CHAPTER ONE THE ALLEY CAT
SHE had not really minded being an Alley Cat until the kittens came. But every one who has had children knows that one feels being poor much more keenly on their account, than on one’s own. And the strawless corner of a deserted shed did not seem a suitable bed for her mother’s grandchildren.
 
The Alley Cat took no pride in her own appearance. Indeed, it had been said when she was born that her mother, the blooded tortoise-shell of a beautiful home, had never produced such a terrible kitten. She would[2] not have been allowed to live, if an accident had not deprived her mother of the others. And as she grew up even her own parent saw that she was homely.
 
It may be thought that homely cats have no feelings; but this is not the case, for homely cats, like plain people, are sensitive, and have even more feelings than others. So one day when some particularly unkind remark had been made about the brindled kitten with yellow sides, she left her home and ran away to become an alley cat.
 
She was sorry for this afterwards, of course, like every other kitten that runs away. But she would not go home, and slept all summer in empty boxes and under the barns of people who did not like cats. She visited garbage pails, and learned to dash off with the others when the maid opened the kitchen door. She learned to walk on her stomach when crossing the street, and by the time that winter came, she had cobwebs in her whiskers, and looked at everybody out of frightened green eyes.
 
[3]
 
She was naturally a good mouser, but when the weather grew cold, people shut up their barns, and every cat knows that the open-air mice who live around unused sheds are very poor eating. But she managed to get along until the kittens came, and then she became desperate enough to beg at back doors, and purr for a piece of meat. But some people cannot appreciate even the finest kind of a purr, and the Alley Cat’s purr was hoarse and miserable like herself.
 
“I once had a good soprano,” she told the friendly barn cat who brought her a second joint of rat. “But I’m out of voice now, being up so much daytimes with the kittens.”
 
There were only two kittens,—one ugly like herself, and the other the very image of that beautiful mother who had never loved her. But the Alley Cat remembered this, and made a point of loving the ugly kitten best.
 
It was soon after their eyes were opened that the coldest weather came, and the Alley[4] Cat made her first acquaintance with The Back Yard.
 
She had visited other back yards in her time, but this was very different, because kind children played there,—the children of a mother who loved all helpless things. It is true that she did not particularly yearn after alley cats, and was glad when this one refused to be tamed, and brought into the house.
 
But she said, “You may put some milk and meat for her out on the coal box, Eunice. She probably knows who she is, even if we don’t!”
 
So very often after that, when the Alley Cat leaped with a crash of snow and icicles to the side fence, she would smell a nice warm luncheon waiting for her on the coal box, and go home with a happy, purring heart.
 
But just before Christmas, the family went away on a visit and the house was closed, so when the crash of icicles came, and an anxious gray face looked over the fence, there was nothing to be seen or smelled that a body could eat.
 
[5]
 
The pleasant barn cat who had brought her the second joint of rat, came to tell his friend of a place that he had found down-town behind a restaurant, where many things could be had without asking. He was really a very kind cat, although he had but one hole in his nose, instead of two, owing to the partition having been torn through in a fight.
 
But she could not move her kittens, and indeed had told him very little about them, fearing that he might not like children.
 
It was soon after this that the gray kitten[6] died, and the tortoise-shell kitten became so thin that there was scarcely room on her sides for all her beautiful tortoise-shell spots. But it was not until the day before Christmas that the family of kind children came home; and that night, when the mother and grandmother were out in the woodshed unpacking holly wreaths, the Alley Cat came into the yard. The mother of the children noticed her at once, because there had been a heavy snow, and her little dark figure showed quite plainly against it. “Mother, that cat is carrying something. I believe it’s a kitten!” she said, and went to the door to look.
 
The Alley Cat came with her head held high, for it was a heavy kitten, and her poor little back strained under the burden. But she managed to reach the shed, and laid her baby at the feet of Her who loved all helpless things, then turned and went out again into the snow.
 
“Mother, did you see that? Ah, Mother, look!” She took up the kitten with pitiful[7] hands, and held it to her cheek. Its little nose was quite white with cold, and snow was on its tail.
 
“Do you suppose there’d be any danger in keeping it?” she asked. “Eunice wants a kitten dreadfully, and has been praying for one every night for a month.”
 
“Danger? what nonsense! I’ll disinfect it,” Grandmother said sharply. “Somebody heard that prayer, if the Lord didn’t, and the cat’s come for Christmas morning.”
 
“It’s a perfect beauty, even if it is thin,” said the children’s mother. “But it’s pretty young to keep.”
 
“I kept my babies when they were younger than that, and I’ll warrant this cat won’t make half so much trouble. Besides, its mother trusted you, so there’s nothing else to do.”
 
But it was not until after they had warmed some milk for the kitten, and Grandmother had wrapped her up in a First Aid bichloride bandage, that they remembered how the Alley Cat had gone out again into the night.
 
[8]
 
“She looked hungry,” said the children’s mother, with tears in her eyes, “and I know she must have been hungry. But she thought she wasn’t wanted, and went away. Oh, poor Alley Cat!”
 
She opened the outside door, and called, “Come back, kitty, come back, poor kitty, kitty! Come back, poor kitty-cat!”
 
But nothing entered except the wind and the snow. And they never saw the Alley Cat again.

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CHAPTER TWO THE ALLEY CAT’S KITTEN
EUNICE and Kenneth were allowed to get up at six o’clock on Christmas morning, if they would promise not to wake anybody else. But this was a very funny rule, because when they ran into the play-room where the stockings were hung, Mother and Grandmother were always there before them; and Franklin, who had pretended to be fast asleep, would give a wild whoop from behind his door. This happened every time, and for years afterwards the striking of a match would set Eunice’s heart beating, and she would think, “Oh, it’s Christmas, and six o’clock has come!” when it might not be Christmas at all, and she would have to shake herself very hard to remember that she was grown-up.
 
[10]
 
This morning Kenneth was the first to reach the play-room, and so it was he who first saw—but Grandmother grabbed him by the seat of his legged nighty, and put her hand over his mouth, saying, “Wait till Eunice comes!”
 
It was then that Eunice saw too, and gave a little squeal of delight,—the kind that she always gave when she saw one, although she had never seen one looking out of the top of a stocking before. And this one had a lace ruff around its neck. Otherwise the stocking was just as usual, all bunchy, with a queer, fat foot made by the orange in the toe. But she could not believe that what she saw at the top of the stocking was true.
 
“Bang!” went Kenneth on one of his new noisy presents that Franklin had given him; and “E-ow!” went the thing in the top of Eunice’s stocking. Then it was true after all!
 
“Do take her out, quick!” said Mrs. Wood, laughing. “I’m so afraid she’ll stick to the candy elephant underneath.”
 
[11]
 
“There, I’m glad that’s over!” said Grandmother, with a sigh. “I wasn’t up with her but seven times last night.”
 
“Aren’t you going to look at your other things?” asked Kenneth, blissfully sucking a hind leg of sugar dog.
 
“Oh, Mother, it has white toes!” Eunice cried.
 
“Say, Mother, this is bully!” exclaimed Franklin, from the other side of the room where his table was set. Franklin considered himself too old to hang up a stocking now.
 
“My present for Grandma’s on the breakfast-table,” Kenneth explained. “It cost thirteen cents. Eunice’s didn’t cost but nine.”
 
“And a white end to its tail,” said Eunice.
 
“This book’s better than the one that other fellow had,” said Franklin.
 
“And it spit at me—such a cunning baby spit! Mother, did you hear it spit?”
 
“Well, I believe that I’ll take another nap,” said Grandmother, with a yawn.
 
[12]
 
“I’ll go back and get dressed,” said Mrs. Wood. “Kenny dear, sit off that gum-drop, please. And don’t eat but three candy animals before breakfast.”
 
“Eunice did!”
 
“Never mind what Eunice does. It’s your business to look after Kenny. Yes, Mother, I’m coming.”
 
And before the children had really looked at all their presents, it was breakfast-time.
 
“What’ll you name your cat?” asked Franklin over the oatmeal. All Franklin’s rabbits had names, and could tell each other apart.
 
“I don’t know yet,” said Eunice. “I think I’ll have to wait and see what her yell is.”
 
Eunice had a language of what Franklin called “yells,” in which she talked to all animals, and the strange part of it was that the animals seemed to like it. Some of these yells were a kind of song, and others appeared to mean certain things which the animals understood.
 
[13]
 
Eunice did not call her new Christmas present “Kitty, kitty,” but “Wee-je-wee-je, wee-je, kim-um-sing!” which meant “Come.” So in a few days the kitten was known as “Weejums,” and Eunice said that Weejums had chosen the name for herself.
 
 
 
She was a very lonely little kitten at first, and spit at everybody who tried to feed her. But this was only because she missed her own[14] mother, and had not yet learned to trust these new friends. She wept nights, and her baby face sometimes had the look of quite an old cat, it was so sad.
 
“And she never smiled,” Eunice said afterwards, “until I learned how to make that same pur-r-ow in my throat that the Alley Cat did.” Then she decided that she had made a mistake after all, and that Eunice was her mother.
 
She learned to come to Eunice’s door every morning with a little soft “E-ow?” followed by a very fierce “Wow!” if she was not let in. Sometimes she came so early that Eunice would be sleepy, but there was never any sleep after the kitten was in the room, for she was one of the dreadfully playful kind; whenever Eunice moved her toes, she would spring at them, worrying the bedclothes with wide bites, and soft thudding hind-kicks. And if put down on the floor, she would leap back instantly to dab at Eunice’s eyelashes, or tangle herself joyously in her hair, chewing very hard as the curls became caught in her teeth.
 
[15]
 
She never came to any other door, or spoke to any other member of the family, and seemed to know that she was Eunice’s cat.
 
