CHAPTER V.

DICKERY, DICKERY, DOCK.

A few days after the dinner-party Ellen Nolan went home, ill with the mumps. This left Weezy without a playmate, and with so much spare time on her hands that she immediately began to turn her attention to housework.

It was all very well so long as she contented herself with rolling out cookies on her little cake-board, and cutting them with a thimble; but, when she aspired to be chief cook, it was hard for herself and hard for Lovisa.

"First she salts the hot apple-sauce, and next she burns her fingers stirring the salt in," cried Lovisa one morning, carrying her, wailing, into the sitting-room. "She's a dreadful capable child."

"Yes, Lovisa, I agree with you. She's capable of most any thing," said Mr. Rowe gayly, as he tossed Weezy up to the ceiling.

His little daughter's exploits usually amused him, and he wondered that they should annoy Mrs. Rowe and Lovisa; but that noon, on coming home and finding that Weezy had learned how to unlock his writing-desk, he was not at all amused.

"This'll never do, Mary," said he to his wife. "I can't have her meddling with my papers. She'll be damaging them."

"What! can Weezy open the desk?" said Mrs. Rowe, who had been busy up-stairs. "We must teach her not to touch it."

"It will be a difficult lesson for her," said Mr. Rowe, locking the desk. "I believe it will be easier, as well as safer, to put the key where she can't get it."

"If such a place is to be found," said Mrs. Rowe, smiling.

"I flatter myself that such a place _is_ to be found; and, moreover, I flatter myself that I have found it," said Mr. Rowe, smiling too, as he hung the key above the tall clock beside the desk. "There, the little squirrel won't reach that nail this year, or next," added he triumphantly; and he followed his wife to the dining-room, where the three children were waiting for their dinner.

Molly was in high spirits. Mr. Nye had brought her home from school in his new dog-cart, and he had promised some day to take his little daughter Kisty and Weezy and herself to drive in the park. Could they go? Oh, did her mother think they could?

Then Kirke had his story to tell about Miss Bailey, his favorite teacher, who that morning had been summoned to the bedside of her sick mother; and about Miss Cumstan, the new substitute, that couldn't keep order. During a recitation Jimmy Maguire had crawled half way down the aisle to say that Ben Cugley would sell his toy printing-press for three dollars. Might Kirke buy it? Oh, did his father think he might?

The lively chat continued through the meal, and nothing more was said or thought about the key to the writing-desk. After dinner Mr. Rowe went to his office, and Molly and Kirke hurried to school, leaving Weezy in the sitting-room tending Sambo. Mrs. Rowe had gone up-stairs to finish mending a curtain, when Weezy frisked into the dining-room, clutching Sambo by the button of his cap.

"See poor 'ittle Sambo, 'Visa," cried she, in a tone of the deepest sympathy. "Sambo's got 'e mumps, _dust_ like Ellen."

"Dear, dear! if the little fellow has got the mumps, he must stay where it's warm," cried Lovisa, hastening to clear away the table. "Take him back to the fire this minute, and here's a lump of sugar for him."

"The sugar will keep Weezy out of mischief long enough for me to wash the silver," mused she, bringing a bowl of hot water.

"Dess Weezy'll wock Sambo. Dess him feel besser," prattled Weezy, running off to her little rocking-chair in one corner of the sitting-room.

As she swayed to and fro with the ailing doll in her arms, she all at once spied the key over the clock. It looked very odd there, very much out of place.

"Oh, my 'tars!" cried she, greatly astonished. "What for's papa's key flied up so high, you b'lieve? Oh, hum! wiss I's a big, bouncin' _nangel_, so I'd go up and get it."

She looked at Sambo in her lap. Surely _he_ was not an angel, but why couldn't he knock down the key as well as anybody? Dancing across the floor, she tossed him as high as she could. That was as high as the writing-desk, and he fell upon the top of it, flat upon his flat nose.

"Oh, hum!" muttered Weezy, climbing into a chair, "'spect I's got to go _myse'f_."

"Lie 'till, Sambo; I's a-_tomin'_," she cried, scrambling from the chair to the broad ledge of the desk. She stood upon the ledge a moment, resting her chin upon the shelf where Sambo lay. "Dess I tan det it. Weezy isn't 'ittle _'fraid dirl_," said she cheerily, preparing to mount.

Clinging to the rail of the desk, she climbed up beside the doll, and, springing to her feet, reached for the key. She could just touch it with the tips of her fingers.

"Oh, _dee, dee_! wiss Weezy's arm was growed bigger," fretted she, scowling down upon Sambo, still flat upon his nose.

Ah, ha! There was another way to make him of service. She could use him for a cricket.

How her mamma would have shuddered if she had seen her little girl at that moment, poised on tiptoe upon Sambo's back! But Weezy was agile as a kitten. She did not fall, though she presently made the key fall with a clatter.

A few minutes later Lovisa peeped in at the door, and discovered the writing-desk open, and Weezy busily cutting paper dolls out of one of her father's deeds.

When Mrs. Rowe showed them to him at tea-time, Mr. Rowe was a good deal vexed.

"That was an important deed, Mary, and the loss of it will cause me much trouble," said he. "How _did_ Weezy get hold of the key of the desk?"

"Dickery, dickery, dock, The mouse ran up the clock,"

answered Mrs. Rowe with a grave smile.

"Do you mean to say that baby helped herself to the key?" cried Mr. Rowe, actually turning pale. "It's a mercy that she didn't break her neck."

"Poh! I don't think that was much of a climb," said Kirke. "Weezy's twice as spry as Molly."

"She's rather too spry, and altogether too daring, like a certain small boy that I know," said Mr. Rowe.

"You were right, Mary; we must teach Weezy not to meddle with things, for it is plain that we can't put things beyond her reach."