THE TREE THAT GREW IN THE PAGES’ GARDEN
Whenever anything pleasant happened, the children always pretended that
it was owing to the witch kitten, but in the case of the darning-class
there was no need of making believe, for even such an incredulous
on-looker as Mrs. Page acknowledged that Mittens was the cause of their
good fortune. Lois and Jessie and Anne and Ellen made up between them a
short account of the affair modeled on “The House that Jack Built.”
This is the tree that grew in the Pages’ garden.
This is the witch cat that climbed the tree that grew in the Pages’
garden.
This is the dog that barked at the witch cat that climbed the tree
that grew in the Pages’ garden.
This is the maid in a lilac gown that chased the dog, with an awful
frown, that barked at the witch cat that climbed the tree that grew
in the Pages’ garden.
This is the rent that came in the gown of the dainty maid with the
awful frown who chased the dog that barked at the witch cat that
climbed the tree that grew in the Pages’ garden.
This is the dame in the ancient town who mended the rent in the lilac
gown of the dainty maid with the awful frown who chased the dog that
barked at the witch cat that climbed the tree that grew in the
Pages’ garden.
This was what happened. Lois and Jessie were weeding their flower-beds,
and Minnie and Mittens were frisking about them, unconscious of
approaching evil. They were just behind the children, when a large
brown and white spaniel came into the garden. The little girls were
intent on their weeding, and did not notice his approach, when suddenly
a series of loud barks and terrified mews caused them to turn hastily.
Lois saw a picture that made her heart stand still. Minnie, with her
back up, was rushing valiantly towards the intruder.
“Oh, Jessie, Minnie will be killed!” cried Lois. “Minnie, Minnie
darling, come to me!”
Meanwhile Mittens was seeking the safety of a neighboring tree. He was
so young that he was not sure that dogs could not climb, and so he
went up as high as he could get and sat on a slender branch, huddled
together in a forlorn little heap, a most abject and frightened kitten.
Lois stood petrified, but Jessie instantly ran between the dog and the
cat.
“Don’t, Jessie!” exclaimed Lois, even more afraid for the safety of
her friend than for that of her pets. “He may bite you.”
The dog was still growling; he was just preparing to make another dash
at the cat, who, on her side, was about to spring at his head.
Jessie swooped down on Minnie and deposited the struggling animal in
the cat-house, shutting her in; then she turned to bend her energies
to getting rid of the dog. Finding that he was balked of his prey, he
now took up his station at the foot of the apple-tree where Mittens had
taken refuge, and gave a series of low growls. Poor Mittens answered by
piercing mews.
“Come, poor fellow, come, good dog,” said Jessie.
“He is a bad dog,” said Lois energetically. She was still at a safe
distance, but came a few steps nearer as she spoke. “I think he intends
to stay all night,” she continued. “What shall we do? Poor Mittens will
die of fright, and just hear what a dreadful noise Minnie is making.”
Minnie was walking about on the window-sill of the cat-house like a
raging tiger, furious at having been deprived of her fight.
“The only thing is to try kindness,” said Jessie. “Good dog, poor
doggie, good dog.”
“He is a bad dog,” Lois repeated. She had once more retired to a safe
distance.
“Do keep still, Lois; he doesn’t mean to be bad any more than Minnie
does. I wish I had something for him to eat.”
At this moment the kitten climbed a little higher, and the shaking of
the branch sent a rosy astrachan apple to the ground.
“How stupid I was!” said Jessie. “We had a spaniel once that loved
apples.” She picked one up from the ground, bit out a piece, and
held it before him enticingly. A change came over him, and he slowly
followed her as she moved back a few paces. He turned, however,
irresolutely, to look at the tree. “Good dog, good dog,” Jessie said
soothingly. Finally she succeeded in wholly distracting his attention
from the kitten. She moved slowly back until she got him outside the
yard. Then she gave him the piece of apple.
Meanwhile the dog’s master was looking for him, and the spaniel joined
him and went off down the street.
When Jessie returned to Mittens she said, “Now it is perfectly safe,
you can come down, dear.”
Poor Mittens looked at her as if he would say, “I would come down if
I could.” Fright had made him climb higher than he had ever climbed
before, but it was one thing to climb up and quite another to come down.