But she hated to be dressed in dolls’ clothes, and would switch her tail very hard, and sit down “back-to,” whenever dolls were mentioned. Of course if she could have seen[16] how sweet she looked with her paws sticking out of a frilled sleeve, and her whiskers showing daintily against the dark blue of a velvet bonnet, she would not have minded at all. But she refused to look in the glass when held up to it, and only slanted back her eyes and ears in a bored way that Eunice called “Chinese dignity.”
 
One day Mrs. Wood was receiving some very elegant people in the parlor, when Weejums came, or rather rolled into the room. She had on a sunbonnet, and a pair of dolls’ riding pants, which were so tight that her tail had to be curled around inside like a watch-spring. This gave her a most peculiar gait, as her front legs advanced in stiff hops, and her hind legs went to places that her front legs had not planned at all.
 
Mrs. Wood’s back was towards the door, and she did not see Weejums until the Senator and his wife began to laugh. Then she pounced on the kitten and carried her out, feeling very much mortified, although[17] she knew that she should laugh herself when the callers were gone.
 
But Weejums had reason to be glad that she had run into the parlor that day, for it put an end to the most uncomfortable part of the dressing-up. After this, Mrs. Wood forbade Eunice to dress the kitten in any garment that was not built to contain a tail.
 
But Weejums still took part in all the plays that Eunice thought of, and even went coasting with her on the blue sled. Her tail always swelled before they reached the bottom of the hill, but it went back to its normal size again soon afterwards, and she liked being pulled up the hill on the sled, without having to put her pink toes into the snow.
 
One Saturday afternoon, the children all went to see “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” and came home talking very fast about Topsy and Eva, and the real bloodhounds, “as big as calves,” that chased Eliza across the ice.
 
“There will be scenes from ‛Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ in the nursery to-day, at four,” Eunice[18] announced at breakfast one morning. “It will be the first appearance of Weejums on any stage.”
 
Mrs. Wood said that she would come, and bring some ladies who were to call that afternoon, and Franklin came, and brought some boys who were helping him build the new rabbit-house.
 
The price of admission was four pins; and Cyclone, the dog, was tied near the door, with a pincushion strapped to his back for a money-box. Cyclone whined and looked miserable whenever a pin approached, for he knew that he had a sign, “Pay Here,” fastened to his collar, and thought it meant that the pins were to be stuck into him.
 
When everything was ready, Eunice threw open the folding doors between her room and the nursery, and said in a solemn voice, “First Tableau. ‛Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven!’”
 
The tableau was Kenneth, standing in a high chair, buttoned into one of his mother’s[19] corset covers, which reached nearly to his feet. The grown-up audience was wondering what this had to do with “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” when Franklin said, “Oh, pshaw! that’s wrong. That part doesn’t come in yet.”
 
“It does so,” said Eunice, putting her head out from behind the door.
 
“Does so,” echoed Kenneth from the high chair.
 
“Aw, you mustn’t talk,” jeered Franklin. “You’re nothing but the nightmare Uncle Tom saw in the last act.”
 
“Ain’t either!” said Kenneth, bursting a button off the heavenly robe, in his wrath. “I’m little Eva.”
 
“It’s no fair talking,” said Eunice. “Mother, is it fair talking to the tableau?”
 
“Let’s have the next scene,” said one of the ladies, applauding very hard.
 
“Oh, yes,” said Eunice, looking quite pleased. “The next scene is Eliza crossing on the ice, pursued by the fierce bloodhound.”
 
Eunice was Eliza, and Weejums was the[20] bloodhound, and the cakes of ice were newspapers spread on the floor. Eunice, screaming loudly, clasped her doll to her bosom and jumped from paper to paper, then stopped and wiggled a string, and the fierce bloodhound followed, with gentle pounces and wavings of a tortoise-shell tail.
 
But when the audience clapped its delight, the tail grew so big with terror that you could scarcely see any kitten at all behind it, and dashed off the stage to hide under the nursery bureau. And the whole audience left their seats and crawled around on hands and knees with the actors, trying to coax the fierce bloodhound out.
 
But he wouldn’t come, and so they could not have any more scenes from “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” as Weejums was to have taken the part of Miss Ophelia and any number of others. So the last tableau was announced as “A Sorrowful Widow Weeping over her Husband’s Grave.”
 
Eunice was the widow, with a red tablecloth over her head, which was the nearest she could[21] find to anything black, and Kenneth was the grave, down on all fours, covered with a yellow lamb’s-wool rug. He was dreadfully warm and uncomfortable in this position, but behaved very well, until Franklin gave a kind of snort and said, “Ho, who ever saw a grave with panties on!”
 
Then the grave turned a complete somersault, and lay there chuckling wickedly, while the sorrowful widow took off her red tablecloth and scolded him.
 
The audience went away then, and Eunice found that Cyclone had slipped the pincushion around under his stomach, and chewed all the bran out. And when Weejums came out from under the bureau, she had to squeeze herself so flat that she howled all the way, and some black, yellow, and white hairs were left behind. But this was because she was getting to be a big kitten now, and could no longer have gone into a Christmas stocking.

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CHAPTER THREE THE BLACK RABBIT WITH WHITE SPOTS, AND THE WHITE RABBIT WITH BLACK SPOTS
THE children went East with their mother that summer, and Weejums stayed with Grandmother and Cyclone at the farm. But Eunice wrote to her quite often, and learned from her replies that she was having a splendid time chasing grasshoppers.
 
“I’d enclose one tender little one for you,” Weejums wrote; “but your grandmother says that they wouldn’t agree with you. It seems a pity, because they have such juicy little red legs.”
 
Eunice did not really believe that Weejums wrote these letters herself, but was quite certain that she thought all these things, even if she never mentioned them.
 
When they came back in the fall, Grandmother[23] went down first to open the house, and, of course, Eunice asked for Weejums almost before she was inside the door.
 
“Well, she’s busy just now,” said Grandmother, with a funny look; “but she sent word for you to look behind the barrel in the woodshed.”
 
Eunice and Kenneth ran as fast as they could, wondering why Weejums did not come to meet them. And then they heard a purr—such a loud, proud purr! Eunice thought that they heard it in the dining-room; but Kenneth said it was not until they reached the kitchen. But it was Weejums’ purr, and it came from behind the barrel in the woodshed!
 
Eunice looked at Weejums, and Weejums looked at Eunice, and Mother and Grandmother came out and looked at them both. Then Eunice took three little squealing rolls of fur into her lap, and kissed three tiny pink noses, warm and moist with sleep. And Weejums forgot all about her kittens, in the joy of seeing Eunice again.
 
[24]
 
“They were born at the farm, two weeks ago,” Grandmother said, “and came down in a basket last night.”
 
“Don’t you think,” asked Eunice, in an awestruck tone, “that she’s very young to be a mother?”
 
“It really looks so,” said Grandmother, seriously; “because she seems to love you a great deal better than she does the kittens!”
 
Weejums was rolling over and over in her delight, and jumping in and out of the box to rub against Eunice’s face. And whenever she jumped, her purr jolted up into a funny little squeak that came down when she did.
 
“One is black with white edgings,” said Eunice, in a rapturous whisper, “and one is yellow and white, with mittens.”
 
“Yes, those are extra toes like a thumb,” said Grandmother. “There’s a cat up at the farm with toes like that.”
 
“And one is tortoise-shell like—no, not like Weejums. Isn’t it a funny color, Mamma?”
 
[25]
 
“Yes, if she was ever planned for a tortoise-shell, her colors must have run.”
 
Eunice looked alarmed, and wondered if all the other kittens’ colors would run together, like the dyes of Easter eggs when they come out wrong. But there was really nothing strange about this kitten, except that where her black spots should have been black, to make her a regular tortoise-shell, they were a kind of mixed brindle and maltese, with speckled and drab lights. The rest of her was a nice yellow and white, as it should be.
 
“She looks like my old laundry-bag,” said Grandmother; “but I kept her for the sake of that alley cat.”
 
“Oh, say, come out and see the rabbits try the new house!” called Franklin at the shed-door, and everybody but Grandmother hurried out into the yard; for the rabbits had just come home from “Beansy’s,” where they had spent the summer, and were to begin house-keeping in their new quarters.
 
Mrs. Wood was particularly interested in[26] the big rabbit-house, because she had helped draw plans for the billiard and drawing rooms, and herself suggested that there should be an upstairs.
 
There were two rabbits, a black one with white spots, and a white one with black spots, and they were called Mercurius Dulcis and the Overture to Zampa. Franklin had found the first name on one of his mother’s medicine-bottles, and admired it; but Mrs. Bun was always called Dulcie for short. The Overture was a fine, big fellow with muscular sides, and a louder stamp of the hind leg than any other rabbit in the Rabbit Club. Indeed, Franklin had been made president of the Rabbit Club, just because of the size and strength and sound of the Overture’s feet. Even Beansy’s white buck, Alonzo, was nothing beside him.
 
“You put Stamper in the front door,” Franklin said to Beansy, for Stamper was the Overture’s club name, “and I’ll put Dulcie in the cupola. Then he’ll have to go up, and she’ll have to come down.”
 
[27]
 
The cupola had a top that came off, something like the cover of a baking-powder tin, and Dulcie was thrust in, with a terrific kicking and scrambling of resentful hind legs. But she was no fun at all afterwards, for she sat perfectly still in a frightened bunch, with her nose wiggling very fast,and did not try to move.
 
“Stamper’s all right, though,” Beansy said, with his face against the wire-netting. “He’s going upstairs.”
 
He certainly was, although at first he had proceeded cautiously around the drawing-room, with long backward stretches of the hind legs. But now he found the staircase,—made of a board with little slats nailed across it,—and scratched his way up very slowly, smelling the air with little tosses of the head.
 
“He’ll find the celery now,” called Eunice, delightedly. “I put a piece in Dulcie’s boudoir.”
 
