"You did, Miss Dimple; you spelt it out in the Reader,--'straw-bry;' or I shouldn't have thought of such a thing."

"Well, I didn't care much about going, now truly, Jennie; for I don't feel very well."

"You _seemed_ to be very much pleased. You said, 'How nice!' as much as twice; and didn't you almost laugh out loud in the spelling cla.s.s? Hark!

what a clap!"

"I should think you'd be ashamed," said poor Dotty, hopping on one foot.

"When I laughed it was to see Charlie Gray make up faces. And should I have gone barefoot if it hadn't been for you?"

"Well, there, Dotty Dimple, you're a smart little girl, I must say! I don't mean to ask you to my party, if my mother lets me have one; and I've a great mind not to speak to you again as long as I live."

"I shouldn't think you'd dare to quarrel, Jennie Vance, when you may die the next minute. Let's get under this tree."

"Lightning strikes trees, you goosie!"

"O, Jennie Vance! isn't there a barn anywhere in this great pasture?"

"Men don't keep barns in their pastures, Dot Dimple; and lightning strikes barns too, quicker'n a flash!"

Dotty covered her face with her hands.

"You don't seem to know scarcely anything," continued Jennie, soothingly. "I don't believe you know what a conductor is."

"Of course I do. It's the man on the cars that takes your ticket."

"No; that's one kind; but in storms like this a conductor is a--a conductor is a--why, I mean if a thing is a conductor, Dotty,--why then the thunder and lightning conducts it all to pieces, and that's the last there is of it! My father's got a book of _hijommerty_ that tells all about such things. You can't know for certain. Just as likely as not, now, our baskets are conductors; and then again perhaps they are _non_; and I don't know which is the worst. If we were sure they were _either one_, we ought to throw 'em away! that's a fact!"

"Yes, indeed!" cried Dotty, tossing hers behind her as if it had been a living scorpion. "Do you s'pose _hats_ will conduct?"

"Nonsense! no. I didn't say baskets would, did I?" returned Jennie, who still held her own dangling from her arm. "Yours was a perfect beauty, Dot. What a fuss you make!"

As Dotty had all this while been stifling her groans of pain, and had also been careful not to express a hundredth part of her real terror of lightning, she thought her friend's words were, to say the least, a little severe.

"Why, this is queer," cried Jennie, stopping short. "It's growing wet here; haven't you noticed it? Now I've thought of something. There's a bog in this town, _somewhere_, so awful and deep that once a boy slumped into it, don't you think, up to his waist; and the more he tried to get out the more he couldn't; and there he was, slump, slump, and got in as far as his neck. And he screamed till he was black and blue; and when they went to him there wasn't a bit of him out but the end of his nose, and he couldn't scream any more; so all they could do was to pull him out by the hair of his head."

"Is that a true story, now, honest?" cried Dotty, wringing her hands.

"How dreadful, dreadful, dreadful! What shall we do?"

"Do?" was the demure reply; "stand as stock-still as ever we can, and try not to shake when we breathe. Next thing we might slump."

"I do shake," said Dotty; "I can't help it."

"Don't you say anything, Dotty Dimple. I never should have thought of going across lots if you hadn't wanted to; and now you'd better keep still."

So even this horrid predicament was owing to Dotty; she was to blame for everything. "Stock-still" they stood under the beating rain, their hearts throbbing harder than the drops.

Yes, there certainly was a bottomless pond--Dotty had heard of it; on its borders grew the pitcher-plant which Uncle Henry had brought home once. It was a green pitcher, very pretty, and if it had been gla.s.s it could have been set on the table with maple mola.s.ses in it (only n.o.body but poor people used mola.s.ses).

O, there _was_ a deep, deep pond, and gra.s.s grew round it and in it; and Uncle Henry had said it was no place for children; they could not be trusted to walk anywhere near it, for one false step might lead them into danger. And now they had come to this very spot, this place of unknown horrors! What should they do? Should they stand there and be struck by lightning, or try to go on, and only sink deeper and deeper till they choked and drowned?

