Papa told his little girl all about it. How little children in the town
where Tot lived were very sick of a dangerous disease--diptheria. And
how, coming home last evening from business and learning of several
fresh cases, he had become alarmed for his darling and consulted mamma,
and had succeeded in frightening her so thoroughly, that she had sat up
all night to get Tot's things ready so that she might start the very
next morning, on the very first early morning train, to where grandmamma
lived.
"And, there," said papa, after they had ridden all the long forenoon,
"there's Sugar River, Tot, where I used to fish when I was a boy!"
"O!" cried Tot, and then, immediately, with a roll and a pitch, they
came to a little white farmhouse and stopped again, and Tot was at
grandmamma's.
Tot didn't like being kissed quite so much all at a time, if it was by a
grandmamma. The chickens, though, were fascinating, and as for some
plushy round balls of yellow fuzz, rolling about--little ducks just
hatched--Tot had never seen anything at all to compare with them. But
there was a dreadful and discordant procession of big ducks that struck
terror to Tot's soul, and it was very still and lonely when the night
and dark crept on. The crickets and the frogs did their best, but they
only made it stiller and lonelier; and the hills gleamed against the
sky, and Tot missed her mamma. But yet, Tot was very sleepy, and the
next she knew it was morning and she was at grandma's, where Uncle Will
lived, and Uncle Will was coming pretty soon, and, better than that,
mamma was coming, too; and there was a little girl, a short distance up
the road, whom Tot was to play with, and then there were the chickens
and the ducks, and old Brindle and the pigs, and the pony and the hay
cart, and--yes, it was very delightful at grandmamma's.
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