“O, just squeeze it in your fingers, close down to the tip, and that will hold in the broken pieces,” said Lina, coolly. “You ought to let me use yours a while, ’cause you never lent me your sled all day yesterday.”
“Nor shan’t all day to-morrow! Lina Rosenbug, you take French leave with my things, and you know it.”
The little Jewess humbled herself at once, and gave back the “screw-up pencil,” which Dotty hastily dropped in her pocket, for her class was called. She thought no more about it that afternoon, being busy with her slate; and then Lina was so funny! She had a bottle in the desk with “bitters” in it, which she said her mother called “pancake drops;” very good for dropsy, if taken every five minutes, “regular.” So, while they were busy drawing pictures, Lina would suddenly drop her slate and her head, and behind the covers of the desk she and her patient, Miss Dimple, would take the medicine “regular.”
“Best thing in the world to break up fevers,” said Lina, gravely, as she passed the “pancake drops” to Dotty—sugar and water, with essence of peppermint thrown in. “My oldest son had the log-jaw, and it cured him so he died; and then my youngest, she had the whirlymajig—”
“O, Lina Rosenbug, you stop! Seems’s if I should scream right out,” gurgled Dotty; and as she spoke, a “pancake drop” went the wrong way, and choked her.
“Less noise in the third seat,” said Miss Parker; whereupon Dotty giggled outright.
“She is growing troublesome,” thought Miss Parker; “putting mischief into Lina’s head, I fear.”
“Do you think you’ve been a good girl to-day, Dotty?” asked Miss Parker, in the spelling class. But she did not say a word to any one about the whispering, and it was a great relief.
“No’m,” replied Dotty, with a discouraged sigh.
“I believe you mean well,” added Miss Parker, kindly; “but you must not tempt Lina to do wrong. You are quite too full of mischief, dear.”