Stamper ate the celery loudly, beginning with the leafy end, and Dulcie heard him from the cupola.
 
[28]
 
“She’s coming down!” Kenneth exclaimed.
 
“No, she’s stuck,” said Beansy. “Your old cupola door ain’t big enough for her to get out at.”
 
“Ho!” answered Franklin, with scorn, “you just see!” And in a minute Dulcie had squeezed her way through, and dropped down suddenly on Stamper’s head, which surprised him so much that he dropped the last bit of celery,—the widest end,—and Dulcie ate it. Then they sat looking at each other with wiggling noses, as if they had never met before, and each one was thinking, “Now who on earth can this other rabbit be!”
 
“They’re all right now,” said Mrs. Wood, turning back to the house; “but they’ll never be able to get into that cupola after they’ve had their dinner.”
 
Kenneth ran after his mother, Beansy went home, and Franklin went into the shed to get his tool chest.
 
“Let me hold Stamper while you fix the door,” Eunice begged, for being Franklin’s[29] sister, she naturally regarded Stamper in the light of a nephew.
 
“No, sir, he’ll stay below decks,” said Franklin, taking the cupola off the house.
 
“But he’s trying to get out, Franklin. I can see his ears coming upstairs.”
 
Franklin ruled out a larger door in the cupola with his square, and began to saw.
 
“Franklin, he is coming out!”
 
“Oh, go play with your cats!” said Franklin, impatiently. But Eunice had seen a pair of wicked ears, erect as corn-stalks, peering through the opening where the cupola had been.
 
“He will get out!” she thought, and grasping his ears firmly, hauled the big fellow into her arms.
 
Stamper sat very still, as he was fond of Eunice, and simply moved his wide ears back and forth until Franklin began to pound. Then he gave a mighty leap, kicked Eunice in the stomach, and sprang to the ground.
 
“Franklin!” Eunice gasped; she was too[30] much out of breath to say anything else; and Franklin only answered, “Oh, don’t bother!”
 
So before Eunice could make him look around, Stamper had given three loud, slow thumps with his legs, a kind of double-back-action kick in the air, and was off across the yard.
 
“Head him off! head him off!” called Franklin, as he saw the scudding of a white tail. “Round by the alley, quick, quick!”
 
Eunice ran as fast as she could, but before they could stop him, the rabbit had dodged under a barn and disappeared.
 
“Oh, thunder!” said Franklin,“we can’t ever catch him now. How in the world did he get out?”
 
Eunice went through a little struggle with herself, and then said: “He—I was holding him just a minute, Franklin. You see he was most out himself, and so—”
 
“You didn’t try to hold him after what I said!”
 
“Yes, I did.”
 
[31]
 
Franklin might have understood how hard it was for her to tell this, but he didn’t, and said angrily, “Eunice, you’re a naughty, naughty girl, and you shall never even touch one of my rabbits again!”
 
Eunice turned and went into the house without saying a word, but Franklin heard a pitiful wail when the door was closed, and thought, “Hm—serves her right!”
 
He spent the rest of the morning looking for Stamper, and putting Lost signs, with a description of the rabbit, on all the barns in the neighborhood. But he did not expect to find him again, and dinner that day was not a cheerful meal. Eunice’s eyes were red; Kenneth was too awestruck to upset his glass of water as usual; and Mrs. Wood looked grieved. But Franklin did not see why she should expect him to be anything but cross, when he had lost the finest rabbit in the whole club, and all through the fault of a meddling child,—her child too! He decided that he had a right to be most severe, and went out after dinner to whittle on[32] the side steps, which with him was always a sign of great displeasure.
 
As he sat there, Weejums picked her way daintily down beside him, and came out for her daily airing. She gave a funny little jump and spit, when one of the whittlings struck her, and Franklin almost laughed, but remembered in time that he was too angry, and sent another whittling after her to see what she would do. This time she smelled of it, to see if it was something to eat, then finding that Franklin was only joking, slanted back her ears, and walked haughtily across the yard, with stiff jerks of the tail.
 
The temptation to make her jump proved too much for him, and he shied a small piece of coal at her so neatly that it passed directly under her, tossing the sand about her feet. Weejums gave a wild spit, and tore into the alley, with rising fur, looking around in vain for the earthquake that had struck her.
 
“Come back, Weej—here, here,” called Franklin, good-naturedly, for teasing animals[33] was not usually in his line. But then he was cross to-day, and had not Eunice lost his rabbit?
 
He put down his knife, and went out into the alley to bring Weejums back, but at that moment something terrible happened. A baker’s cart, followed by a fierce dog, jingled into the alley, and the dog made a dash at Weejums. Franklin ran for the dog, and Cyclone, who happened to come around the house just then, ran after Franklin. Poor Weejums could not see that the second dog was a friend, and did not recognize Franklin in the boy who was chasing her. She left the alley and dashed across the street into a vacant lot, where three other dogs were nosing around among tin cans. They gave a yelp of delight, and joined in the pursuit, followed by several small boys, who rushed along after Franklin, shouting, “Ei-er there! Sick her, sick her!”
 
In a few minutes every boy and dog in the neighborhood was on Weejums’ trail, and Franklin could not stop long enough to explain[34] to them that he himself was not chasing her. The hunt came to an end, when she vanished under some tumble-down sheds, many blocks away from home, where a friendly barn cat, with a torn nose, hid her behind a soapbox.
 
“Don’t mention it,” he said, when Weejums tried to thank him. “I once had a friend with eyes like yours.” And he sighed. But of course Weejums could not know that this friend had been her own dear mother.
 
“Just watch me do stunts with that dog,” the barn cat said. He was naturally inelegant in his language, never having lived in refined surroundings; but Weejums forgot this when she saw him leap to the back of a certain yellow cur, and claw maps on his skin, like the true knight that he was.
 
All the other dogs, including Cyclone, turned tail and fled, and the barn cat strolled back, with that gentle expression on his face, which it is said that great warriors usually wear.
 
“They didn’t see where you went in,” he[35] said, comfortingly; “the boys are looking under the wrong shed.”
 
“I can never thank you for your kindness,” said Weejums, with a little break in her yow. “But I shall tell my mistress about you, and I hope you will call.”
 
“Does your family keep a desirable garbage pail?” asked the barn cat, thoughtfully.
 
“Unexcelled. But of course I eat in the kitchen.”
 
“Ah!” said the barn cat, with another sigh, “what it means to have a home! Now I presume that they never throw hot dishwater at you.”
 
“Never,” said Weejums, in horror; “I am treated as one of the family.”
 
“Alas,” said the barn cat sadly, thinking of his own life.
 
“But I’ve run away so far that I don’t know how to get back, and fear that I shall never see my dear little kittens again.” And Weejums began to weep.
 
“Their age?” asked the barn cat, briefly.
 
[36]
 
“Two weeks,”
 
“Most unfortunate. I must try and find your home for you. Remain here in the soapbox until I return, and if any strange cat molests you, say but the two words, ‛Torn-nose,’ and he will disappear.”
 
Weejums promised, and the barn cat slipped out so quietly that she scarcely saw him go. But all the boys and dogs were gone now, so she did not mind being left alone.
 

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CHAPTER FOUR A CALICO CAT
FRANKLIN did not go home after Weejums disappeared, but wandered around the neighborhood, wondering what he should do if she did not come back. “What do you mean by chasing my sister’s cat?” he asked fiercely of one of the small boys who followed him.
 
“Aw—go long! You was chasin’ it yourself. Tie up your teeth!” was the insulting reply. And Franklin realized that he could never make them believe anything else. Then he began to wonder if there was not a certain amount of truth in what the boy had said. To be sure, he had started out to rescue Weejums and bring her home, but there had been a strange and terrible joy in his heart, when that[38] seventeenth dog joined the hunt, and fell over all the others.
 
“Pshaw! all cats come home,” he thought. “She’ll find her way back all right. But rabbits are different.”
 
He ground his heel angrily into the gravel, and thought of Stamper; but somehow he could not work himself up into as bad a temper as he had before. He could not imagine what would become of Eunice if Weejums were lost.
 
“But cats always come home,” he thought again. “P’r’aps she’ll be there when I get back.”
 
He had not noticed in what direction he was walking, and suddenly found himself quite far down-town, opposite the bird store. There was a new assortment of very wobbly fox terrier puppies in the window, and he could not resist sauntering up to examine them. But almost immediately he wheeled around, and walked off very fast without looking back, for in the bird store he had seen his mother and Eunice.
 
[39]
 
They were buying a rabbit. He had seen the man holding up one of the old store rabbits, who was kicking dreadfully, and whacking the white-mouse cage with his hind legs.
 
Franklin knew that they charged a dollar and a quarter for this rabbit, and that he was not worth it.
 
“If they’re going to buy a rabbit, they oughtn’t to buy one here,” he thought, in an agony of anxiety. “There isn’t a rabbit here that I’d put in my house.”
 
“If that bird-store man does Mother on that rabbit, I’ll go down and settle him to-morrow,” he added to himself. And then he remembered, with shame, that he could never accept a rabbit from Eunice, after he had chased her cat.
 
He took a car home and looked eagerly on the front porch, half expecting that Weejums would be sitting there waiting for him with a forgiving smile. But she did not appear, and he went all around the alley again, calling her[40] in beseeching tones. Suddenly, under the corner of a neighbor’s shed, he saw something white move, and went into the house to get a saucer of milk.
 
“I s’pose she’ll be afraid to come to me now,” he thought, and the thought hurt, for Franklin was not a cruel boy.
 
He set the milk down, very carefully, near the place where he had seen the white thing move, and presently it hopped out, with a great flop of the ears, and began to drink. But it was a white thing with black spots, and its name was Stamper.
 
