"Why, Ruthie Dillon! it began three weeks ago, by the clock! Don't you know that day I couldn't go visiting? Only sometimes it stops a while, and then begins again."
"If you're going to have the blues, Miss Dotty, I'll thank you kindly just to take yourself out of this kitchen. Polly Whiting is here, and she is as much as a body can endures in this dull weather."
"It's pitiful 'bout the rain, Dotty; but you mustn't scold when God sended it," said Flyaway, dropping the feeble Dinah, and pursuing her cousin round the room with a pin. In a minute they were both laughing gayly, till Flyaway caught herself on her little rocking-chair, and "got a torn in her apron." That ended the sport.
"What shall I do to make myself happy?" said Dotty, musingly; for she wished to put off all thought of Prudy's money. "I should like to roll out some thimble-cookies, but Ruthie hasn't much patience this morning. I never dare do things when her lips are squeezed together so."
But Flyaway dared do things. She took up the kitty, and played to her on the "music," till Ruth's ears were "on edge." After this the harmonica fell into a dish of soft soap, and in cleaning it with ashes and a sponge, the holes became stopped.
"It won't muse no more," said Flyaway, in sad surprise, blowing into the keys in vain. Ruth loved the little child too well to say she was glad of it.
Flyaway's next dash was into the sink cupboard, where she found a wooden bowl of sand. This she dragged out, and filling her "nipperkin" with water, carried them both to Ruth, saying, in her sweet, pleading way,—
"If you please, Ruthie, will you tell how God does when he takes the 'little drops of water and little grains of sand,' and makes 'the mighty oshum' with um, 'and the pleasant land'?"
Ruthie had no answer but a kiss and a smile.
"There, away with you into the nursery, both of you. I know Polly Whiting is lonesome without you."