"O, it was awful," said Dotty, linking arms with Prudy and walking her off to the seat in the trees. "Miss Polly scared me so I don't believe I shall ever be afraid of lightning again!"

Little Flyaway ran after them, holding her nipperkin of milk close to her bosom, to keep off the flies, as she thought.

"I was defful sick," said she; "and did I ask the Polly woman for the stawbollies? No, she was naughty; _I_ didn't want 'em. She gived me stawbollies and stawbollies."

Prudy had to hear over and over again the trials which both the children had suffered. She had had a delightful time herself, as she always did have, wherever she was. She told Dotty and Flyaway of several interesting events which had happened; but, best of all, she had brought them a quant.i.ty of beautiful sh.e.l.ls, which they were to divide with Ruthie. The brisk Ruth had come back again as energetic as ever. It proved that her mother had not been so very ill, after all.

"Bless that Prudy's little white heart," said she, kissing her on both cheeks; "she never forgets anybody but herself."

Ruthie did not praise children as a general thing; but she loved Prudy in spite of herself.

Aunt Maria had brought Dotty a beautiful doll. "Because," said she, "I knew you would try to take good care of my little Katie."

"O, thank you ever so much, Aunt 'Ria," cried Dotty, handing the dolly at once to Prudy to be admired. But next minute her conscience p.r.i.c.ked her. She had no right to a present. True, Katie ought to have known better than to try to swim; still, as Dotty acknowledged,--

"I needn't have felt so sober, I s'pose, and then I should have taken care of her."

Dotty was learning to pay heed to these little p.r.i.c.ks of conscience.

Slowly and sadly she walked back to her Aunt Maria, who was standing on the piazza training the clematis.

"I s'pose, auntie, you thought I took care of the baby; but I didn't. I let her swim. Miss Polly said _she_ had the 'blues,' and so did I."

Aunt Maria smiled. "Very well," said she; "then keep the doll as a recompense for the suffering you have endured. I hope you will not see two such gloomy days again during the summer."

"O, you darling auntie! May I keep the dolly?"

There was no sting now to mar Dotty's pleasure in her new possession.

Her troubles seemed to be over; life was blossoming into beauty once more.

"Good news! Good news!" she cried, rushing into the house, her head, with its mult.i.tude of curl-papers, looking like a huge corn-ball. "Two duckies have pecked out!"

"You don't say so!" said Susy, coolly. "High time, I should think!"

So thought the patient and astonished old hen, who had been wondering every day for a week if this wasn't an uncommonly "backward season." But at last the eggs, like riches, had taken to themselves wings.

The soft, speckled creatures found plenty of admiring friends to welcome them as they tried their first "peep" at the world. They did not see much of the world, however, for some time, it must be confessed, on account of the corn-meal dough which the children sprinkled into their eyes.

"We won't let you starve, our ony dony Ducky Daddleses," said Dotty.

"Our deenty doiny Diddleses," said Katie after her, running hither and thither like a squirrel.

It was a time of great satisfaction. Dotty regretted that Jennie Vance had gone to Boston, for it would have been pleasant to see Jennie envious. What were gold rings compared to ducklings? The blunt little beaks pecked out very fast. As soon as they were all out, except the two eggs which were addled, the step-mother hen gathered her family together and went to house-keeping, gipsy fashion, in the back yard. She clucked to the ducklings, and they followed her, their little feet going pat, pat, on the soft gra.s.s. A nice time they had, no doubt, eating picked-up dinners, with now and then a banquet of corn-meal dough. There were eleven ducklings, five for Dotty, five for Prudy, and one for Katie, the little girl with flying hair.

After they had been alive two days, Prudy thought they ought to have a bath; so she took the large iron pan which Ruth used for baking johnny-cakes, filled it with water, put the tiny creatures in, and bade them "swim," to Madam Biddy's great alarm. They did it well, though they were as badly crowded as the five and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.

Katie wished the Charlie boy to see the ducklings, which were "velly difrunt from a piggie;" but dear Charlie was very ill, and when the children went with the milk, they were not allowed to see him.

I may as well give you here the history of the ducklings.

The next morning after their "swim" there were only ten left, and Dotty's lamentations could be heard all over the house. It was Katie's odd one, she said, that was gone, the one with a black picture on his back that looked like a clover. Next morning there were nine; and on the tenth day there was but one solitary duckling left to pipe out his sorrows all alone. The anguish of the children was painful to be behold.

Dotty's grief affected her somewhat like the jumping toothache. Who could have carried away those dear, dear little duckies?

Who indeed? About this time the unprincipled old cat was found in the cellar, wiping her lips and purring over a little soft, speckled down.

"It was you that did it, was it, you wicked mizzable kitty?" burst forth the bereaved Dotty behind the swinging broomstick. "I must strike you with the soft end. I will! I will! If I'd known before that you'd eat live duckies! O, p.u.s.s.y, p.u.s.s.y, when I've given you my own little bones on a plate with gravy!"

"Whose little bones did you say, my dear!" asked Abner.

"Chickens and turkeys, and so forth!" replied Dotty, dancing about in her rage.

"Why, dear little damsel, do I really understand you to say you eat chickens? Then you are as bad as the cat."

"Why, Abner!"

"And worse, for you have no claws."

"No claws?"

"No--have you? If you had, I should conclude they had been made to tear little birds and mice in pieces."

"Is that what kitty's claws were made for?"

"So I am told. The truth is, she behaves much better for a cat than you do for a little girl."

Dotty scowled at her feet and patted them with the broom.

"And better than I do for a young man."

"But she ate my duckies--so there!"

"And Prudy's too," said Abner. "But Prudy doesn't beat her for it. It isn't pleasant to see nice little girls show so much temper, Dotty. Now I'm going to tell you something; all those ducklings were a little crazy, and it didn't make much difference what became of them."

"Crazy?"

"Yes, their minds were not properly balanced. There's one left, I believe. I'm going to make a lunatic asylum for him, and put him in this very day."

Dotty calmed herself and watched Abner as he made a pen with high stakes, and set in one corner of it a pan of water for swimming purposes.

The "speckling," as she called him, was Dotty's own; and when he was put into this insane hospital, all safe from the cat, his little mistress was in a measure consoled.

"I am sorry he is crazy," said she; "but I s'pose the hen didn't hatch him well. Maybe he'll get his senses by and by."

All this while dear little Charlie Gray was very ill. But I will tell you more about him in another chapter.

CHAPTER XII.