Dotty Dimple Out West Part 11

"Well, _she_ isn't believed. n.o.body s'poses her mamma made a bushel of currant wine last summer, unless it's a baby, that doesn't know any better."

"_I_ knows better. I'se a goorl, and can walk," said little Katie, bridling.

"I didn't say you _were_ a baby, you precious Flyaway! Who's cunning?"

"_I'm_ is," replied the child, settling back upon the seat with a sigh of relief. She was very sensitive on the point of age, and, like Dotty, could not abide the idea of being thought young.

"How far are we going?" asked Mr. Parlin.

"I do not know exactly," replied Mrs. Clifford; "but I will tell you how far Mr. Skeels, one of our oldest natives, calls it. He says 'he reckons it is three screeches.'"

"How far is a 'screech,' pray?"

"The distance a human voice can be heard, I presume."

"Let us try it," said Dotty Dimple; and she instantly set up a scream so loud that the birds in the trees took to their wings in alarm. Katie chimed in with a succession of little shrieks about as powerful as the peep of a little chicken.

"I have heard that they once measured distances by 'shoots,'" said Mrs.

Clifford, laughing; "but I hope it will not be necessary to ill.u.s.trate _them_ by firing a gun."

They next pa.s.sed on old and weatherworn graveyard.

"This," said Mrs. Clifford, "was once known, in the choice language of the backwoodsmen, as a 'briar-patch;' and when people died, it was said they 'winked out.'"

"'Winked out,' Aunt 'Ria? how dreadful!"

"Wing tout," echoed Katie; "how defful!"

"O, what beautiful, beautiful gra.s.s we're riding by, auntie! When the wind blows it, it _winks_ so softly! Why, it looks like a green river running ever so fast."

"That is a sort of prairie land, dear, and very rich. Look on the other side of the road, and tell me what you think of those trees."

"O, Aunt 'Ria, I couldn't climb up there, nor a boy either! It would take a pretty spry squirrel--wouldn't it, though?"

"A pitty sp'y squirrel, I fink," remarked Katie, who did not consider any of Dotty's sentences complete until she herself had added a finis.h.i.+ng touch.

"They are larger than our trees, Alice."

"O, yes, papa. They look as if they grew, and grew, and forgot to stop."

"Velly long trees, tenny rate," said Katie, throwing up her arms in imitation of branches, and jumping so high that her mother was obliged to take her in her lap in order to keep her in the carriage.

"And, O, papa, it is so smooth between the trees, we can peep like a spy-gla.s.s, right through! Why, it seems like a church."

"_I_ don't see um," said Katie, stretching her neck and looking in vain for a church.

"'The groves were G.o.d's first temples,'" repeated Mr. Parlin, reverently. "These trees have no undergrowth of shrubs, like our New England trees."

"But, O, look! look, papa! What is that long green _dangle_, dripping down from up high? No, swinging up from down low?'

"Yes, what is um, Uncle Eddard?"

"That is a mistletoe-vine embracing a hickory tree. It is called a 'tree-thief,' because it steals its food from the tree it grows upon."

"Why, papa, I shouldn't think 'twas a thief, for the tree knows it. A thief comes in the night, when there doesn't anybody know it. _I_ should think 'twas a _beggar_."

"_I_ fink so too," said Flyaway, straining her eyes to look at she knew not what. "I fink um ought to ask _pease_."

"All this tract of country where we are riding now," said Mrs. Clifford, "was overflowed last spring by the river. It is called 'bottom land,'

and is extremely rich."

"I never thought the Hoojers had a very clean, blue, pretty river," said Dotty, thoughtfully; "it looks some like a mud-puddle. Perhaps it carried off too much of this dirt."

"Muddy-puddil," replied Katie, "full of dirt."

As they rode they pa.s.sed houses whose chimneys were inhospitably left out of doors.

"Why, look, auntie," said Dotty; "theres a house turned wrong side out!"

These buildings had no cellars, but were propped upon logs, leaving room for the air to pa.s.s under the floor, and for other things to pa.s.s under, such as cats, dogs, and chickens.

"Why, where _do_ the people go to when they want to go down cellar?"

asked Dotty, in a maze.

Near one of these houses she was seized with an irresistible thirst. Mr.

Parlin gave the reins to Mrs. Clifford, and stepped out of the carriage, then helped Dotty and Katie to alight.

They found a sharp-nosed woman cooking corn-dodgers for a family of nine children. Whether it was their breakfast or dinner hour, it was hard to tell. When Mr. Parlin asked for water, the woman wiped her forehead with her ap.r.o.n, and replied, "O, yes, stranger," and one of the little girls, whose face was stained with something besides the kisses of the sun, brought some water from the spring in a gourd.

"Well, Dotty Dimple," said Mrs. Clifford, when they were all on their way again, "what did you see in the house?"

"O, I saw a woman with a whittled nose, and a box of flowers in the window."

"And children," said Katie; "four, five hunnerd chillen."

"The box was labelled 'a.s.sorted Lozenges,'" said Mr. Parlin; "but I observed that it contained a black imperial rose; so the occupants have an eye for beauty, after all. I presume they cannot trust their flowers out of doors on account of the pigs."

"They brought me water in a squash-sh.e.l.l," cried Dotty; "it _is_ so funny out West!"

"_I_ d.i.n.ked in a skosh-sh.e.l.l, too; and I fink it's _velly_ funny out West!" said little Echo.

They were riding behind the other carriage, and at some distance, in order to avoid the dust from its wheels.

"Henry has stopped," said Mrs. Clifford. "We have reached 'Small's Enlargement,' and cannot comfortably ride any farther. The lot next to this is ours, and it is there we are going for the pecans."

Dotty could hardly wait to be lifted out, so eager was she to walk on the "Small Enlargement." She spoke of it afterwards as an "ensmallment;"

and the confusion of ideas was very natural. It was the place where Grace and the "Princess of the Ruby Seal" had gone, some years before, to have their fortunes told. It was a wild picturesque region, overgrown with tulip trees, Judas trees, and scrub oaks.