THE KITTENS.
“Now, what do you s’pose those children are up to?” asked Cricket, with
much interest.
“Those children,” referred to in that particular tone, always meant the
twins, Zaidee and Helen.
Cricket and Eunice sat in an apple-tree, on a low, gnarled limb,
munching harvest apples. It was after dinner, and they had not yet
decided what to do with their afternoon. It was too hot to ride, and
besides, they had been out on their ponies all the morning.
Trooping along the lane beneath them went the nursery party, Zaidee and
Helen, with their nurse, Eliza, who held little Kenneth by the hand.
With them was their little playmate, Sylvie Craig, with her nurse, who
was wheeling Baby Craig in his carriage.
Zaidee and Sylvie swung between them a good-sized covered basket, which
did not seem to be heavy, although they carried it with great care. All
were chattering and laughing in high glee.
“Did you ever do it?” the girls heard Sylvie ask. “It’s the dratest fun.
Zey all swim round, and you pote ’em wiv a stit.”
“Does they squeal?” queried Zaidee, earnestly.
“No-o, I don’t zink so,” returned Sylvie, doubtfully.
“I sawed Thomas cut off a chicken’s head once,” piped up Helen.
“I’ve seen lots of chiten’s heads tut off,” said Sylvie, in a superior
way.
“What are they going to do?” wondered the girls in the apple-tree, as
the group passed down the lane.
“They’re going to the brook,” said Cricket, peering after them. “Let’s
go and see.”
“Don’t let them see us,” cautioned Eunice. “I b’lieve they’re up to some
mischief. Keep behind the hedge.”
Eunice and Cricket followed the group at a little distance.
[Illustration: EUNICE AND CRICKET WATCHING THE OTHER CHILDREN.]
The children stopped by the brook and the older girls watched their
proceedings with much interest from behind the hedge. The two nurses,
both young girls, sat down on the grassy slope and began to talk,
without noticing the little ones much. The brook was wide just there,
and quite deep with recent rains. Overhanging willows lined its banks,
and made it cool and shady.
The children opened their basket.
“What _have_ they got there?” whispered Eunice, craning her neck, as
Sylvie suddenly said,—
“Don’t open it yet. We must det some stits.”
Sticks abounded, and each child armed herself with a stout one. Then
Sylvie lifted the cover, and took out four little squirming, week-old
kittens, with their eyes still shut.
“Now,” directed Sylvie, eagerly, “you frow one in _so_. Oh, see it bob!
frow in anovver one, Zaidee, and pote ’em down when zey turn up,”—and
suiting the action to the word, she poked down the helpless little
bobbing head of the unfortunate kitten.
“I’m afraid it hurts them,” said tender-hearted Helen.
“Oh, no, it doesn’t,” insisted Sylvie. “’Tause I heard mamma tell Dennis
to drown zem her own self. Doesn’t hurt, really.”
And Helen, thus reassured, threw in the wretched little black kitten she
held, and stood ready with her stick.
“Let me frow one in,” cried three-year-old Kenneth, much excited,
picking up one helpless little straggler, and pitching it eagerly into
the water. “Pote it down, Zaidee!”
Eunice and Cricket were so much amazed at this blood-thirsty sight, that
at first they simply stared. But when little Kenneth pushed down the
heads of the helpless victims, Eunice recovered herself and rushed to
the rescue.
“Why, you naughty, naughty children,” she said, in her severest tones,
“to drown the poor little kittens! How would you like me to poke you
down under the water like that, Kenneth?”
“Sylvie says it doesn’t hurt ’em,” said Kenneth, opening his big blue
eyes.
“Of course it hurts to be thumped on the head,” said Eunice. “Eliza, you
ought not let them do so.”
“Oh, law! them kittens don’t mind,” said the nurse, carelessly. “They’ll
never know what killed ’em.”
“Mamma told Dennis to drown zem, her own self, she did,” objected
Sylvie, clinging to her stick.
“Dennis doesn’t drown them that way, goosie,” explained Eunice. “He ties
them up in a bag, and puts a stone in it, and they all drown so fast
that they never know it. It’s cruel to hit them that way, you naughty
little things, and you must promise never to do it again.”
The children, subdued by Eunice’s sharp words and older-sister
authority, duly promised, very gravely, though Sylvie could not resist a
last sly rap. The little, helpless, bobbing things by this time floated
quietly on the surface, and one by one the little bodies drifted beyond
reach of the children’s sticks.
Then Kenneth, who was only a baby, began to whimper.
“I didn’t mean to hurt ze tittens,” he sobbed. “Would it have hurted ’em
wivvout we poted ’em, Tritet?”
“I guess not,” said Cricket, comforting her pet. “P’rhaps it didn’t hurt
them so very much this time, only remember, you must never do it again.”
“No, me won’t ever pote ’em aden,” promised Kenneth.
Then, this part of the afternoon’s programme being over, the children
ran away further along the stream to play, while Cricket and Eunice sat
down on the bank, skipping stones. Baby Craig slept peacefully in his
carriage, and the nurses gossiped and crocheted together.
Presently the girls went a little distance down the bank, and crossed on
the stepping-stones. Lovely cardinal flowers grew in abundance further
up, and they picked big bunches of them. Faintly, from some distance up
the stream, came the children’s voices, but they were out of sight of
the older ones, on account of the overhanging bushes that bordered the
stream above them, on both sides. An hour of the sultry afternoon
slipped by. The girls still sat idly by the brookside, for it was far
too hot for the least exertion. At last, Eliza, who was not usually so
careless, suddenly bethought herself of her neglected charges.
“Miss Eunice,” she called across the stream, coming up opposite to where
the girls sat, “have you seen the children?”
“They went up the brook, I think, ’Liza, and I have not thought of them
since. I hope nothing has happened to them,” said Eunice, anxiously.
“Oh, I guess not,” returned Eliza, but she set off rapidly up the
stream. Some distance beyond there was a tiny cottage, where there lived
a poor widow, a young Scotchwoman, with several little children. Eliza
had sometimes taken the twins there, and it occurred to her that they
might have wandered there now by themselves.
But in another minute the little ones came in sight, running in great
excitement.
“Elspeth falled in the water,” shrieked Helen, while still far off.
Elspeth was the Scotchwoman’s two-year-old baby. “We sawed her fall in.”
Cricket and Eunice were across the stepping-stones in a moment, and flew
to meet the children.
“What do you mean?” they cried, while Mary Ann left Baby Craig in his
carriage to join them.
“She falled in,” repeated Zaidee, breathlessly.
“And we didn’t pote her wiv a stit,” struck in Sylvie, virtuously.
“But who pulled her out?” asked Eliza.
“Nobody pulled her out, ’Liza. She’s all in the water.”
“_Now!_ In the water now? Is she drowned?” cried the others, horrified.
“I dess her’s drownded dead,” said Sylvie, cheerfully. “But me didn’t
pote her, truly. Her dust fell in.”
“I _sawed_ her fall in,” put in Kenneth. “It was all deep.”
“And she kicked in the water,” added Helen, “and by ’n’ by she sailed up
to the top, just like the kitties.”