Running away to Church.
Up stairs she clattered, hitting the balusters with her cane. Good Mr. Lee was preaching from the text, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy," and people could not imagine who was naughty enough to make such a noise outside—thump, thump, thump.
"Who's that a-talkin'?" thought Flyaway, startled by Mr. Lee's voice. "O, ho! that's the prayer-man a-talkin'. He makes me kind o' 'fraid!"
But just at that minute she had reached the top of the stairs, and was standing in the doorway.
"O, my shole! so many folks!"
She trembled, and was about to run away with her newspaper and cane; but her eyes, in roving wildly about, fell upon grandpa Parlin and all the rest of them, in a pew very near the pulpit. Then she thought it must be all right, and, taking courage, she marched slowly up the aisle, swinging the cane right and left.
Everybody looked up in surprise as the droll little figure crept by. Grandpa frowned through his spectacles, and aunt Louise shook her head; but Horace hid his face in a hymn-book and Dotty Dimple actually smiled.
"They didn't know I was a-comin'," thought Flyaway, "but I camed!"
And with that she fluttered into the pew.