Rabbits love milk as well as cats do, so it was easy for Franklin to grab the runaway by his long ears, and bear him off to his box, with a milky nose and an indignant heart. Then he rushed into the house to see if his mother and sister had come home. But they were not there, and Franklin feared that they might have gone to some strange and distant place in search of a rabbit. He was much relieved when a car stopped, and Mrs. Wood and[41] Eunice got off; for they were not carrying anything but some bundles from the dry-goods store, and five cents’ worth of candy for Kenneth. There was no sign whatever of any rabbit being concealed about them.
 
“Stamper’s come home,” he said, almost before they reached the steps.
 
“I thought you told Eunice there was no chance of his ever coming back,” said Mrs. Wood, kissing Kenneth, who had run to meet them.
 
“Well, I didn’t think there was,” said Franklin, shamefacedly. “Eunice didn’t need to cry.”
 
He suspected that his mother had very little admiration for boys who made Eunice cry.
 
“There wasn’t one chance in a thousand,” he added, “and I wouldn’t have caught him then, if I hadn’t had the milk.”
 
“What were you doing with milk?” asked Eunice, suspiciously.
 
Franklin did not answer, and looked so uncomfortable that Mrs. Wood changed the[42] subject; for she made a point of never asking one of her children embarrassing questions before the others, and this was one reason why they loved her so much.
 
After supper there came a loud thump at the side door, and Franklin, who was studying in the parlor, heard a delighted shout from Kenneth. Then Eunice came running in with a smile, and taking Franklin by the hand, said, “I’ve got something for you, to make up for your feeling so bad about Stamper.”
 
“But Stamper’s come home,” he said, giving her a rough little hug. “And I can’t take any present from you now, Sis, so run away, and let me get my algebra.”
 
“I told her I thought you wouldn’t care to,” said Mrs. Wood, looking relieved. “But she said that she’d feel very badly if you didn’t take them.” She was so glad that Franklin felt he did not deserve them, although of course she could not know yet just how much he didn’t. “They” were on the dining-room table, sitting in Eunice’s hat,—the most beautiful[43] little pair of maltese rabbits that Franklin had ever seen. And all his life long he had wanted a maltese rabbit!
 
“Those didn’t come from the bird store, I know,” he burst out in delight, quite forgetting that he was not to keep them.
 
“They came from the farm of the father of a boy who works at Taylor’s,” said Mrs. Wood, laughing. “The bird-store rabbits were no good.”
 
“Oh, those bird-store rabbits are enough to give a hand-organ sore throat! You’re just a brick, Mother, and so is Eunice, but I can’t take these little fellows, really. Eunice must keep them herself.”
 
“Eunice will feel badly if you don’t take them,” said Mrs. Wood again.
 
“Oh, but there’s reasons why I can’t,” said Franklin, desperately. “I don’t want to tell before the kids.”
 
“Well, they can be my rabbits for to-night, then,” said Mrs. Wood, in her quiet way, “and to-morrow we’ll decide whom they really belong[44] to. I shall feel dreadfully proud to own some rabbits, even if I can’t have them but one night.”
 
She smiled, and Eunice and Kenneth began to laugh, thinking the whole affair a joke.
 
“But they’re too little to put with Dulcie and Stamper, aren’t they, Mother?” Eunice said. “We’ll have to put them with Weejums and the kittens.”
 
“Oh, she’ll eat ’em up!” said Kenneth.
 
“No, she won’t,” said Mrs. Wood. “We’ll watch her and see. They are not so different from her own babies.”
 
But when they took the little bunnies to Weejums’ box, there was no Weejums to receive them, and the three kittens were crying with hunger.
 
“I’ll go call her,” said Eunice, running to the side door. But no distant “purr-eow” answered to her call, and no tortoise-shell tail waved a greeting from the top of fence or shed.
 
“Biddy, have you seen Weejums?” she asked, coming into the kitchen.
 
[45]
 
“Shure, I have, and a very foine cat she is, barrin’ her swate voice.”
 
“No, but have you seen her since dinner? Biddy, please don’t tease.”
 
“Well, I gave her some dinner at two, and she left my prisence directly afterwards, without so much as sayin’ ‛thank you,’ and wint for a sthroll.”
 
“Then she hasn’t come home! Oh, Mother, do you suppose anything’s happened to her?”
 
Mrs. Wood went back to the parlor to ask Franklin if he had seen anything of Weejums, and Franklin told her the whole miserable story, or nearly the whole; for of course the children came running in to interrupt.
 
“Don’t tell Eunice,” his mother said quickly. “It would make it so much harder if she thought you had anything to do with it.”
 
So Franklin did not tell, but he never liked to think afterwards of those days that followed. Eunice went around with a white face; while Kenneth tore his clothes to shreds crawling[46] about under barns and fences. The loss of Stamper had been sad, of course, for rabbits are both desirable and attractive, but Weejums was one of the family.
 
The kittens had to be fed with a spoon, and gave furious strangled howls, as the milk was poured into them.
 
Eunice wrote out an advertisement to be put in the paper:
 
“LOST.—A little girl’s tortoise-shell, young mother cat, with pink toes and a sweet face. Answering to the name of Wee-je, Wee-je, kim-um-sing.”
 
[47]
 
And Mrs. Wood put it all in, except the last, about answering, saying instead that there would be a reward of two dollars for any one returning the cat to her home.
 
This notice appeared for three days, and on the third, another one followed it:
 
“In addition to above reward offered for return of young mother cat, will be given: Two fine, fat, handsome rabbits in splendid condition, with one palatial, airy rabbit-house, eight rooms, staircases, cupola, and all modern improvements.”
 
“F. Wood, Esq.”
 
Mrs. Wood smiled as she read this, although her lips trembled, and she thought: “That must have broken Franklin’s heart.”
 
The next day something else left the family, and this was no less than Kenneth’s beautiful head of curls; but something much more important returned in their place, when he came marching home without them.
 
Grandmother was there for a few days, and took him down to have them cut, because he[48] had been promised that they should go before school began. Then she dressed him in his first trousers, and brought him triumphantly to his mother, who, instead of being delighted, said, “Oh, Kenny, Mother’s lost her little baby!” and looked so grieved that he broke into a great roar of sympathy, and a little later, when he strolled out into the street, a boy called after him: “H’m, been cryin’ ’cause your hair’s cut!”
 
“Say that again, will you!” said Kenneth, removing his hands from the new pockets.
 
“I said you’ve been cryin’ ’cause—”
 
But the sentence was never finished, for Kenneth had flown at him with all the confidence those trousers inspired,—it is wonderful to find how much more easily you can run in them,—and the boy dropped down behind a fence.
 
“I guess I’ll take a walk,” Kenneth thought, with becoming modesty. “I guess I’ll just take a walk around the block.”
 
“Round the block” was the extent of the[49] distance he was allowed to go away from home by himself.
 
“I may meet some boys,” he added, trying not to keep looking down at his legs.
 
But he did not meet any boys, because they had all run to join a crowd that was gathering on another street. And Kenneth ran too, although he knew that it was much further than around the block; but his new trousers went as fast as they could, and so naturally he had to go with them.
 
The boys were looking up at a tree, and throwing things, and Kenneth caught his breath, as he heard a most un-bird-like “E-ow” from among the branches.
 
“Say, what color’d cat is it?” he asked of a ragamuffin, who was preparing to throw an ancient apple.
 
“Caliker cat,” said the boy. “Up there. See?” and he closed one eye to take aim.
 
“She ain’t calico. She’s tortoise-shell,” burst out Kenneth, turning red with delight.[50] “She’s our Weejums, and I’m goin’ to take her home.”
 
“Oh, she’s your cat, is she?” asked the boy, dropping his apple and looking dangerous. “Your cat?—when we chased it up there? Well, I like that! Say, fellers, did you hear that? Your cat, is it? Huh, your cat! Calico cat! Tie up your teeth!”
 
“Don’t have to,” Kenneth replied.
 
“Say, you better run home to your Ma-Ma, little boy. D’ye hear?”
 
“Don’t have to,” Kenneth responded.
 
“Calico cat!” sneered the boy, insultingly. “Calico, I say. Old calico cat!”
 
“Tortoise-shell,” insisted Kenneth, politely but firmly. “I’ll punch your head.”
 
The boy doubled up his fists with a snort of rage,—he was bigger than Kenneth,—and said:
 
“Oh, you’ll punch my head, will you? You’ll punch my head! I say, fellers, did you hear him say he’d punch my head? Boxey, you heard him say it?”
 
“I heard him,” said Boxey.
 
[51]
 
“Well, then, come along and do it. I just stump you to come along and do it. Huh! don’t dare do it!”
 
Kenneth had never engaged in a regular fight before, but it is strange how different trousers make one feel—especially that first day. So he took off his new little coat,—it was quite an old one before he reached home,—and went for the boy. A ring formed to see that there was fair play; for although they all pitied Kenneth, they couldn’t help respecting a boy who said, “Don’t haff ter,” to Patsy McGann.
 
Everybody knows that there are two kinds of strength in a fight,—one that comes from training, and one from splendid rage, and Kenneth’s was of the latter order. When his nose began to bleed, he wept with fury, which was very effective, as it made the blood seem ever so much more. And when Patsy muttered, “Calico,” between his blows, Kenneth answered, “Tortoise-shell!” with all the vengeance of which he was capable.
 
[52]
 
It was not a long battle, for the sound of Weejums’ pathetic voice, from the tree, put force into Kenneth’s rib-punches, and presently Patsy McGann went down, with a waving of grimy heels that called forth a storm of applause from the onlookers.
 
“He’s licked him—he’s licked him! Give him the cat,” called a larger boy who had strolled up while the fight was in progress. And all the others drew away from the tree, while Kenneth coaxed Weejums down, with a voice that she recognized, although she would never have known his poor bruised little face. And just as he had taken her in his arms, who should come whistling up the street but Franklin!
 
