Dotty Dimple at School — Key Ideas to Explore

“O, dear, dear! Who set this basket down on my white apron? All wrinkled up! I can’t go to school! And me with a new book, bought day before yesterday!”

“It was I, little sister,” said Prudy, gently. “It was an accident; I’m sorry if I’ve hurt your apron.”

“O, it isn’t hurt any,” replied Dotty, in a different tone; “not a speck, Prudy. But won’t you please button my boots? There, I wish I was a horse, and then my shoes would be nailed on, and be done with it.”

When the boots were buttoned, Dotty was in another flutter.

“Isn’t it time to start yet? What a slow clock! Only eight! I’m going down to help Norah hang out the clothes.”

“Just the napkins and little things, Norah,” said she, suddenly appearing in the back-door yard with her apron half fastened. “I’ll have time before I go to school, and mamma’s always willing.”

“Well, I suppose if you must, you must,” said Norah, trying to talk with a clothespin in her mouth; “but it’s pretty cold weather for little girls like you to be out, with nothing on their heads.”

Dotty took up a handkerchief, shook it once or twice, and spread it on the line; but before she had secured it with a clothespin, it was frozen stiff.

“Why, Norah, what makes you starch the clothes before you put them out? Why don’t you wait till they’re dry?”

“It isn’t starch, Miss Dotty; it’s the cold weather. You’d better run into the house before you freeze.”

“Why, I haven’t hung out but one napkin and two hangerjifs, Norah.”

“No matter; your hands are as red as lobsters; and, another thing, you’re shaking the clothes all to pieces. Did I ever tell you how your sister Prudy was served once, when she was a wee thing, and wouldn’t mind me?”

“Didn’t Prudy always mind? You said she did.”

“Well, no; once Prudy was naughty. I told her to go away from the door, and not touch the frosty nails; but she didn’t pay any heed; and by and by she came crying to me, and do you believe, there were nails sticking to her fingers.”

“Yes; Prudy remembers it, I know.”

“I mean to go ask her,” said Dotty, dropping a collar and bounding away. “Prudy,” said she, rushing into the house breathless, her cheeks and the tip of her nose glowing with the kisses of the wind. “I’ll tell you something. _Did_ you ever have nails sticking to your fingers?”

“Yes, and I have now,” replied Prudy, holding out her hands, and exhibiting her rosy finger-tips.

“O, those! Why, Prudy Parlin, I think you’re real too-bad, and Norah too! She didn’t want me to spread clo’es; so she told a hint. She’s always telling hints. If I was a Cath’lic, and little girls wanted to hang out clo’es, and make thimble-cookies and things, I wouldn’t treat ’em so, and say there was nails, when I meant fingernails!”

“O, well, Dotty, Norah thinks we are try-patiences, I s’pose. Mother doesn’t allow her to scold, and so she has to _manage_.”

“H’m!” ejaculated Dotty, with a curling lip. But all this while the “slow clock” was busy.

“Now it is a quarter OF,” said Prudy. She uttered the words as coolly as if they were of very slight importance; but Dotty’s little heart beat like a drum. How often had she heard Prudy say, “It’s a quarter _of_,” and seen her skip out of the house, kissing her hand for good by! As the door closed after her, Dotty had always felt as if it shut herself out of something beautiful--something every way desirable.

And now it was coming,--the day and the hour. She was about to be a school-girl at last. No longer a little child, who stays at home and plays with paper dolls, but a little woman, who goes out to learn the ways of the world.

As the two children walked on together in advance of Susy, every object looked to Dotty wondrous fair.

“Prudy,” said she, confidentially, “I’ve played enough. I may play a little more once in a while, but not much. I want to grow a great lady, like mamma, and read poetry, and write letters.”

“Yes, dear; but when you get to talking so fast, you keep pushing me into the street with your elbow.”

“Do I? I didn’t mean to. O, how white the world is! Looks like a frosted cake. Prudy, don’t you wish you’s dead?”

“Nor I don’t, either.”