When Dotty reached home her eyes were blazing. A few tears would have quenched their fire, but she had not the “gift of tears.” She ran all over the house to find her mother, and tell the story of the screw-up pencil; but Mrs. Parlin had gone out, and did not return till tea was ready. By that time Dotty was calmer, and her father only observed that her cheeks were unusually red.

“Well, chickie, how have things gone with you to-day? You have not had very good lessons, I fancy.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Dotty, in an excited tone. “I didn’t miss but one word, and that was the teacher’s fault; she put out ‘saw,’ but didn’t say whether it was ‘I saw John,’ or a thing to chop wood with; so of course, I spelled it s-e-w!”

Mr. Parlin laughed.

“Miss Parker should be more careful how she puts out words. Is it not surprising how everybody contrives to cheat my little daughter, while she herself so seldom makes mistakes?”

Dotty did not see that her papa was joking, and feeling very much pleased with his remarks, she was about to pour out the story of her trials, when Prudy said,—

“‘Saw? saw?’ Is that a preposition, papa, or an adverb?”

Mr. Parlin laughed again, and remarked to his wife that he thought their children were “growing very learned.”

“Prudy,” said he, “you are attending the grammar school. Do you study grammar?”

“Yes, sir, and like it ever so much,” replied Prudy, brightly.

“Do you know what a verb is?”

“O, yes, sir; it’s a word that signifies to be, to act, or to be acted upon,” was the parrot-like reply.

“Very well. Now can you tell me what is the verb in this sentence: ‘John struck James with a big stick.’”

“O, yes, papa—big stick.”

“Indeed! Why so?”

“O, sir, because the stick was what he did it with. P’raps he wouldn’t have dared strike him at all if he hadn’t had any stick!”

“O, what an idea!” cried wise Susy.

But her father and mother were not at all disturbed by Prudy’s ignorance, and did not even try to set her right. In fact, they thought she was too young to study grammar.

“But all this while we have not heard from Dotty,” said Mrs. Parlin; “she began to speak a little while ago, and some of us interrupted her.”

“O, nothing, mamma, only Lina Rosenbug’s been stealing!”

“Stealing, Dotty!”

“Yes’m; my screw-up pencil.”

“Are you perfectly sure?”

“Yes, mamma; my pocket was next to her, and there’s where I put my pencil.”

“Wait a minute,” said Mr. Parlin. “Your pocket’s being next to a person doesn’t prove that that person has put his hand in it.”

“But if she didn’t, papa, who did?”

“I don’t know, my daughter; perhaps nobody. How would you like it if Lina should say she knew you stole her mittens, just because they happened to be hanging on a nail beside your cloak?”

“But, papa, I shouldn’t want to steal her mittens; they’re all full of holes!”

Mr. Parlin said nothing more just then. It was so hard to reason with the little girl, that one was obliged to choose one’s words with care.

“In the very first place, Dotty,” said her mother, “do you know you have lost the pencil? Perhaps it is laid away in a book, or in your desk, or there may be a hole in your pocket.”

“No, mamma; it isn’t anywhere at all, for I’ve looked in all those places, and there’s no hole in my pocket, either. Lina was the one that took it, ’cause she liked that pencil.”

“Be careful, Dotty.”

“O, I’m very careful. I just know she did it; and Mrs. Rosenbug wouldn’t mind if she did.”

“Dotty, I cannot allow you to talk so.”

“Well, then, I won’t; but I went there once, and staid all night, mamma, and that’s how I know about Mrs. Rosenbug and the dog. But I couldn’t make her say she did it; she kept saying she never. I devised her to give it right back. I told her I’d tell my papa, and when the mayor took her to the jurymens, then how’d she feel!”

“Why, Dotty, did you talk so to Lina?”

“O, I didn’t say much, mamma; only told her she was an awful, wicked, horrid girl; and oughtn’t I to say so, you know? for it’s the black and blue truth, mamma, and you wouldn’t want me to tell a lie!”

Dotty’s tongue was running at such a rate that it must be stopped at once.

“You may go up stairs, Dotty, and get your grandmother’s knitting; but do not let us hear another word about your pencil to-night.”

After Dotty had gone to bed and forgotten her great wrong in a refreshing sleep, Mrs. Parlin went into the child’s room, and took from the closet her little red frock. She touched it with loving hands; for there is something in the look of a little one’s clothes that goes straight to a mother’s heart. She wished to make sure there was no hole in the pocket. She turned it wrong side outward, and smiled as the slate pencils, empty spools, buttons, strings, bits of licorice, and wads of paper, fell into her lap.

“There is everything here but the screw-up pencil,” said she to herself; “and I see no place where that could have crept out. But what is this?”

The skirt of the dress was lined, and just where the pocket went in was a rent an inch long.

“She might have put the pencil in there; let me see.”

So Mrs. Parlin examined, and found that a long and slender substance had dropped down to the bottom of the skirt. She put in her finger, and drew out the screw-up pencil.

“Poor little Lina! You have been unjustly accused! It grieves me that my daughter has such a hasty spirit.”

Dotty was greatly surprised, in the morning, to see the pencil lying on her pillow.

“But perhaps it is not yours,” said her mother; “it may belong to Tate Penny, or some other little girl.”

“O, mamma Parlin, here’s a place where I scratched it with a pin. What made you think I didn’t know my own pencil?”

“Why, you said Lina had taken that.”

“But she didn’t, mamma,” said Dotty, casting down her eyes.

“Excuse me, dear, but you said you ‘just knew’ she did.”

“I meant—I—just thought.”

“Ah, indeed! You only thought?”

“Yes’m.”

“And just because you thought, although you couldn’t know, you called Lina an ‘awful, wicked, horrid girl.’”

“I truly s’posed she was, mamma,” said Dotty, with her finger in her mouth.

“Your ‘truly s’poses’ are very cruel things, Dotty. What is going to be done with that little fiery tongue of yours?”

Dotty touched the tip of it, and felt very much as if she would like to pull it out by the roots.

“I don’t know, mamma.”

“Of course you will ask Lina’s pardon for accusing her falsely.”

“Yes’m.”

“And after this I do hope my little girl will beware of hasty judgments.”

“Yes’m.”

Dotty was very eager to atone for her fault. The moment she saw Lina, she held up the pencil, exclaiming,—

“You didn’t take it, Lina Rosenbug; now I know you didn’t, for here it is; came out of my dress—and I’m sorry I said so.”

“There, there, I knew you’d find it,” said Lina, highly delighted.

“I shall be certain sure, next time, before I tell a person they did steal,” added Dotty, penitently. “Will you forgive me?”

“O, yes, I forgive you,” replied Lina, with a toss of her pretty head: “only you’d better not say so again. What’d you think if I should ’cuse you of stealing?”

“O, you wouldn’t,” said Dotty, quickly. “You’d know better than to s’pose I’d steal.”

“Why, Dotty Dimple! that’s the same as to say I would.”

“O, no, Lina, I don’t think that. I wouldn’t be so wicked! But I don’t like to have you sit next to my pocket, though. Won’t you please to change places?”

On the whole, it did not appear that Dotty’s apologies had made a bad matter any better. Still she thought she had done her duty, and entered the school-room with a serene face.

Lina walked behind her, looking very sullen.