He understood the situation at a glance, and striding up to Patsy McGann, seized him by the shoulder, saying, “Did you lick him? Answer me! Did you lick that little fellar?”
 
“Naw, he licked me. An’ just on account of that old caliker cat you was chasin’ the other day.”
 
[53]
 
“You shut up!” said Franklin, with his face burning. But Kenneth had not heard the whole of the sentence.
 
“What kind of a cat did you say it was?” he asked, turning to Patsy.
 
“A cal—I mean turtle-shell cat,” said Patsy, sullenly, walking off with his friends.

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CHAPTER FIVE MR. AND MRS. BLUEBERRY
FRANKLIN took Kenneth in at the back door, and washed his face, before letting any one see him. Then they walked triumphantly into the parlor, with Weejums on Kenneth’s shoulder.
 
Eunice was practising at the piano, with Mrs. Wood beside her, so they did not see Weejums, until Eunice felt a little purring face against her own, and screamed for joy. Mrs. Wood exclaimed also, and turned very pale, but it was not on account of Weejums.
 
“Was it a runaway, Franklin?” she asked quietly, “or did he get under a street car?”
 
Just then Grandmother came into the room, and Franklin led Kenneth up to her with pride.
 
“Grandmother, look at your descendant!”[55] he said. “He ain’t but six, and he licked a boy eight.”
 
“Hurrah for you!” said Grandmother, which any one will admit was a very strange remark for a grandmother to make.
 
“What was the fight about?” asked Mrs. Wood, bringing some Pond’s Extract from the dining-room. “Franklin, you didn’t get him into this?”
 
“Course he didn’t,” said Kenneth. “’Twas Weejums got me in, and Patsy McGann. Ouch, Mother! don’t pour it in my eye.”
 
“It was an entirely necessary fight,” Franklin explained. “Patsy McGann was throwing things at Weejums, and calling her a calico cat.”
 
“And she’s tortoise-shell,” Kenneth said.
 
“Well, they happen to be the same thing,” said Mrs. Wood, patiently. “Mother, do you think it’s so very desirable for a boy to come home looking like this?”
 
“I’d like to get a glimpse of the other boy,” said Grandmother, with a wicked twinkle in her[56] eye. Franklin gave a whoop of delight, but Grandmother cut short his joy by beckoning him into the other room.
 
“You said he licked a boy eight?” she asked, taking up her work.
 
“Yes, and, oh, Grandmother—”
 
“Nothing strange about that, since he’s a Wood. You whipped a boy eight when you were six, didn’t you? Seems to me I remember.”
 
“You bet!” said Franklin, with a joyous flush of recollection.
 
“Yes, and so did your father. But now you’re twelve, and I know a boy your own age you can’t whip.”
 
“Well, I’d just like to have you bring him out,” said Franklin, doubling up his fists.
 
“It’s yourself,” said Grandmother. “It seems a pity that you’re not strong enough to whip yourself,—when you want to chase cats, and things like that.”
 
“Oh,” said Franklin, looking crestfallen.
 
“Now go and get ready for supper,” Grandmother[57] said quietly. “I’ve had my say.” Franklin edged to the door, and then came back, holding out his hand.
 
“Grandmother,” he burst out, “Grandmother, shake! You’re a gentleman!” after which he bolted upstairs.
 
“Where was Weejums going when the boys chased her up a tree?” Eunice asked at the supper-table.
 
“Don’t know,” said Kenneth. “Mother, can’t I have three helps of cherries to-night, ’cause I’ve got a sore nose?”
 
“You may have four more cherries, Kenny; but don’t throw the stones at Cyclone any more. He may swallow them.”
 
“S’cuse me,” said Franklin, pushing back his chair. “Come on, Eunice, and we’ll go ask the boys about Weejums.” It was a treat for Eunice to go out with Franklin, after supper, and they were lucky enough to find the boy, Boxey, at the end of the block.
 
“There was two cats,” Boxey said, eagerly, “Yours, and an old tomcat with a game nose.[58] They was trottin’ along together, an’ when we come up, he went under a porch, and she run up a tree. He kep’ callin’ to her, and spittin’ at us, the whole time.”
 
“P’r’aps he was bringing her home,” Eunice said. “Oh, Franklin, let’s go find that poor tomcat, and put some vaseline on his nose.”
 
“It was a lattice-work place, under a porch,” said Boxey, starting ahead. “I’ll show you.”
 
“Oh, it isn’t likely he’s there now,” said Franklin, taking Eunice’s hand; “and if he’s a friend of Weejums, he’ll turn up again, Sis, so don’t you worry. We’ll go home and put some stuff out in the back yard for him to eat.”
 
That evening, Mrs. Wood sat laying some lovely, sunshiny things away in a little box, and thinking of how like the face of a dandelion Ken’s dear head used to look.
 
“Mother’s lost her little baby!” she said to herself, as she slipped the last one from her finger, and kissed it softly before closing the box.
 
[59]
 
“Oh, stuff and nonsense!” said Grandmother, who was pretending to read the paper. “You’ve got something better.”
 
But Mrs. Wood knew that Grandmother had just such another box put away somewhere,—the box that held the curls of him who had been Kenneth’s father, and Grandmother’s little boy.
 
“I’m going to give Kenny my rabbits,” said Franklin, the next morning. “’Twas in the advertisement, and I promised.”
 
“Oh, but Kenny didn’t see the advertisement,” Mrs. Wood said; “and Weejums is going to buy him such a nice present this morning. I wouldn’t give away the rabbits, Franklin dear.”
 
“Well, but I promised, Mother.”
 
“Yes, but Kenny is such a little boy, he could never begin to take care of all Dulcie’s young families. Suppose that you give the new little bunnies to the children, if you want to give away something. I don’t believe Kenny himself would want you to part with the rabbits that you’ve had so long.”
 
[60]
 
“Well, I’ll think about it,” Franklin replied. And that afternoon it was announced that Eunice and Kenneth were to have a bunny apiece.
 
Two wild shrieks of delight were followed by a dash to Weejums’ box, where the strange-eared visitors lay, cuddled in amongst the kittens.
 
“I want the one that’s mostly maltese,” said Eunice.
 
“No, I want the one that’s mostly maltese,” said Kenneth.
 
“You never thought of it till I spoke.”
 
“Did so. Pig!”
 
Eunice promptly seized him by the hair, and Mrs. Wood went to the rescue, saying, “Sister, for shame! Kenny! you mustn’t kick Eunice,—and now that you’re in trousers too!”
 
“I can kick ever so much better,” Kenneth said.
 
“I put them on last night and kicked him,” Eunice explained. “I know you can.”
 
“Well, you are both very naughty, and I[61] don’t think any rabbits will be given away to-day. I’ll go explain to Franklin,” and Mrs. Wood started to leave the room.
 
But both children rushed after her, calling: “Oh, Mother, I’ll take the other Bun! I will, Mother!”
 
“No, Mother, I’ll take the other Bun. I like him. Please, Mother!”
 
“I think that Kenneth should have first choice,” Mrs. Wood said patiently; “because he brought Weejums home. So the mostly maltese Bun can belong to him. But if I hear another word of quarrelling about it, the rabbits will go back to the farm to-morrow.”
 
There was a moment of awed silence, and then Eunice said, with a sudden radiant smile: “I shall call mine Mr. Samuel Blueberry!”
 
“Mine will be just Bunny Grey,” Kenneth remarked. “Blueberries give me the stomach-ache.”
 
“Mother, can’t we have a wedding like Cousin Florence’s, and let the little bunnies get married? I’ll do it all myself.”
 
[62]
 
“Don’t you think they’re rather young yet?” asked Mrs. Wood,—“only six weeks.”
 
“No, but I heard Auntie say it’s better to be married young, because it gets you more used to yourself.”
 
“How many children would you want to invite?” asked Mrs. Wood, seriously.
 
“Oh, just Mary and Wyman, and their animals. And Bertha and Annabel, and Gerald and Myrtie Foster.”
 
Mary and Wyman Bates were the children’s cousins who lived uptown. Bertha and Annabel were Kindergarten friends of long standing, and the Foster children were school companions, whose father kept a fascinating grocery store. Many were the striped jaw-breakers, and flat “lickrish” babies, which Myrtie had brought to her friend; while Kenneth could not help admiring a boy who had a regular house, built of tin cans, in which he kept potato bugs.
 
“I suppose you will want them all to stay to supper,” Mrs. Wood said; “and you know[63] our dining-room is small. Suppose that you don’t ask Gerald and Myrtie.”
 
“Oh, Mother!” Eunice exclaimed.
 
And Kenneth echoed, “Oh, Mother!”
 
“I could ask them just for the ceremony,” Eunice said. “Lots of people are asked to the ceremony, who don’t come to the reception.”
 
“You’ll find that they’ll expect to stay, if they come. But of course you can do as you like. Perhaps they won’t mind being crowded.”
 
The invitations were written and sent that night.
 
“Mr. and Mrs. Overture-to-Zampa Wood request the honor of your presence, at the marriage of their daughter, Miss Bunny Grey, to Mr. Samuel Blueberry, Esquire, on Wednesday, September the 8th, at three o’clock in the afternoon.”
 
And they were directed to Miss Mary Bates and Kitten; Master Wyman Bates and Rabbits; Miss Myrtie Foster and Kitten, etc., and all were accepted with pleasure.
 
Eunice spent delightful hours in getting up the wedding garments,—little white satin blankets cut like dog blankets, except with not so much “yoke,” as rabbits’ heads are screwed so close to their bodies. Samuel’s dress-suit was trimmed with pink baby-ribbon, laid on plain, and the bride’s robe with lace; and she wore a white veil, with orange blossoms, which made her look a lighter shade of maltese than she really was.
 
