Aunt Charlotte ran to the door with the baby, calling out:

“Flaxie, come back! come back!”

But the little runaway would not even turn her head.

“Crazy,” said Freddy, still laughing.

“I do believe,” exclaimed his mother, “that child is going to the depot! Run after her! You and Johnny both run!”

The boys did their best, but Flaxie was already far ahead, and never once paused till she reached the station, where she nearly ran the baggage-master through the body with her little umbrella.

“Now look here, my little lady,” said he, catching her in his arms, “I ain’t used to being punched in this style, like a passenger-ticket; and you’d better stop to explain.”

“Oh, don’t hold me, don’t hold me! I’m going on the cars to my mamma. Let me go to my mamma!”

“Why, certainly,” said the man, winking to Johnny and Freddy, who had reached the platform and stood there panting. “To be sure! We let little girls go to their mothers. But you didn’t think of starting on ahead of the cars, did you?”

Flaxie looked bewildered.

“You see the cars haven’t come,” said Johnny, coaxingly. “You’d better go back with Freddy and me, and wait awhile.”

“No, no, no,” said Flaxie, brandishing her umbrella. The boys were too anxious to get her away, and she wouldn’t trust them.

“The cars won’t be here till two o’clock,” said the baggage-man. “Now I’d advise a nice little lady like you to eat your dinner before starting on a journey. Or would you like it any better to have me lock you up in the ladies’-room till two o’clock? But I should think you’d get rather hungry.”

He held up a big key as he spoke, and Flaxie gazed at it in dismay. Was this the way they treated little girls that wanted to go to see their mothers?

“Come, Freddy,” said Johnny, “let’s hurry home, or there won’t be any apple-dumpling left. If Flaxie doesn’t want to come she needn’t, you know.”

Johnny spoke with such a show of indifference that Flaxie was struck by it. He was ten years old, just the age of her brother Preston, and had had some experience in managing children younger than himself. As he was walking off with Freddy, she trudged after, exclaiming:

“Well, will you lemme leave my umberella? Will you lemme come back again? Will you, Johnny?”

“We’ll see what mother says. What makes you come home with us? Why don’t you stay with the man and be locked up?” replied Master Johnny. But he had her fast by the hand, and led her home in triumph.

“What did make you try to run away?” asked Freddy, when they were safely in the house.

Flaxie felt rather ashamed by that time, for Aunt Charlotte and Uncle Ben were both looking at her.

“I read about a little girl that did it,” said she, dropping her eyes.

“Well, I’ll read to you about a little girl that didn’t do it.”

“Hush, Freddy,” said mamma, for Flaxie’s lips were quivering, “we’ll have our dinner now, and then I am going to Chicopee to see Mrs. Adams, who has the gold-fishes and parrot and canary. Flaxie may go with me if she likes.”

Flaxie brightened a little at this, and thought she wouldn’t go home to see her mother to-day; she would wait till to-morrow. Still her heart ached now and then just as hard as ever, and when she was riding in the cars that afternoon to Chicopee with her aunt beside her and her second-best dolly in her arms, she did look the picture of woe.

“Toothache, perhaps,” thought a woman who entered the car with a baby and two little girls. One of the girls limped along, scowling as if every step hurt her.

“How do you do, Mrs. Chase?” said Aunt Charlotte, making room for the mother and baby by taking Flaxie in her lap; then turning over the seat just in front of them for the two little girls. “I think it will be a good thing for my niece, Flaxie Frizzle, to see your children, Mrs. Chase.”

Flaxie wondered why it should be a good thing; still she was glad the little girls had come, for she liked to look at them.

Hattie was a bright child of six, just her own age; but the lame girl of ten, what a white face she had! What very light, straw-colored hair! Her manners were odd, Flaxie thought, for as soon as she saw the doll Peppermint Drop, she snatched at her and would have pulled off her blue satin sash if Flaxie had not drawn it away.

“Lucy, Lucy,” said Mrs. Chase, “don’t touch the little girl’s doll!”

Then Lucy leaned forward again, and fingered the buttons on Aunt Charlotte’s dress, and stroked her fur cloak, with a smile. That was a queer thing for such a large girl to do, but Aunt Charlotte did not seem to mind it, and only said, “I fancy Lucy wants a lozenge,” and popped one into her mouth as if she had been a baby. Flaxie stared, and the mother said, with a sad smile:

“Poor Lucy knows but very little. Aren’t you sorry for her?”

“Oh dear, why doesn’t she?” said Flaxie, forgetting her own trouble in gazing at the strange little girl, who was now stroking Aunt Charlotte’s cloak again, as if she did not hear a word that was said. “Why doesn’t she know but little?”

“Because she was very sick a great many years ago, and it hurt her mind.”

“Can she talk?”

“She only says ‘Papa,’ ‘Mamma,’ ‘Hattie.’ She talks just about as well as the baby does, and they play together half the time.”

“Does she go to school?” asked Flaxie, growing very much interested indeed.

“To school? Oh no! she couldn’t learn anything,” said Mrs. Chase, sighing.

But Hattie seemed rather proud of having such a strange sister.

“See that?” said she, holding up Lucy’s right hand.

“Why, it’s littler than mine, and all dried up,” exclaimed Flaxie Frizzle.

“Poor dear, she has lost her mittens again,” said Mrs. Chase, wiping Lucy’s mouth. “I can’t afford to keep buying mittens for her, she loses them so.”