Never in all Dotty's little life had she been in such a strait as this.

She cried so loud that her voice was heard above the storm, in unearthly shrieks. She didn't want to die! O, it was so nice to be alive! She would as lief have the sore throat all the time, if she might only be alive. She said not a word, but the thoughts flew through her mind like a flock of startled swallows,--not one after another, but all together; and so fast that they almost took her breath away.

And O, such a naughty girl as she had been! Going barefoot! Telling a story about Crossman's orchard! Making believe she never fibbed, when she did the same thing as that, and she knew she did. Running off to play when grandma wished her to stay with Flyaway. Feeding Zip c.o.o.n with plum cake to see him wag his tail, and never telling but it was brown bread. Getting angry with the chairs and tables, and people. Doing all manner of wickednesses.

Dotty was appalled by the thought of one sin in particular. She remembered that in repeating the Lord's prayer once, she had asked for "daily bread and b.u.t.ter." Her mother had reproved her for it, but she had done the same thing again and again. By and by, when her mother positively forbade her to say "b.u.t.ter," she had said "bread and mola.s.ses;" "for, mamma," said she, "you know I don't like _bare_ bread."

"I s'pose Miss Preston would say that was the awfulest wickedness of all, and I guess it was. O, dear!"

Well, if she ever got home she would be a better girl. But it wasn't likely she ever should get home.

"Why, Jennie," said she, speaking now for the first time, "here we are; and when we stand still we don't move at all; we don't go home a bit, Jennie."

"Of course not, Dotty Dimple; that's a very bright speech! I've thought the same thought my own self before ever you did!"

Another silence, broken only by the pitter patter of the rain; for the thunder was growing less and less frequent.

"But we must go home some time," cried Jennie with energy. "If it kills us to death we must go home. Just you put your foot out, Dotty dear, and see if it sinks way down, down. I thought it was beginning to grow a little soft right here."

"O, dear, I don't dare to!" groaned Dotty, shaking with a nervous chill; "you put your foot in your own self, Jennie Vance, and see where it goes to. I don't want to slump down up to my hair any more'n you do.

What do you s'pose!"

"Fie! for shame, Dotty Dimple! I always thought you were a coward, and now I know it! What if I should give you my ring, made of all carrot gold, would you do it then? Just nothing but put your foot out?"

"_Would_ you give me the ring now, honest?" said Dotty, raising her little foot cautiously; "certain true?"

"Why, you know, Dotty, if I said I would, I would."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

A sudden thought was darting across Dotty's mind, like another startled swallow; only this one came alone, and did not take her breath away; for it was a pleasant thought--Where were they? Whose field was this?

Why, it was Mr. Gordon's pasture. And Johnny came here for the cow every night of his life. And, as true as the world, there was the Gordon cow now, the red and white one, standing by the fence, lowing for Johnny.

"A great deal of bottomless pond this is, and so I should think!" said Dotty to herself with a smile. "Where a cow can go I guess I can go with my little feet. Soft? why, it isn't any softer than anybody's field is after it rains."

So, without saying a word, the little girl put her foot out, and of course it touched solid earth.

"There!" she cried, "I did it, I did it! You said I was a coward; and who's a coward now? Where's your gold ring, Jennie Vance?"

"Why, the ground is as hard as a nut, I declare," said Jennie, walking along after Dotty with great satisfaction. "I didn't much think there was a swamp in this field all the time. Only I thought, if there was, what a sc.r.a.pe it would be! Come to think of it, I believe that bottomless pond is in the town of Augusta."

"No," replied Dotty, "it's on the other side of the river. I know, for Uncle Henry went to it in a boat. But where's my ring?"

"I don't know anything about your ring; didn't know you had any."

"I mean _yours_, Jennie Vance; or it _was_ yours; the one on your forefinger, with a red stone in it, that you said you'd give to me if I'd put my foot in it."

"Put your foot in what?"