[65]
 
The effect was most beautiful until the groom tried to eat some of the orange blossoms, and they had to be pried out of his mouth with a match, and sewed on again. This delayed the final dressing a little; but when the guests arrived, the bride and groom were—contrary to custom—awaiting them on the hall table.
 
Bertha Richmond’s cat was named “Grandmother,” and wore a nice kerchief and frilled cap, with paper spectacles fastened to the border. Her presents were a bunch of young turnips, carefully washed and tied with white ribbon, for the bride, and the same effect in red beets for the groom.
 
Annabel Loring’s cat wore a new blanket of pale-blue cashmere, trimmed with swan’s-down, and brought two bouquets of red and white clover, done up in tin foil.
 
Mary and Wyman Bates had started out with lettuce and carrots for their present, but had been obliged to give most of it to their own rabbits on the way down, to keep them still.[66] They had had an exciting trip on the street car, for Mary brought also her two kittens, one attired in a riding habit, and the other in a Mother Hubbard wrapper and straw hat.
 
Myrtie Foster had not been able to bring her cat all the way, but arrived with a torn apron and scratched thumb, which Mrs. Wood tenderly bound up, to save Myrtie the trouble of sucking it.
 
“It was while we was passin’ the drug-store,” the little girl explained. “Malvina heard the soda-water fizzin’ and thought ’twas another cat.”
 
[67]
 
But Gerald had brought his yellow rabbit, together with the crowning present of all,—a monster cabbage tied with Myrtie’s Sunday hair ribbon.
 
Weejums was supposed to help Dulcie and Stamper receive the guests; but, instead of being cordial, she flew at “Grandmother,” who was the first to arrive, and clawed the spectacles off her nose, making such rude remarks that Eunice was obliged to shut her in the china closet, where she sat and growled through the entire ceremony.
 
When the wedding procession was ready to start, Mrs. Wood played the Lohengrin March, and the happy couple entered the parlor in their squeaking chariot, which was Kenneth’s express cart built up with a starch-box, and covered with white cheese-cloth. A bunch of daisies at each corner completed the solemn effect.
 
“Now put them on the table, Franklin,” Eunice said; “and remember to bob Sam’s head at the right time.”
 
[68]
 
“All right,” said Franklin.
 
“E-ow-wow-fftz-fftz!” called Weejums from the china closet.
 
“I’m the minister,” Eunice said. “Now, Franklin, if you laugh you sha’n’t stay.”
 
“Well, I only meant to smile,” Franklin explained, “but my face slipped.”
 
The minister unfolded a much-blotted piece of paper, and began to read in important tones:
 
“Children, cats, etc., we are gathered together to celebrate the wedding of these rabbits, who have got to be married whether they want to or not. Samuel, do you promise to always give Bun Grey the best of the clover, to cherish her from all attacks of rats, and never to bite her tail? (Bob his head, Franklin. No—no! That’s the wrong one; that’s Bun Grey’s. Now bob Sam’s head. That’s it.)”
 
“Bun Grey, do you promise to take Sam for your maltese husband, to give him the best of the celery, and never to kick him in the stomach? (Bob her head, Franklin; that’s right!)”
 
[69]
 
A solemn pause, and then in a deeper voice, “Now let the brass ring pass between you.”
 
A curtain ring, wound with white ribbon, was pushed up Bunny Grey’s front leg as far as it would go, and then Eunice said, in the deepest voice of all: “I now pronounce you rabbit and wife, and let no dog, mouse, weasel, cat, or guinea-pig ever say it’s not so! Now we will have supper.”
 
And the whole company filed out to the woodshed, where an ample repast was set for rabbit and cat. The menu included oatmeal in an ear-of-corn mould, with clover sauce; catnip fritters, with cream; stewed potatoes; and a wedding cake with “B. G. and S.” in red letters on the frosting.
 
The animals were held up to the table with napkins around their necks, and ate their share of the feast, while their owners ate the cake. Then the bride and groom took a wedding trip around the block, drawn in their white chariot, and, contrary to custom again, escorted by all the guests.
 
[70]
 
“Now we must sit for our picture,” Eunice said, as Franklin brought out his camera, and those of the guests who had gone to sleep during the wedding tour were shaken awake again. But it was dreadfully hard to pose them all, so that their clothes and whiskers showed properly, and just at the last minute the picture was spoiled by Grandmother Richmond, who had a fit, and ran up the screen door. There were a few other legs and tails in the picture when it was developed, but it was mostly Grandmother’s cap and fit; and it seemed such a pity, because all the other animals had such pleasant expressions, and looked so charming in the clothes they wore.
 
Everybody stayed to supper, and the sliced peaches gave out; but they ended up with canned ones, and nobody seemed to mind.
 
“It was the nicest party I was ever to,” Myrtie Foster told Mrs. Wood when she went home; “and I shall tell Malvina what an awful lot she missed! Our mamma[71] doesn’t have time to make parties for us. She has to tend store.”
 
“It was lovely to have you,” said Eunice, warmly; “only I’m sorry Weejums was so rude. She mort’fied me very much.”
 
“Don’t you mind the least bit,” said Myrtie, consolingly. “I’ve heard that somebody always cries at a wedding!”
 

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CHAPTER SIX UNCLE CYCLONE
CYCLONE was a yellow dog of no breeding, that Franklin had begged from a man in one of the parks.
 
“He was making horse noises at him,” Franklin said indignantly; “and a man who doesn’t know any better than to make horse noises at a dog, doesn’t deserve to own one.”
 
So Cyclone became a member of the Wood family, and received his name because of the way that a room looked after he had run through it. He had his peculiarities from the beginning, and one was not to bow to any member of the family that he met on the street. He preferred to take his walks alone, and although Franklin met him in all sorts[73] of places around town, Cyclone would never recognize him.
 
Soon after Bridget joined the family, she nearly gave notice because of Cyclone’s rude behavior.
 
“It was comin’ out of church, I was,” she said; “and there he was waitin’ for me on the shteps as gintlemanly as you plaze. And Father Malone, who’d been so kind as to pass the time of day wid me as I came out, says,[74] ‛Shure, Miss Donnahue, is that your little dog?’ and sez I, ‛Faith he is! Just watch and see how swate he looks at me.’ And then if he didn’t turn his head away, and pretind he was another dog! The shame of it, mum! And before the praste too! I never lived with folks before to be so treated.”
 
But at home Cyclone was quite a different person. He became tenderly attached to Weejums’ kittens, and allowed them to sharpen their claws on his legs.
 
One day when Mrs. Wood was in the kitchen, she saw Cyclone and two other dogs trot around the house in single file, and enter the woodshed. Cyclone led his guests to the box where the kittens lay heaped in a downy pile, with one little pansy face turned upward, and wagged his tail. Then the two other dogs also wagged their tails, for they saw that it was the thing to do.
 
“Did you ever see anything so sweet in all your life?” Cyclone asked.
 
“No, never,” they replied, and, turning[75] around, they all trotted off in solemn style.
 
“Oh, Mother!” said Eunice, flying into the parlor one day, “Clytie got out of the box, and Cyclone put her back again.”
 
Clytie was the smartest of Weejums’ family, and the first to stagger around on the soft little paws that double up so uncomfortably when one tries to hurry! But the others soon followed, and came along behind with high continual mews, and trembling tails held straight up in the air.
 
Minoose was the black one, and his name was supposed to be the Indian word for “kitty.” Fan-baby, the third, was remarkable for not knowing what color she was supposed to be, or how to purr. She never found out the color, and did not learn how to purr until she was nearly three months old; then she began to purr, and purred every minute for two weeks. Strangers passing the house heard her purring on the porch, and the family was often amused by hearing[76] the purr coming through the halls after dark.
 
She adapted it to meal-times, and invented a lovely tremolopurr for drinking milk, and a fierce staccatopurr for meat and other chewed things. Finally Mrs. Wood grew so tired of Fan-baby’s purr that she gave her away to a nice little girl who owned a pug dog, and it was the sight of this dog that first taught Fan-baby how to stop purring.
 
Cyclone took great care of the kittens when they were young, and brought them back from all kinds of dangerous places. Minoose would follow strangers down the street, and then forget how to come home; and Clytie would scramble up a tree in the back yard, and not know how to get down. Cyclone would sit under the tree, and bark sympathetically, while Clytie tried first one front paw and then the other, with no success, until Weejums would come to the rescue, and explain that, of course, you have to come down back-to. Cyclone saved Weejums a great deal of trouble[77] in this way, by letting her know when the children needed her.
 
But when they reached the large-eared stage, and their blue eyes changed to the mature green of older cats, Cyclone’s occupation was gone. He looked in vain for a kitten to bring home, and one day, after quite a long search, he found one. It was a maltese kitten, very thin and absurd-looking, and no one knew where it came from.
 
“Oh, Mother, can’t we keep it?” Eunice said in delight. “You know you always said we should have a maltese kitten if anybody gave us one.”
 
“Yes; but this wasn’t given to us, except by Cyclone. Some little girl has lost her kitten, and is probably crying over it now. You remember the way you felt when Weejums was gone.”
 
“Well, but how’ll we get it back to the little girl? Cyclone won’t tell where he found it.”
 
“Perhaps it’ll be advertised,” Mrs. Wood said. “We’ll wait a few days and see.”
 
[78]
 
But nobody claimed “Ivanhoe,” as Eunice called him, and presently Mrs. Wood discovered why he seemed so destitute of connections.
 
He had fits.
 
They were fearful maltese fits, and generally took place while the family was at table, so that they would all have to take up their feet and sit upon them during the rest of the meal. He was not encouraged to appear in the dining-room, but, being a very thin cat, it was easy for him to shoot in between Bridget’s feet when she opened the door. Franklin called him the slate pencil, and said that he had but one dimension; and Eunice looked him over very carefully to see if any part of him was missing. But Mrs. Wood explained that Franklin meant only that Ivanhoe was a very long cat, and neither wide nor deep. Even his purr was so long and thin that Franklin said it could have been wound on a spool like thread. There was none of the baritone richness that one heard in Minoose’s purr when he was chewing his plush mouse.
 
