Every summer grandma Cushing has two visitors. Their names are Blanche
Cushing and Dorothy Cushing.
Blanche lives in Iowa. She has blue eyes and yellow hair and is seven
years old. Dorothy lives in New York City. She has brown eyes and
brown hair and is eight years old.
They love dearly to play in grandma's attic. There are queer old
bonnets and gowns and cocked hats hanging on the walls.
There are trunks full of caps and spectacles and old snuffers and no
end of queer things.
I cannot begin to tell you everything the cousins play. But there is
one thing they like to play ever so much.
[Illustration: PLAYING IN GRANDMA'S ATTIC.]
They like to dress up in the queer old clothes and play Cinderella,
and Mother Hubbard, and Red Riding Hood.
When Blanche gets on her great-great-grandma Cushing's cap and
spectacles and long mits, she makes a very charming little Mother
Hubbard.
[Illustration: A VERY CHARMING MOTHER HUBBARD.]
They sit in the big old chairs and tell stories. Dorothy likes to hear
about the wolves. There are wolves where Blanche lives.
"Yes, one day when I was a very, _very_ little girl," said Blanche, "a
horrid big wolf came up to the window and looked in. I was sitting in
mamma's lap, and he put his paws on the window and just looked at us
horrid!
"And then another time, mamma, you know, was going out to meet papa,
and she saw a big wolf on the ground, and she thought it was dead, and
she was going right up, and it wasn't dead a bit. It just got up and
runned off to the woods, and mamma was awful scared and runned away
too."
When Blanche tells the wolf stories they play "scared." It is fun to
play "scared." They shriek and run and hide.
One rainy day they had been playing Mother Hubbard.
"Now," said Blanche, "I will tell a b-eautiful wolf story. It will
make us awful scared. See if it doesn't!"
So she climbed up into a big chair and began. But right in the middle
of the story they heard something go scratch, scratch, very loudly.
"Oh, what is that, Dotty?" whispered Blanche, clutching Dorothy's arm.
Scratch, scratch, it went again, and then there was a great rattling.
"Oh, it's a wolf!" cried Dotty; and down the attic stairs they flew
pell-mell; through the kitchen chamber and the great unfinished
chamber, and down the back stairs; through the kitchen and the
dining-room, and burst into grandma's room all out of breath.
"What _is_ the matter, children?" asked grandma.
"Oh, there's a wolf in the attic," they both cried out.
"Nonsense! we don't have wolves in Massachusetts," said grandma.
"Well," said Dorothy, "something scratched dreadfully."
So grandma went up to the attic to see about it. "Where was the
noise?" she asked.
[Illustration: BRIGHT-EYES AT HOME.]
They pointed to the dark place behind the big chimneys. Grandma went
up and opened a door and out walked--a wolf! no; Towser, the old cat!
Blanche and Dorothy sometimes have another visitor in the attic. It is
a big rat. He lives in the barn. He has a road underground to the
house cellar. Then he comes up to the attic through the wall.
The cousins never know when to expect him. He comes in without
knocking. The first thing they know there he is looking at them with
bright eyes.
They have named him Bright-eyes. They feed him with cake and cheese.
He is very tame. Grandma says she never heard of such a thing as
feeding a rat. She says Bright-eyes eats her hens' eggs. He steals
them out of the nests.