CHAPTER I.
THE FIRST DAY.
“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.