“Wouldn’t it be well to fasten them to her cloak-sleeve by a string?” asked Mrs. Allen.

Flaxie gazed bewildered at this singular little girl, who could not wipe her own mouth, or talk, or go to school. She had never known of such a little girl before.

“Too bad about Lucy!” said she, thoughtfully, to her aunt as they got out at Chicopee, and left the whole Chase family looking after them from the car-window. “Is Lucy poor?”

“Very.”

“Where does she live?”

“In Hilltop.”

“Oh! I didn’t s’pose she lived in Hilltop.”

“There,” said Aunt Charlotte, “now this next house is Mrs. Adams’s, where you will see the gold-fishes.”

But Flaxie did not care just then for the gold-fishes.

“Auntie, don’t you think Lucy ought to have some mittens?”

She spoke cheerily, as if mittens were the very thing, and the only thing Lucy needed.

“And, auntie, I can crochet!”

“Is it possible?” said Aunt Charlotte, thinking how many things Flaxie had learned that little Milly knew nothing about. “How much can you crochet?”

“Well, I made a scarf once for my dolly. I wish I could make some mittens for Lucy!”

“That’s the very thing! I’ll buy you some worsteds this afternoon,” said Aunt Charlotte, as she rang Mrs. Adams’s door-bell; and Flaxie “smiled” up her face in a minute, exclaiming:

“Red, auntie, please get ’em red!”

They had a lovely time with Mrs. Adams’s gold-fish, and parrot, and canary; but after all it was the vision of those red mittens that eased the ache at Flaxie’s poor little heart.

Auntie was all patience next morning, and her young niece all smiles; and between them the ivory hook and the red worsteds kept moving.

“Lucy can’t say ‘thank you,’ but her mamma’ll be so pleased,” said Flaxie, her face beaming. She really thought she was making the mittens herself, because she took a stitch now and then.

“What, working on Sunday?” said teasing Johnny.

“Oh, it isn’t Sunday, and I didn’t come Friday, and I can wait two weeks to see my mamma. You see I didn’t know there was a little girl I could make mittens for, or I shouldn’t have cried,” said Flaxie, stopping a moment to kiss the baby.

The mittens were lovely. Aunt Charlotte finished them off at the wrists with a tufted border. Lucy couldn’t say “thank you,” but her poor mother was delighted, and fastened them to the child’s cloak by a string, so they wouldn’t be lost.

The moment Milly got home from Troy and had been kissed all around, Flaxie said:

“Oh, you don’t know how I did feel, staying here all alone, Milly. But I made those mittens, and then I felt better.”

“What mittens?” asked Milly, who hadn’t untied her bonnet yet, and couldn’t know in a minute everything that had happened.

“Why, Lucy’s red mittens; don’t you know? I tell you, Milly, what you must do when you don’t feel happy: you must make somebody some mittens.”

This was Flaxie’s way of saying “You must help other people.” But Milly knew what she meant. Children understand one another when the talking is ever so crooked.

Flaxie had now been at Hilltop more than three weeks, and had become so contented and happy that she was really sorry when Aunt Jane Abbott appeared one morning to take her home.

“Thank you ever so much,” said Miss Frizzle, politely; “but I don’t care ’bout going home.”

“Indeed!” said Aunt Jane, smiling. “And why not?”

“’Cause she wants to stay here and go to school with me,” spoke up Milly, with her cheek close to Flaxie’s.

“But we thought she’d like to see her little brother Phil; he has eight teeth,” said Aunt Jane.

“Oh yes’m, I do, I do!”

“Now, Flaxie,” pleaded Milly, looking grieved, “when you haven’t been to my school, and haven’t seen my elegant teacher!”

“Well, but isn’t Philip my brother? And so are Preston and Ninny. I forgot about them.”

“And don’t you want to see your mother too?” asked Aunt Jane, with another smile. She had been smiling ever since she came.

“Oh, yes, my mamma; I want to see her most of anybody in this world—’cept my papa!”

Milly’s head drooped.

“Oh, but I’m coming back again,” said Flaxie, kissing her. “And then I’ll go to school. Where’s my valise?”

She was such a restless, impatient little girl that it wasn’t best to let her know till the last minute what a beautiful thing had happened at home. But the next morning, when her hat and cloak were on, Aunt Jane told her she had a dear, new little baby sister, three days old!

Flaxie did just what you might expect she would do: clapped her hands and cried for joy.

“What’s her name? Has she any teeth? Has she any curls? Where does she sleep?”

“Why, what’s the matter now?” said Uncle Ben, coming in as Flaxie and Milly were whirling around the room in each other’s arms.

“Oh, good-bye, Uncle Ben, good-bye! I don’t know what her name is, but there’s a little sister at home, and I must go right off in the cars. I wish I had some seven-legged boots! Good-bye, Uncle Ben.”

She meant seven-league boots, for the cars did seem very slow. And when she got home the baby was so small that she laughed and cried again.

“Oh, it’s the little bit-of-est baby ever I saw!”

Phil had a grieved lip. He hardly liked the little pink morsel in the nurse’s lap; but he was glad to see Flaxie, and stood on his head with delight.

Mamma looked very happy, and so did Dr. Papa. Ninny went singing about the house, and Preston whistled more than ever.

It was all beautiful, only Flaxie wanted to have a “talk” with mamma, but nurse said, “You’d better go down-stairs to play;” and then, not long after supper, she said again, “And now you’d better go to bed!”

“A queer woman, scolding so to other people’s little girls,” thought Flaxie.