usly, and Cy kept saying:

"Ain't you sick yet, say?"

For a little while Poppy felt all right; but presently she grew rather
pale, and began to look rather pensive. She stopped running, and walked
slower and slower, while her eyes got dizzy, and her hands and feet very
cold.

"Ain't you sick now, say?" repeated Cy; and Poppy tried to answer, "Oh,
dear! no;" but a dreadful feeling came over her, and she could only
shake her head, and hold on to Nelly.

"Better lay down a spell," said the man, looking a little troubled.

"I don't wish to dirty my clean frock," said Poppy faintly, as she
glanced over the wide-ploughed field, and longed for a bit of grass to
drop on. She kept on bravely for another turn; but suddenly stopped,
and, quite regardless of the clean pink gown, dropped down in a furrow,
looking so white and queer that Nelly began to cry. Poppy lay a minute,
then turned to Cy, and said very solemnly:

"Cy, run home, and tell my mother I'm dying."

Away rushed Cy in a great fright, and burst upon Poppy's mamma,
exclaiming breathlessly:

"O ma'am! Poppy's been and ate a lot of tobacco; and she's sick, layin'
in the field; and she says 'Come quick, 'cause she's dyin.'"

"Mercy on us! what will happen to that child next?" cried poor mamma,
who was used to Poppy's mishaps. Papa was away, and there was no
carriage to bring Poppy home in; so mamma took the little wheelbarrow,
and trundled away to get the suffering Poppy.

She couldn't speak when they got to her; and, only stopping to give the
man a lecture, mamma picked up her silly little girl, and the procession
moved off. First came Cy, as grave as a sexton; then the wheelbarrow
with Poppy, white and limp and speechless, all in a bunch; then mamma,
looking amused, anxious and angry; then Nelly, weeping as if her tender
heart was entirely broken; while the man watched them, with a grin,
saying to himself:

"Twarn't my fault. The child was a reg'lar fool to swaller it."

Poppy was dreadfully sick all night, but next day was ready for more
adventures and experiments. She swung on the garret stairs, and tumbled
down, nearly breaking her neck. She rubbed her eyes with red peppers, to
see if it _really_ would make them smart, as Cy said; and was led home
quite blind and roaring with pain. She got into the pigsty to catch a
young piggy, and was taken out in a sad state of dirt. She slipped into
the brook, and was half drowned; broke a window and her own head,