[79]
 
Minoose kept this mouse behind the guitar case under the piano, and would scramble half-way up the portieres with it, switching his tail at the same time. But Ivanhoe did not admire him for any of these little boy attempts to show off. Ivanhoe had manners, and won Weejums’ heart because of his gallant ways, and also because his tail was longer than those of her own children.
 
But Mrs. Wood decided that he should go, as soon as she could find some one who was willing to own him; so one day, after the cabbage-and-lettuce woman had called, Ivanhoe was missing. But much to everybody’s surprise, Eunice never even mentioned it, and went around with her usual tranquil expression.
 
The explanation of this came two days later, when the door-bell rang, and a strange little girl announced proudly: “I’ve brought back your kitty. He came to our house. We live out of town.”
 
“Thank you so much, dear,” Mrs. Wood said, trying to look pleased. “But how did[80] you know it was our kitty? Have you seen him here in the yard?”
 
“Oh, I read the direction on his collar. It was ’most rubbed out, but I read it. I’m in the second grade.” And pulling Ivanhoe’s head around until he meekly choked, she exhibited some very fine printing on the frayed orange ribbon that he wore. Mrs. Wood remembered that Ivanhoe had worn this ribbon, and that she had allowed him to keep it, as a kind of trousseau, when he went away. But she did not know that the ribbon said: “Please return to Eunice Wood, 1132 Burnside Ave.”
 
“Thank you very much for your kindness, dear. But wouldn’t you like to keep the kitty yourself? We have several more.”
 
“Oh, so have we! Our old cat’s hid ’em in the barn; but we heard ’em squealin’. I guess they’ll come out soon.”
 
Mrs. Wood sighed, but Ivanhoe had already vanished behind the house, so she allowed the child to depart, with a little cake, and a fresh[81] piece of that same orange ribbon for her own kitty.
 
“Eunice, why did you write that address on the collar?” Mrs. Wood asked, when her daughter came in from school with Ivanhoe under one arm.
 
“Why, you never told me not to,” Eunice said. “You know you never told me not to, Mother. I just thought if he happened to run away from whoever you gave him to, he might’s well come back here.”
 
Mrs. Wood’s eyes twinkled as they sat down to dinner, but grew grave again as she heard Ivanhoe plunging down the cellar stairs in his most maltese fit of all.
 
“I suppose he ought to be killed,” she thought; “but no cat’s fits are worth a child’s happiness, and at least, fits aren’t contagious.”
 
“Biddy,” she said as the door opened, “do you suppose Ivanhoe hurt himself just now? He made such a noise!”
 
“Shure, mum, he’s all right now again. He run straight into the ice-box while I was[82] fixin’ the melon. I tuk him out meself, and the fit was off him.”
 
The cats all slept in the cellar, which was nicely warmed by the furnace; but the rabbits suffered when the cold weather came, and one morning, after a severe snow-storm, there was nothing to be seen of their house but the cupola. Franklin dug it out with much anxiety, fearing to find them frozen to death. But instead of being dead, they were all piled in one large warm heap on top of each other, like popcorn balls, and seemed more than ready for their breakfast. Mrs. Wood thought it was a wonder that they had lived through the night, and advised Franklin to put them in the cellar while the cold weather lasted.
 
So it happened that when Bridget did not close the cellar door at night, Cyclone, who slept in the kitchen, would be awakened by strange tweaks and nips at his tail, which called forth yelps of indignation. But not being a hunting dog, he never attempted to [83]catch the wicked white heels that went scudding back through the darkness. He had decided that the rabbits were a new kind of kitten, and had a claim on his indulgence as uncle to the Wood family.
 
 
 
One night Mrs. Wood heard a most extraordinary noise in the kitchen, and, creeping down with her candle, interrupted a grand game of tag between all the animals,—dog, cats, and rabbits,—who were chasing each other around the room in a mad circle, accompanied by stamps, spits, and barks. It was so evidently a game, that Mrs. Wood felt sorry to have disturbed them, and sat down to watch the fun. But her candle had broken the spell, and like fairies when the cock crows, they became once more their daytime selves; indeed, most of them looked very much ashamed of having been caught at such antics.
 
“Perhaps they really are fairies,” Mrs. Wood thought, going into the pantry after crackers, “and have taken these disguises just[84] to play with my children and me. Very likely, if I’d come down sooner, I might have seen them in their real forms.”
 
When she returned, they all gathered around her, and teased for crackers; while Samuel, the pet of the bunnies, jumped into her lap. But before all the crackers were gone, the candle burned low and went out, and only the faint light of the stove kept her from stepping on any of the little soft paws that followed her to the stairs.
 
“Fairies, good-night!” she called gently as she left them. But only the friendly whack, whack of Cyclone’s tail on the floor answered her from the darkness.
 
“I think, Biddy,” she said the next morning, “that it might be better to keep the kitchen door closed at night.”
 
Soon after this there was a great thaw, and one morning, when Bridget went down to the ice-box, there were six inches of water in the cellar.
 
“Oh, the poor animules!” she cried, wringing[85] her hands. And then she laughed so hard that the children came running into the kitchen to see what was the matter.
 
“Coom down! Coom down!” she called. “All the rabbits do be floatin’ ’round on boxes!”
 
Each rabbit was enthroned, sullen and dignified, on a box of its own; while the cats sat in a disgusted row on top of the coal-bin. It was such a funny sight that the children laughed even louder than Biddy, although they were worried for the safety of their pets.
 
“How’ll we ever get them out?” Eunice asked.
 
There was a pattering of feet behind them, and Cyclone came down to join the party.
 
“Here—I know!” said Franklin, seizing him by the collar. “Look, Cyclone! Seek—seek! Go fetch ’em in.”
 
But Cyclone only ran up and down the steps in terrible distress, not having the slightest idea what Franklin wanted.
 
“Seek—seek,” Franklin said again, pointing[86] to the rabbits, and, after barking frantically for a minute, Cyclone plunged into the water. He reached the first box, and scrambled up beside Dulcie, who, not appreciating his company in the least, moved over as near as she could to the edge, and bit him on the leg. Cyclone yelped and leaped down again; while the boat rocked and swayed dangerously from his final kick.
 
This seemed to give him an idea; so planting his nose against the box, he pushed it gently towards the stairs, wagging his dripping tail in response to the children’s shouts of praise.
 
“Good old boy,—fetch, fetch!” Franklin said, as Dulcie was safely landed, and Cyclone struggled back after another.
 
In ten minutes more he had rescued all the rabbits, and a board was laid across from the stairs to the coal-bin for the cats to descend. They stalked over in haughty silence, one after the other, and ignored the whole proceeding from that time forth. Indeed, Weejums[87] could never even bear to hear it mentioned; perhaps because she felt that her dignity had been compromised.
 
But Cyclone breakfasted with the family that morning, and his extra bone was as sweet as his heart was proud.

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CHAPTER SEVEN THE FAMILY IN THE PIANO BOX
WHEN Franklin went out into the yard on his birthday morning, he stopped and stared very hard at something that had never been there before.
 
It was a piano box, with an open space fenced off at one side, and a square hole leading into it, and at the end of the box was a real door, high enough for a boy to use.
 
“Why, where—” Franklin began, and then he heard a shout of laughter from Eunice and Bridget and Kenneth, who were watching him from the shed. Mrs. Wood was there, too, smiling at his astonishment.
 
“They’re chickens,” she explained. “Grandmother thought you didn’t spend enough time out of doors.”
 
[89]
 
“When did they come?” Franklin asked.
 
“Last night. And the house was built yesterday, while you were over at Fred’s. That’s Grandma’s present too.”
 
“Well, I’ll be—thunderstruck!” Franklin exclaimed. “Oh, I say, what a bully padlock! Isn’t Grandmother a brick? Are they in there now?”
 
“Go and see,” said his mother, handing him the key.
 
Franklin unlocked the door, with shining eyes and a new feeling of importance. There was money in chickens, everybody said.
 
A fine young rooster was standing solemnly in his pan of food, surrounded by five admiring wives, who cocked their heads at Franklin as he approached.
 
“Plymouth Rocks!” he exclaimed. “Oh, Mother, these are first-rate chickens!”
 
“Let them out!” Mrs. Wood called. “The little door lifts up.”
 
Franklin opened the door, and the fowls strutted out in thoughtful procession, winking[90] their lemon-colored eyes at the sun. Then the rooster drew a long breath, raised his head to an alarming height, and, after several attempts, indulged in a strange sound which he had evidently planned for a crow. His wives all looked impressed; but Franklin laughed, and Eunice, who came running out in her coat and red “pussy” hood, asked: “Oh, Franklin, is that poor hen sick?” Mrs. Wood and Kenneth came out too, and discussed names for the new arrivals.
 
“They ought to have colonial titles,” Mrs. Wood said; “but I can’t think of anything but ‛Praise God Barebones,’ and that wouldn’t be handy to call one by.”
 
“There was John Alden, Mother,” Franklin suggested.
 
“Why, of course, and Priscilla—and Rose Standish.”
 
“And Columbus!” added Kenneth, with pride.
 
“They don’t all need to be Puritans,”[91] Franklin said, “I’d rather have some of them more modern. Just see that one there with the extra ruffle on her comb! I’m going to call her Veatra Peck. And the stiff one that does stunts with her toes every time she puts ’em down,—doesn’t she walk like Miss Hannah Wakefield? I’m going to call her Hannah.”
 
“Hannah Squawk,” Eunice said. “That’s a pretty name.”
 
