Dotty threw kisses with such vigor that, if they had been anything else but air, somebody would have been hit.
The hack ride did not last long. It was like the preface to a story-book; and Dotty did not think much about it after she had come to the story,—that is to say, to the cars.
Her father found a pleasant seat on the shady side, hung the basket in a rack, opened a window; and very soon the iron horse, which fed on fire, rushed, snorting and shrieking, away from the depot. Dotty felt as if she had a pair of wings on her shoulders, or a pair of seven-league boots on her feet; at any rate, she was whirling through space without any will of her own. The trees nodded in a kindly way, and the grass in the fields seemed to say, as it waved, "Good by, Dotty, dear! good by! You'll have a splendid time out West! out West! out West!"
It was not at all like going to Willowbrook. It seemed as if these Boston cars had a motion peculiar to themselves. It was a very small event just to take an afternoon's ride to Grandpa Parlin's; but when it came to whizzing out to Indiana, why, that was another affair! It wasn't every little girl who could be trusted so far without her mother.
"If I was some children," thought Dotty, "I shouldn't know how to part my hair in the middle. Then my papa wouldn't dare to take me; for he can't part my hair any mor'n a cat!"
Dotty smiled loftily as she looked at her father reading a newspaper. He was only a man; and though intelligent enough to manage the trunks, and proceed in a straight line to Indiana, still he was incapable of understanding when a young lady's hat was put on straight, and had once made the rosette come behind!
In view of these short-comings of her parent and her own adroitness at the toilet, Dotty came to the conclusion that she was not, strictly speaking, under any one's charge, but was taking care of herself.
"I wonder," thought she, "how many people there are in this car that know I'm going out West!"
She sat up very primly, and looked around. The faces were nearly all new to her.
"That woman in the next seat, how homely her little girl is, with freckles all over her face! Perhaps her mother wishes she was as white as I am. Why, who is that pretty little girl close to my father?"