"Yes; O, yes," cried Miss Flyaway, opening her little mouth for the first time, and shutting it again over a big bite of tart; "I want to eat it and s'prise my mamma."
Abner laughed in his hearty fashion. "Some of the old mischief left there yet," said he, catching Flyaway and tossing her to the ceiling. "Have you come here this summer to keep the whole house in commotion? Remember the Charlie boy—don't you—that had the meal-bags tied to his feet?"
"Did he? What for?"
Flyaway had not the least recollection of Charlie; but Horace had talked to her about him, and she said, after a moment's thought,—
"Yes, he washed the pig. Me and Charlie, we played all everything what we thinked about."
"So you did, surely," said a woman who had just come in at the back door, and begun to drop kisses, as sad as tears, on Flyaway's forehead. "Do you know who this is?" Flyaway looked up with a sweet smile, but her mind had lost all impression of her melancholy friend, Miss Whiting. "Look again," said the sad-eyed stranger, who did not like to have even a little child forget her; "you used to call me the 'Polly woman.'"
Katie looked again, and this time very closely.
"There's a great deal o' yellowness in your face," exclaimed she, after a careful survey; "but you was made so!"
Miss Polly laughed drearily. "So you don't remember how I took you out of the watering-trough, you sweet lamb! 'I's tryin' to swim,' you said; 'and that's what is it.' Here's a summer-sweeting for you, dear; do you like them?"
"Yes'm, thank you," said Flyaway, "but I like summer-sourings the best."