ogres, and hop-o-my-thumbs, and held the most sympathizing relations towards enchanted princesses and conquering knights, an account of a "Soogar Wiver," was not to be regarded as startling. As for Will's conscience--well, his mission with Tot was to amuse, not instruct--if Tot was amused the whole end and aim of his efforts was attained.

"We tried having dories made of the same material of those candy marbles that nothing but time and long-enduring patience will ever make an end of. But the fellows had such a habit, as they floated down the stream, of eating up the oars, we had to give it up--"

"Will," said Tot's mamma, at the open door, "are you ready? Run away to Ellen, Tot, and be a good little girl."

Tot descended from her throne, slowly and unwillingly, and, going obediently away, never knew about the beautiful river fairy just then springing to life, like Minerva in the brain of Jove, in Will's fancy, purposely to make Tot's acquaintance.

With glistening wonder in her eyes, in robe of trailing, snowy, sun-shot mist, with water lilies dropping from her hair, and the cave--Will could have provided for her such a cave, the water tinkling and trickling from the walls hung with silver spray, stalact.i.tes of purest barley sugar glittering, pillars of creamiest cream candy shimmering; and, to crown all and above all, the fairy would have had a daily diet of cream cakes and caramels.

But, before all this splendor of material could be built up into words, the builder had departed, the river fairy had melted back and away into her native mist, and Tot never knew.

That night, Will tossed Tot flying once more into the air, rescued once more his fresh collar from her crumpling embrace, kissed her once more, good-by this time, and was off and away on the cars to school. No more stories. No more fairies. No more anything. Only a wonderful river winding and gleaming and leaping through Tot's childish dreams--beautiful, wonderful "Soogar Wiver," where happy Uncle Will went fishing, lying on the bed of rock candy.

One morning, all in the gray and quiet, Tot had a queer dream. She thought some one said, with a funny little catch in the voice: "Wake up, little Tot, mamma's treasure," and some one held her so tightly she could hardly breathe. And she opened her eyes and shut them again, quite dazzled; but she thought she saw papa and mamma standing beside her bed, and the room was all on fire it was so bright to two, poor, sleepy, baby eyes, and papa's voice seemed to say, a great way off:

"Poor, little, sleepy Tot."

It was such a queer dream, but not half so queer as what followed; for, after a while, she woke up and went right on dreaming just the same.

That was very strange. How could it be anything else than a dream, to be taken up by gaslight and dressed all in her little street coat and hat before breakfast, to be made to drink milk and eat when she wasn't hungry, to be petted and cried over and half crushed in mamma's arms, to be taken by papa out into the cool, clear dawning, with the sky just beginning to flush like a sea sh.e.l.l and a waking bird or two to twitter about getting up, to be put into a coach that rolled and rumbled, to be put into something else that rolled and rumbled a thousand times worse; nothing had ever happened anything like this in any of Tot's waking hours before.

After the sun had climbed up a little way into the sky, grown blue and bluer, Tot began to accept the situation a little, and lay very still in papa's arms (the fresh morning breeze tapping her cheek and lifting her long crimped hair with cool, gentle fingers), watching the fences running away like mad, the trees gliding gracefully by in long endless procession, little white cottages and funny little hovels, and pretty little villages hopping suddenly in and then as suddenly out of the scene, a glimpse into shady depths of woods, a glint of a blue, nestling, lily-pad-speckled pond, an emerald gleam of peaceful meadows, a sight at a snowy tethered goat, of dappled grazing cows, a roll and rush and roar through riven, dripping rocks.

Papa told his little girl all about it. How little children in the town where Tot lived were very sick of a dangerous disease--diptheria. And how, coming home last evening from business and learning of several fresh cases, he had become alarmed for his darling and consulted mamma, and had succeeded in frightening her so thoroughly, that she had sat up all night to get Tot's things ready so that she might start the very next morning, on the very first early morning train, to where grandmamma lived.

"And, there," said papa, after they had ridden all the long forenoon, "there's Sugar River, Tot, where I used to fish when I was a boy!"

"O!" cried Tot, and then, immediately, with a roll and a pitch, they came to a little white farmhouse and stopped again, and Tot was at grandmamma's.

Tot didn't like being kissed quite so much all at a time, if it was by a grandmamma. The chickens, though, were fascinating, and as for some plushy round b.a.l.l.s of yellow fuzz, rolling about--little ducks just hatched--Tot had never seen anything at all to compare with them. But there was a dreadful and discordant procession of big ducks that struck terror to Tot's soul, and it was very still and lonely when the night and dark crept on. The crickets and the frogs did their best, but they only made it stiller and lonelier; and the hills gleamed against the sky, and Tot missed her mamma. But yet, Tot was very sleepy, and the next she knew it was morning and she was at grandma's, where Uncle Will lived, and Uncle Will was coming pretty soon, and, better than that, mamma was coming, too; and there was a little girl, a short distance up the road, whom Tot was to play with, and then there were the chickens and the ducks, and old Brindle and the pigs, and the pony and the hay cart, and--yes, it was very delightful at grandmamma's.

Once or twice, during the next few days, Tot asked--preserving that singular reticence regarding her illusions, so common to children--to be taken to Sugar River; but grandpapa was busy haying, and grandmamma said:

"Will will come pretty soon and he will take you."