“But doesn’t it look like him?” persisted Prue, “besides, you’re laughing, Randy, only not out loud.”
Indeed, Randy was laughing, so, without attempting to reprove the little sister, she placed the bit of birch, which represented the old farmer, on the bark, and watched Prue as she floated it down the stream. Then, turning toward home, they walked along the path which led to the entrance to the wood.
Prue sang all the way, and, seeing her happiness, Randy, sweet Randy, felt rewarded for the afternoon given up to her little sister’s amusement; but she felt that the reading of the fairy tales was not a success. Clearly, the stories were beyond little Prue; for, at the supper table, when there was a pause in the conversation, she described the afternoon and Randy’s reading, much to Randy’s surprise and her father’s amusement.
“Oh, father!” she exclaimed, “we’ve been down to the brook, sailing boats, an’ Randy read me the beautifulest story! The girl’s name was—I’ve forgotten what, but her hair comed down to the ground, and the prince clumb up on it, and ’most pulled her head off, and the tower was so small the old witch couldn’t live in it, and she cut her hair off, and that’s all I can think of, ’cept the girl sang all the time, and the prince could hear her, and we sat on the plank and waited for the prince to come.”
All this she said in one breath. Her father laughed heartily at her manner of telling the story, but Mrs. Weston said, “What on airth does the child mean?” while Randy decided to read the stories to herself, thereafter, and amuse Prue in another way.
CHAPTER III—RANDY AT CHURCH
“Come, Randy, come! It wants a quarter to ten, an’ you’d better hurry.”
“Yes, mother, I’m coming,” said Randy, pleasantly, and with redoubled energy she reached for the middle button of her dress waist, which was fastened at the back. This button was just too high for her left hand to reach up to, and almost too low for her right hand to reach down to, but at last she succeeded in crowding the refractory little button into its buttonhole, and, flushed with the struggle, she stood before the tiny looking-glass brushing a stray curling lock from her temple. The glass was a poor one, and Randy’s reflection appeared to be making a most unpleasant grimace at the real girl standing there. When she lifted her chin, a flaw in the glass made one eye appear much larger than the other, and when she bent her head, you would never have believed that the little nose in the glass was a reproduction of Randy’s, so singular was its contour. Truly, with such mirrors as the farm-house afforded, Randy stood little chance of becoming vain.
“Come, Randy!” Randy started, took one more look at the stiff gingham dress, then hastened down the stairs. At the door stood Mrs. Weston, impatiently waiting for her, while little Prue patted the old cat and told her that she “mustn’t be lonesome while they were all at church.”
Into the wagon they climbed, and away they started to the church. Their progress was slow, for the old horse was far from a “racer” at any time, and on Sunday Mr. Weston felt it to be wrong to more than walk the horse; yet, even with such slow locomotion, they did at last reach the church, and the old horse was duly ensconced in the carriage-shed to dream away the forenoon.