But Wide Awake had not won his name without deserving it, and he passed a long and lonesome hour trying to amuse himself with nothing.
Finally, dressing-time came. When he reached the kitchen, all was as busy as a coming picnic could make it. Dinah was flying from cellar to pantry, and from pantry to oven. As soon as he got to the back stairs door-way, Wide Awake spied something wrong high up on Dinah’s back.
“Attieilly on ou olly,” he cried out.
“Keep still, Allie; don’t boffer me screaming,” said Dinah.
“Attieilly on ou olly,” said he, coming close to her, and pointing, and pulling her dress.
“Go ’long, I tell you!” said she. “I’ll tell your sister, and you won’t get no cake.”
Allie reluctantly stepped back a little; but he spoke volumes of anxiety, had any one been looking.
No one was.
“Oh! what’s dat on my neck?” screamed out Dinah, in a minute. “Oh-h-h!”
“Allie tole Dine attieilly on ou olly,” said Allie, as Dinah’s cries brought Laura, who picked off from Dinah’s neck an immense caterpillar, which the patient little fellow had been compelled to watch in its upward journey from the shoulder where he first espied it.