Читать книгу Dot and Tot of Merryland - Baum Lyman Frank, Lyman Frank Baum, Edith Van Dyne - Страница 4

THE boy was a year or two younger than Dot, and seemed a chubby little fellow as he sat with his legs spread apart and his dark eyes raised wonderingly to the face of his unexpected visitor. Waves of brown hair clustered loosely about his broad forehead, and his dress was neat, though of a coarse material.

He paused in his play and stared hard at Dot for a moment; then dropped his eyes bashfully and ran his fingers through the white pebbles in an embarrassed way.

"Who are you?" asked the girl, in the calm, matter-of-fact tone peculiar to children, while she continued to regard the boy with the interest of a discoverer.

"Tot," was the low reply.

"Tot who?" she demanded.

"Tot Tompum," murmured the boy.

"Tompum! That doesn't mean anything," said Dot, decidedly.

This positive statement seemed to annoy the little fellow. He raised his eyes half shyly a moment and said, in a louder voice:

"Papa Tompum cuts the grass, an' makes the flowers grow. I'm Tot Tompum."

"Oh," said Dot; "you must mean Thompson. Thompson's the gardener, I know, and gardeners make the flowers grow and cut the grass."

The boy nodded his head twice as if to say she was right.

"Gard'ner," he repeated. "Papa Tompum. I'm Tot Tompum."

Then he took courage to look up again, and seeing a friendly smile upon Dot's face he asked boldly, "Who is you?"

"Oh, I'm Dot," she answered, sitting down beside him. "My whole name is Dot Freeland."

"Dot F'eelan'," said Tot.

"Freeland," corrected Dot.

"F'eelan'," said Tot.

"Never mind," laughed the girl; "let us play together. What were you doing with the pebbles?"

"Jack-stones," said the boy, and gravely picking out five of the white pebbles, nearly of one size, he tossed them into the air and tried to catch them on the back of his hand. Two tumbled off, and Dot laughed. The boy laughed, too, and tried it again. Before long they had become fast friends, and were laughing and chatting together as happily as if they had known one another for months.

Tot's mother, hearing their voices, came to the door of her cottage; but seeing her boy's new playmate was "the young lady at the mansion," she smiled and returned to her work.

Presently Dot jumped up.

"Come, Tot," she cried, "let us go where your father is working. I saw him weeding one of the flower beds this morning."

Tot scrambled to his feet and poured the white pebbles from his hat, after which he placed it upon the back of his head; so far back, indeed, that Dot wondered why it did not tumble off.

"We'll go see Papa Tompum," he said, trotting along beside his new friend.

Thompson, the gardener, was quite surprised to see his little boy holding fast to the hand of the rich banker's daughter, and chatting away as frankly as if he had known her for years; but Thompson had learned by this time that Dot ruled everyone about the place and did exactly as she pleased, so he made no protest. As he watched the children running about the grounds where Tot was usually forbidden to play, Thompson felt proud that his boy had been selected by "the young lady" for so high and honorable a position as her playmate.

He made no protest when they raced across a flower bed and left the prints of their small feet upon the soft earth, for Dot held Tot firmly by the hand, and he obediently followed wherever she led. The big red roses attracted her fancy, and she ruthlessly plucked a handful and stuck them in rows around the rim of Tot's hat as well as her own, although the poor gardener, who had tended these flowers so patiently that they had become precious in his eyes, actually winced and shivered with dismay at witnessing the careless and, to him, cruel manner in which the young mistress of the house destroyed them. But Dot knew they were her property and enjoyed the roses in her own way; while Tot, although he may have felt guilty, wisely shifted all responsibility to his companion, and admired the royal way in which she accepted everything about the place as her very own.

When the luncheon gong sounded from the big house, and Dot left Tot to obey the summons, she said to him, "Tomorrow I will bring a basket of sandwiches and cake, and we'll have a picnic down by the river bank."

"All right!" answered Tot, and trotted away toward his father's cottage.

It had been an eventful day to him, for he had found a delightful playmate.