"So it is my own oyster pearl," cried Dotty. "O, I never was so glad in my life."
CHAPTER XII.
"A POST OFFICE LETTER."
The "far-off" feeling rather increased upon Dotty. It seemed to her that she had never before reflected upon the immense distance which lay between her and home. The house might burn up before ever she got back. Prudy might have a lung fever, and mamma the "typo." It was possible for Zip to choke with a bone, and for a thousand other dreadful things to happen. And if Dotty were needed ever so much, she could not reach home without travelling all those miles.
Then, what if one of the conductors should prove to be a "non," and she should never reach home at all, but, instead of that, should be found lying in little pieces under a railroad bridge?
Sister Prudy had never troubled her head with such fancies. The dear God would attend to her, she knew. He cared just as much about her one little self as if she had been the whole United States. But Dotty did not understand how this could be.
"I wish I hadn't come out West at all," thought she. "They're going to take me up to Indi'nap'lis; and there I'll have to stay, p'raps a week; for my father always has such long business! Dear, dear! and I don't know but everybody's dead!"
Just as she had drawn a curtain of gloom over her bright little face, and had buried both her dimples under it, and all her smiles, Uncle Henry came home from his office, looking very roguish.
"Well, little miss, and what do you suppose I've brought you from up town? Put on your thinking-cap, and tell me."