Prudy Keeping House Part 15

"I don't care how much you go to parks and museums, Prudy; I want to be at home long enough to get my hair brushed and put away my things."

Prudy looked up in surprise; but the rousing-bell sounded, and both the little girls had as much as they could do to get ready for breakfast.

When Mrs. Pragoff met them in the parlor, she saw two lovely dimples playing in Dotty's cheeks; for the child was old enough, and had pride enough, to conceal her disagreeable feelings from strangers. All very well, only she might have carried the concealment a little farther, and spared poor Prudy much discomfort.

Not that Prudy thought of complaining,--for really her younger sister's temper was greatly improved. For a year or two she had scarcely been known to get seriously angry, and Prudy did not mind a sharp retort now and then, or even an hour's sulks.

While Dotty sipped her chocolate from a cup so delicate that it looked like a gilded bubble, she was wondering how she could get home. She did not know the way, and could not ask any one to go with her without making up an excuse.

"I could say I am sick, but that wouldn't be true, and me eating m.u.f.fins and honey. I'm afraid 'twasn't quite true last night. I did feel rather funny, though, in my windpipe, now honest."

There seemed to be no other way but to wait and go home with the rest of the children. Dotty tried to think there might be time enough, after all, to find the rings.

They started for the Park.

"May I depend upon you, Master Horace, to take the entire charge of your little sister!" said Mrs. Pragoff, fastening her ermine cloak with fingers which actually trembled; "I confess I haven't the courage; and I see you understand managing her perfectly."

Of course Horace always expected to take care of Topknot. He would gladly have done a much harder thing for a lady who was so polite, and appreciated him so well.

Mrs. Pragoff gave a hand to Prudy and Dotty, saying gayly, as they all five took a car for the Park,--

"'Sound the trumpet, beat the drum; Tremble, France; we come! we come!'"

There was just enough snow to whiten the ground, but none to spare.

Everybody was determined to make the most of it while it lasted, and the Park was full of people sleigh-riding. It was really a wonderful sight.

There were miles and miles of sleighs of all sorts, shaped like sea-sh.e.l.ls, cradles, boats, water-lilies, or any other fanciful things.

The people in them were so gay with various colors, that they looked like long lines of rainbows. Many of the horses had silver-mounted harnesses, and on their necks stood up little silver trees, branching out into sleigh-bells, and sprinkling the air with merry music.

"See, children, let us ride in this beautiful sleigh; it is shaped like a Spanish gondola, and we ought to have music as we float."

"Fly can sing the 'Shepherd's Pipe coming over the Mountains,'" said Dotty; and forthwith the child began to warble the softest, sweetest music from her wonderful little throat. Dotty queried privately why it should be called the shepherd's _pipe_: how could a shepherd smoke while he sang?

"O, how beautiful!" said everybody, when the music ceased.

They meant that everything was beautiful. The air was so balmy, and the sky so soft, that you might fancy the sun was walking in his sleep, writing his dreams on the white clouds.

"Splendid!" exclaimed Fly, forgetting, perhaps, that she was not a flying-fish, and trying to dive head first out of the gondola.

"Tell me, children, if you don't think our Park is very fine?"

"Yes'm," was the faint reply in chorus.

"Why don't you say, 'We never saw the like before?'"

"O, we have, you know, ma'am," said Prudy; "it's just like riding round Willow-brook."

"Fie! don't tell me there's anything so beautiful in Maine! I expect you to be enchanted every step of the way. Look at this pond, with, the swans sailing on it."

"O, yes; those are beauties," cried Dotty; "I never saw any but cotton flannel ones before. But do you think the pond is as pretty as Bottomless Pond, Prudy, where Uncle Henry goes for pitcher-plants?"

"You prosy little creature," said Mrs. Pragoff, laughing; "I am afraid you don't admire these picturesque rocks and tree-stumps as you should."

Dotty thought this was certainly a jest.

"Pity there's so many. Why don't they hire men to dig 'em up by the roots?"

Horace smiled on Dotty patronizingly.

"They'll do it some time, Dot. The Park is new. Things can't be finished in a minute, even in New York."

Mrs. Pragoff smiled quietly, but was too polite to tell Horace the rocks had been brought there as an ornament, at great expense.

"I like the Park, if it isn't finished," said Prudy, summoning all her enthusiasm; "I know you'll laugh, Horace, but I like it better for the rocks; they make it look like home."

The ride would have seemed perfect to everybody; only a wee sleigh pa.s.sed them, drawn by a pair of goats, and Fly thought at once how much better a "goat-hossy" must be than a "growned-up hossy, that didn't have no horns." She thought about it so much, that at last she could contain herself no longer. "There was little girls in that pony-sleigh, Miss Perdigoff, with a boy a-drivin.' 'Haps they'd let me go, too, if _you_ asked 'em, Miss Perdigoff. My mamma don't 'low me to trouble n.o.body, and I shan't; only I thought I'd let you know I wanted to go, Miss Perdigoff."

Mrs. Pragoff laughed heartily, and thought Fly should certainly have a ride, "ahind the goat-horses;" but it was not possible, as the cunning little sleigh was engaged for hours in advance.

A visit to the Zoological Gardens comforted the little one, however, after she got over her first fear of the animals. There they saw a vulture, like a lady in a cell, looking sadly out of a window, the train of her grey and brown dress trailing on the ground. Horace thought of Lady Jane Grey in prison.

There was a white stork holding his red nose against his bosom, as if to warm it. A red macaw peeling an apple with his bill. Brown ostriches, like camels, walking slowly about, as if they had great care on their minds.

Green monkeys biting sticks and climbing bars. A spotted leopard, licking his feet like a cat. A fierce panther, looking out of a window in the same discontented mood as the vulture.

"See him stoop down," said Dotty; "he makes as much bones of himself as he can."

A horned owl, with eyes like auntie's when she looks "'stonished."

An eagle, with a face, Horace said, like a very cute lawyer.

A "speckled bear," without any spectacles. A "nelephant" like a great hill of stone, and a baby "nelephant," with ears like ruffled ap.r.o.ns.

An anaconda that "kept making a dandelion of himself."

A great grizzly bear hugging a young grizzly daughter.

"Who made that _grizzle_?" asked Fly, disgusted.

"G.o.d."

"Why did He? I wouldn't!--Miss Perdegoff, which does G.o.d love best, great ugly _grizzles_ or hunkydory little parrots?"

"O, fie!" said Mrs. Pragoff, really shocked; "where did a well-bred child like you ever hear such a coa.r.s.e word as that?"

"Hollis says hunkydory," replied Fly, with her finger in her mouth, while Horace pretended to be absorbed in a monkey.

Mrs. Pragoff turned the subject.

"Tell me, children, which do you consider the most wonderful animal you have ever seen?"