"I know I can squeal just like a rubber doll; but s'posin' they should let me fall off the yardstick--where'd I go to then?" "O, but they wouldn't!" "Of course they would, Prudy Parlin. And I should fall right into the tolly-blow--that's where I should fall to." "O, pshaw!" exclaimed Percy, coming into the corner where his cousins stood; "if cousin Dimple has got into one of her contrary fits, it's of no use teasing. You might as well try to move the side of the house." This cutting speech was all that was needed to complete Dotty's ill humor. Did she remember any longer her promise not to get angry, but to swallow her temper right down? No, indeed; she forgot everything but her own self-will. "Don't you speak again, Percy, or I'll scream my throat right in two!" "Girls, I advise you to let that child alone," said her cousin, with a look of supreme contempt. "Let's try Flyaway; she's a little darling. Here, Flyaway, are'n't you willing to be pinned up in a shawl if we'll give you a whole cent?" "Course, indeed, so!" replied the little one, tossing her kitten across a chair, and into the fireplace. "But you mus' gi' me mucher'n that! Gi' me hunnerd cents!" No answer was made to this, except to dress the child in a ruffled cap and long clothes, and pin her into a plaid shawl. "Now cry," said Percy; "cry just as if you had soap in your eyes." "Ee! Ee!" wailed Katie, loudly. "No, cry _weak_; cry just as you did when you were a baby." "I don't 'member when I was a baby, 'twas so _many_ years ago," sighed Flyaway. But she practised crying again, and succeeded very well, Dotty all the while looking on in grim displeasure. Susy was the mamma; and when the folding-doors opened upon the scene "Cry," she was sitting in a rocking-chair, admiring her child, a remarkably well-grown baby, two months old. "Just the image of his papa, Mrs. Pettibone!" cried Florence Eastman, rushing in, in the character of an old lady, her head adorned with a scoop bonnet. "Let me look at the precious little creature! Yes, just the image of his papa! I said so before I ever set eyes on him. He's two months of age, you say, and how many teeth?" "She is a girl," replied Mrs. Susy, kissing the big bundle, "and weighs twenty-nine pounds, three inches." Susy meant "ounces." Then followed a chat between herself and a few little old ladies concerning catnip and "pep'mint" tea; after which the wonderful baby was held up by the yardstick to be weighed. Flyaway had not expected to be suspended so high in the air. She forgot the baby-like cry she had been practising, and screamed out in terror,-- "I wish I didn't be to Portland! O, I wish I didn't be to Portland!"