"There's the chamer where the boy lives that says swear words; and there's the boy, ahind the window."
"Have a free ride, little girl?" shouted Izzy Paul, laughing; for he remembered faces as well as Fly did, and saw at once that it was the same child he had frightened so the day before. But Fly never knew fear where Horace was; she clung to him, and peeped out boldly between her fingers.
When they went "down cellow," as she called it, into Mr. Brooks's house, Aunt Madge was surprised to see how bare it looked. But Dotty Dimple need not have held her skirts so tightly about her, and brushed her elbow so carefully when it hit against the wall; for the house was as clean as hands could make it.
"Mrs. Brooks, I hope you will forgive me for coming down upon you with this little army," said Mrs. Allen, with such a cheery smile that the sick man on the bed felt as if a flood of pure sunshine had burst into the room. He was so tired of lying there, day after day, like a great rag baby, and so glad to see anybody, especially the good lady who, his wife said, was "so easy to talk to!"
"Auntie, look! see the freckled doggie; and there's my flowers, true's you live," cried Flyaway.
"Yes, pa wanted them in a vial, close to his bed; it's the first he's seen this winter," said Maria, stroking Fly as if she had been a kitten.
"You may be sure, little lady, it will be as I said; they'll cure me full as quick as camphire. And, thank the Lord, I can see as well as smell," said Mr. Brooks, with a tender glance at Maria which made Horace feel ashamed of himself. The idea of that poor child's rubbing anything into her eyes? Why, she looked like a wounded bird that had been out in a storm. Her face was really almost beautiful, but so sad that you could not see it without a feeling of pity.
"She looks as if she was walking in her sleep," thought Prudy, and turned away to hide a tear; for somehow there was a chord in her heart that thrilled strangely. That "slow winter" came back to her with a rush, and she was sure she knew how Maria felt.
"She is blind, and I was lame; but it is the same kind of a feeling. O, how I wish I could help her!"
Dotty was as sorry for Maria as she knew how to be, but she could not be as sorry as Prudy was; for she had never had any trouble greater than a sore throat.