She was about to add, “from running away,” but checked herself.
“Yes, Prudy, I didn’t run away this time, truly; I blowed away. Why, I couldn’t have helped it, mamma, not if I’d been the mayor, and ’bliged to put myself in the lock-up for it!”
“No, dear; we understand.”
“I didn’t think I’d ever sit in my own mother’s lap again. I gave up, and my head went tipside over. Then Solly Rosenbug said he’d set the dog on me. There wasn’t any dog! I shouldn’t think he’d talk so to a froze girl—should you? that never did a thing, only hold on to his jacket?”
“But, dear,” said grandma Read, chafing Dotty’s hands, “through the mercy of God, the boy saved thy life!”
“I s’pose so,” said Dotty, solemnly; “was he an angel a charger of?”
“What does thee mean, Alice?”
“No’m, I didn’t s’pose he was; I knew he wasn’t.”
Dotty hastened to change the subject.
“Grandma’ll think I’m a nidiot,” she reflected, “to call him an angel, with a comforter on, and fibbed about a dog!”