“Uncle Edward sent word that he’ll pay five cents apiece for eggs when your hens begin laying,” Mrs. Wood said. “He always likes a boiled egg for his breakfast, and can never be sure that store eggs are perfectly fresh.”
 
Franklin was delighted, and went up that evening to talk business with Mr. Bates. His uncle said that he knew of still another gentleman who would pay as much for fresh eggs,—indeed, he and this man had become acquainted through sharing a bad egg at a restaurant. They said that nothing made[92] people such good friends as having a common enemy.
 
But Franklin’s hens did not begin to lay until March, and then they seemed to have no ideas at all about the proper place for eggs. Franklin found them on the hen-house floor, and out in the yard, and very often they were broken. One hen persisted in laying what Eunice called “soft-boiled eggs,”—those without a shell,—until Franklin put crushed oyster-shells in her food; and then she laid ordinary Easter eggs like the others.
 
Somebody gave Eunice a bantam named Flossy, who laid cunning little white eggs like marshmallows, which Eunice had for her breakfast.
 
Franklin received enough from the sale of the eggs to buy wheat screenings, and other food for his “birds,” as he called them; but he made nothing more, and soon began to feel the disadvantage of owning such idiotic pets.
 
“They never reason about anything,” he complained; “and they haven’t any sense of[93] humor. They can’t see a joke even when it’s on them.”
 
“I don’t like ’em,” Kenneth said; “they’re not warm and cuddly like Weejums, or funny like Cyclone. They’re not much different from what they are fricasseed—’cept for the gravy.”
 
Soon after the hens began to lay, they showed a desire to sit, so Franklin bought a dozen grocery-store eggs for Veatra Peck; but had to move her into the woodshed, because all the other hens tried to sit at the same time in Veatra’s box. He felt rather surprised and grieved that Veatra should stop laying while she sat, but said, “I suppose she thinks she laid all those grocery-store eggs, and feels that she’s done enough.”
 
He waited until Veatra had sat for a week; then a fit of impatience seized him.
 
“I don’t believe all those eggs are good,” he announced at breakfast one day.
 
“It isn’t time for them to be out yet,” his mother said.[94] “Yes, I know; but Veatra ought not to be wasting her strength hatching bad eggs. I’m just going to investigate a little, and see how they’re coming on.”
 
“Of course you know that if you do that, it will kill the chickens.”
 
“Not the way I’ve thought of.”
 
And that day after school the way was carried into effect.
 
Franklin chipped a little hole in each shell, and pasted court-plaster over the hole in those eggs that contained chickens. The others he threw away, and was quite triumphant to find that there were only seven good eggs out of the dozen.
 
“You see,” he told his mother, “it would have been such a pity for Veatra to sit another whole week on something that was never meant for anything but an omelette!”
 
Mrs. Wood never expected the chickens to hatch; but they did, every one of them,—this is a true story,—and grew up to be exactly[95] the kind of chickens that one would expect from grocery-store eggs. They were none of them brothers and sisters, or even distant cousins, and all seemed like dreadfully ordinary fowls. But Franklin enjoyed them all the more, because each one that came out was such a surprise. He rose at five o’clock in the morning when the first was due, and stole downstairs in his nightgown to feel under the hen. She responded with her usual angry squawk, but at the same time he heard a little soft, sweet sound like the note of a bird, and drew forth a mouse-colored ball of down that looked at him confidingly out of round baby eyes.
 
“Say, you’re the fellow I came to meet!” Franklin said, setting the thing on its tiny feet. And he mixed some corn-meal mush for it, which Veatra ate up immediately. After breakfast there were two more chickens, and before night the whole seven were cuddled under Veatra’s wing.
 
“What’s that on the back of the stove?”[96] asked Biddy the next morning, as Eunice came into the kitchen.
 
“Oh, that’s my incubator with an egg in it. I’m goin’ to have some chickens, too.”
 
The incubator was an old candy box, stuffed with cotton and hung on top of the range.
 
“Whin it hatches, you can have my bist bonnet to raise it in,” said Biddy, disrespectfully. But she was never called upon to keep her promise, for the egg baked hard on the next washing day, and Eunice ate it.
 
Franklin set Hannah on some home-made eggs; but she used to leave them to fly at the cats, and none of them hatched but an egg of Flossy’s, which was named “Fairy Lilian.” She afterwards grew up to be an enormous white rooster, with shaggy legs, and a great deal of manner.
 
When the warm weather came, the cats were fed in the yard, and as the chickens were always escaping from their own quarters, there were many pitched battles over the food. The hens stole things from the kittens, and pecked[97] them cruelly when they tried to interfere. Once Eunice saw John Alden seize a whole mutton-chop bone, and hurry around the house with it, followed by all the cats. It seemed too unfair, and Eunice wrote a note to Franklin that day about it, in school.
 
Dear Franklin:—
 
I hate your hens.
 
Your loving sister Eunice.
But the next day something happened that cured John Alden forever of imposing upon those weaker than himself. He noticed a strange cat taking dinner with the others, and thought, “Ah, here’s the chance for me! The natural shyness of this visitor will prevent him from resenting any intrusion.” And, with a haughty stride, he landed in their midst.
 
The strange cat looked up, planted one paw firmly on the piece of fried potato he was eating, and clawed out one of Johnny’s eyes.
 
The assault was so unexpected that Johnny could only stagger one-sidedly away, and sit[98] down in the drinking pan to recover his balance. He knew that no hen could ever admire him again, and that the slowest caterpillar would be able to evade his peck. It was terrible.
 
Fortunately Biddy had seen the attack from the window, and was able to testify that none of the family cats had done it.
 
“It was a cat with a nose that dishgraced the Hivin he sat under,” she said. “But, oh, the shplendid foight in him! He was loike a definder of innocence.”
 
Eunice was sorry for Johnny, but felt that her cats had been avenged, and stole out that evening to make friends with the defender of innocence.
 
He was skulking under a neighbor’s barn, and peered out at her with unfriendly, suspicious eyes set in scratched lids. Eunice had seen “Thomas” cats before,—those with broad bland noses who sit out in front of fish-shops and have self-respect,—but she had never met such a cat as this.
 
“He doesn’t seem to like me,” she thought,[99] feeling rather hurt. “Come, poor kitty, kitty, and get some milk!”
 
But at this point the barn cat screwed up his torn nose with a peculiarly threatening effect, and gave one long slow spit, most terrible to hear and behold. Eunice dropped her saucer of milk and fled. She had not supposed that she would ever live to hear a cat speak to her like that.
 
He did not call on Weejums after this, excepting at night, when everybody else was in bed; and Eunice wrote a song about him that she and Kenneth used to sing as a duet. Sometimes one took the alto part, and sometimes the other, but in any case the cat always fled. He told Weejums that it was because it made him feel so hollow.
 
 
 
But one night Torn-nose relieved his emptiness by eating one of Veatra Peck’s chickens.
 
“I’ll shoot that old barn cat, you see if I don’t!” Franklin said furiously. But Mrs. Wood said that it would mean one less chicken for her to chase. To tell the truth, she was getting rather tired of them, for every day, while Franklin was at school, they caused misunderstandings with the neighbors.
 
“If they’d only wait till he gets home,” she said; “but they commit all their worst outrages in the morning.”
 
No sooner would she sit down to her sewing than there would come a polite ring at the door-bell, and a certain Mr. Teechout would say, “Pardon me, madam, but your fowls are trespassing on my strawberry beds.”
 
[101]
 
And Mrs. Wood would apologize, and hasten forth to drive the fowls from their unlawful picnic grounds. But she would scarcely have returned to the sitting-room before there would be a thundering knock at the back door, and she would hear Biddy’s voice raised in irate argument with the woman across the alley. “You just tell your missus, if she don’t keep them chickens out of my cabbages, I’ll wring their necks!”
 
Then the poor “missus” would have to run out in the hot sun again, and jump cabbages until her unruly brood had been persuaded to return.
 
“I couldn’t take but three cabbages in one leap at first,” she told Franklin; “but now,” she added proudly, “I can do five!”
 
She knew that her son admired an athletic woman, and talked a great deal among the boys about having the only mother who could drive a nail straight. But when Franklin spoke of wanting a boat at the lake that summer, she said that he could not[102] possibly afford to have one unless he sold his chickens.
 
“But, Mother, I’m not going to buy the whole boat! Our share will only come to about thirteen dollars.”
 
“I don’t think we ought to afford even half a boat, unless you sell the chickens. Nobody loves them anyhow. It isn’t as if they were ‛real folks,’ like the cats.”
 
Franklin thought it over, and decided that, as he made no money from his hens, it might be as well to get rid of them. It was true, also, as his mother said, that nobody had loved them. But then they were not in the least demonstrative themselves, and did not seem to require affection. Indeed, their reserve amounted almost to coldness when any advances were made. And in addition to this, they had once caused Franklin to appear quite foolish in school.
 
He had kept a little diary of their doings, labelled “Plymouth Rock Record,” and one day it happened to be on his desk when the[103] principal came by. She picked it up with much pride, thinking that here was a boy who really loved his United States History, and, turning to the first entry, read: “Priscilla laid a hard-boiled egg to-day.”
 
Franklin wondered why it was that she left the room so suddenly, but suspected afterwards that she had been laughing at him.
 
“There’s something silly about hens,” he thought. “No matter what they do, if you own them, you get drawn into it.”
 
He also told his mother that they were no good to photograph.
 
“You mean that they won’t pose?” she asked.
 
“Oh, it isn’t that! They’ll pose if you tie their legs. But they haven’t any front view to their faces,—only a right and wrong side.”
 
A few days later when Mrs. Wood was coming up the street, she saw people stop in front of her house, look down at their feet, and then go off laughing. She hurried home, and[104] found this sign tacked in the middle of the sidewalk.

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