Part 7 (2/2)
”I shan't go into any more 'Sample Rooms.' I didn't know a 'Sample'
meant whiskey! But, I do declare, it's funny where _my_ store is gone to.”
The child was going farther and farther away from it.
”Here is one that looks a little like it Any way, I can see a gla.s.s window in there, on the floor.”
A lady stood at a counter, folding a piece of green velvet ribbon. Dotty determined to make friends with her; so she went up to her, and said, in a low voice, ”Will you please tell me, ma'am, if I'm the same little girl that was in here before? No, I don't mean so. I mean, did I go into the same store, or is this a different one? Because there's a boy going to call for me, and I thought I'd better know.”
Of course the lady smiled, and said it might, or might not be the same place; but she did not remember to have seen Dotty before.
”What was the number of the store? The boy ought to have known.”
”But I don't believe he did,” replied Dotty, indignantly; ”he never said a word to me about numbers. I'm almost afraid I'll get lost!”
”I should be quite afraid of it, child. Where do you live?”
”In Portland, in the State of Maine. Prudy and I came to New York: our auntie sent for us--I know the place when I see it; side of a church with ivy; but O, dear! I'm afraid the stage don't stop there. She's at Mr. Stewart's--she and Prudy.”
”Do you mean Stewart's store?”
”O, no'm; it's a man she knows,” replied Dotty, confidently; ”he lives in a blue house.”
The lady asked no more questions. If Dotty had said ”Stewart's store,”
and had remembered that the curtains were blue, and not the building, Miss Kopper would have thought she knew what to do; she would have sent the child straight to Stewart's.
”Poor little thing!” said she, twisting the long curl, which hung down the back of her neck like a bell-rope, and looking as if she cared more about her hair than she cared for all the children in Portland. ”The best thing you can do is to go right into the druggist's, next door but one, and look in the City Directory. Do you know your aunt's husband's name?”
”O, yes'm. Colonel Augustus Allen, _Fiftieth_ Avenue.”
”Well, then, there'll be no difficulty. Just go in and ask to look in the Directory; they'll tell you what stage to take. Now I must attend to these ladies. Hope you'll get home safe.”
”A handsome child,” said one of the ladies. ”Yes, from the country,”
replied Miss Kopper with a sweet smile; ”I have just been showing her the way home.”
Ah, Miss Kopper, perhaps you thought you were telling the truth; but instead of relieving the country child's perplexity, you had confused her more than ever. What should Dotty Dimple know about a City Directory? She forgot the name of it before she got to the druggist's.
”Please, sir, there's something in here,--may I see it?--that shows folks where they live.”
”A policeman?”
”No; O, no, sir.”
After some time, the gentleman, being rather shrewd, surmised what she wanted, and gave her the book.
”Not that, sir,” said Dotty, ready to cry.
Perhaps you will be as ready to laugh, when you hear that the child really supposed a City Directory was an instrument that drew out and shut up like a telescope, and, by peeping through it, she could see the distant home of Colonel Allen, on ”Fiftieth Avenue.”
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