Part 7 (1/2)
”Well, then, I'll go in; but I won't promise to stay. I want to help hunt for Fly just as much as you do.”
”Dotty Dimple, look me right in the eye. I can't stop to coax you. I'm frightened to death about Fly. Do you go into this store, and stay in it till I call for you, if it's six hours. If you stir, you're lost.
Do--you--_hear_?”
”Yes, I _hear_.--H'm, he thinks my ears are thick as ears o' corn? No holes in 'em to hear with, I s'pose! Horace Clifford hasn't got the _say_ o' me, though. I can go all over town for all o' him!”
”What will you have, my little lady?” said a clerk, bowing to Dotty.
”I don't want anything, if you please, sir. There was a boy, and he asked me to stay here while he went to find something.”
”Very well; sit as long as you please.”
”Screwed right down into the floor, this piano stool is,” thought Dotty; ”makes it real hard to sit on, because you can't whirl it. Guess I'll walk 'round a while. Why, if here isn't a window right in the floor!
Strong enough to walk on. There's a man going over it with big boots and a cane. I can look right down into the cellar. Only just I can't see any thing, though, the gla.s.s is so thick.”
Dotty watched the clerks measuring off yards of cloth, tapping on the counter, and calling out, ”Cash.” It was rather funny, at first, to see the little boys run; but Dotty soon tired of it.
”Horace is gone a long while,” thought she, going to the door and looking out.
”He has forgotten to call, or he's forgotten where he left me, or else he hasn't found Fly. Dear, dear! I can't wait. I'll just go out a few steps, and p'rhaps I'll meet 'em.”
She walked out a little way, seeing nothing but a mult.i.tude of strange faces.
”Well, I should think this was queer! I'll go right back to that store, and sit down on the piano stool. If Horace Clifford can't be more polite! Well, I should think!”
Dotty went back, and entered, as she supposed, the store she had left; but a great change had come over it. It had the same counters, and stools, and goods on lines, marked ”Selling off below cost;” but the men looked very different. ”I don't see how they could change round so quick,” thought Dotty; ”I haven't been gone _more'n_ a minute.”
”What shall I serve you to, mees,” said one of them, with a smile that was all black eyes and white teeth. Dotty thought he looked very much like Lina _Rosenbug's_ brother; and his hair was so s.h.i.+ny and sticky, it must have been dipped in mola.s.ses.
She answered him with some confusion. ”I don't want anything. I was the girl, you know, that the boy was going somewhere to find something.”
The man smiled wickedly, and said, ”Yees, mees.” In an instant it flashed across Dotty that she had got into the wrong store. Where was the gla.s.s window she had walked on? They couldn't have taken that out while she was gone. The floor was whole, and made of nothing but boards.
”Well, it's very queer stores should be _twins_,” thought Dotty.
She entered the next one. It was not a ”twin;” it was full of books and pictures.
”Why didn't Horace leave me here, in the first place, it was so much nicer. And they let people read and handle the pictures. O, they have the _goldest_-looking things!”
How shocked Prudy would have been, if she had seen her little sister reaching up to the counter, and turning over the leaves of books, side by side with grown people! Miss Dimple was never very bashful; and what did she care for the people in New York, who never saw her before? She soon became absorbed in a fairy story. Seconds, minutes, quarters; it was a whole hour before she came to herself enough to remember that Horace was to call for her, and she was not where he had left her.
”But he can't scold; for didn't he keep me waiting, too? Now I'll go back.”
The next place she entered was a cigar store.
”I might have known better than to go in; for there's that wooden Indian standing there, a-purpose to keep ladies out!”
”O, here's a 'Sample Room.' Now this _must_ be the place, for it says 'Push,' on the green door, just as the other one did.”
What was Dotty's astonishment, when she found she had rushed into a room which held only tables, bottles, and gla.s.ses, and men drinking something that smelt like hot brandy!