The children looked at each other.
“He can’t come down,” Lois said. “What are we to do now? We’ll have to
get Joe Mills to bring a ladder and get him down,” she added presently.
“Joe Mills is working at the Browns’ to-day. It will be nearly six
o’clock when he comes by. Mittens will be almost out of his mind with
fright before that. I can get him down all right.”
“But he is on such a small branch,” Lois objected. “You can never climb
up to him, the branch won’t bear you.”
Jessie’s only answer was to begin to climb the tree. She went up as
high as she could, but the kitten was some distance above her head.
“Mittens, come down, Mittens,” she called caressingly. The kitten
made a feeble movement. Jessie reached up with one hand. Mittens came
cautiously down a little way and Jessie caught him. The branch she was
on was hardly strong enough to bear her weight. It began to show signs
of breaking. Jessie hastily put the kitten on her shoulder so that she
could use her two hands, but in scrambling down her foot slipped, and
she and Mittens fell in a heap on the ground.
“Are you hurt?” Lois asked anxiously.
“No, we are all right, aren’t we, Mittens? Only I have torn my frock,”
and she looked ruefully at a large tear in her skirt.
“Oh, how too bad!” said Lois, “and that is such a pretty dress.”
“I wish I knew how to darn,” said Jessie. “I have made such a lot of
trouble for your mother. Now you never tear your clothes.”
“But I don’t do such interesting things. I’m not brave like you.”
“I hate to tell your mother,” said Jessie.
“Oh, mother won’t mind. She’ll just say, ‘How could you be so
careless!’ and then she’ll mend your skirt so beautifully you’ll hardly
know it was torn.”
“Yes, but she has had to mend so many things for me already,” sighed
Jessie.
At this moment they saw a carriage drive up to the gate, and Mrs.
Draper got out and came along the brick walk to the front door.
Mrs. Draper was old enough to be Mrs. Page’s mother, but in spite of
that fact she was one of Lois’s best friends. She ran up to her now.
“Mother isn’t in; she’ll be so sorry to miss you!” she said.
“I will stop and see you and Jessie,” said Mrs. Draper, signing to her
coachman to drive on. “Let me come out into the garden, it is a perfect
day to stay out of doors.”
“Mrs. Draper, I am not fit to be seen,” said Jessie. “I’ve torn this
dreadful hole in my dress.”
“She has saved the life of our witch cat,” Lois explained, and she gave
Mrs. Draper an account of the incident that lost nothing in the telling.
“I am sorry I was so careless,” said Jessie. “I am always tearing my
clothes. I am so sorry for Aunt Elizabeth!”
“Now if there is one thing that I can do well, it is darning,” said
Mrs. Draper. “I used to darn the stockings and the clothes for a large
family before I was married. Bring the dress over to my house, Jessie,
and I will promise to make it look almost as well as if Mrs. Page did
it. We won’t tell her anything about it until it is mended.”
“Oh, Mrs. Draper, how kind you are! I couldn’t let you do it. Couldn’t
you show me how? I ought to learn to darn, if I am going to be so
careless. You see at home there was always Marie to do the washing
and sewing, and I am afraid I never thought about how much work I was
making.”
Mrs. Draper sat down on the bench in the garden near the children’s
flower-beds. Lois thought how very lovely she looked in her gray gown
and hat that so perfectly harmonized with her gray hair.
“I am afraid it would take you some time to learn,” she said, “so I
will mend this especial frock; but if you would really like to know how
to darn your clothes and your stockings, I shall be delighted to teach
you.” She saw Lois’s wistful, pleading face, and added, “and you too,
of course, Lois dear, and perhaps Anne and Ellen Morgan would like to
join us. I will read aloud to you while you are at work.”
“Oh, Mrs. Draper, that would be perfectly lovely,” cried Lois, “if
mother lets us, and I am sure she will.”
“How well your nasturtiums have lasted!” said Mrs. Draper, “and the
cosmos is beautiful, and what a fine scarlet geranium that is! But what
is that vine in the middle of each bed? Oh, I see, it is a cucumber
vine, and there are cucumbers on it. I did not see them at first. What
an original idea, but it is really quite ornamental.”
“It isn’t Ellen’s fault that there aren’t melons and squashes too,”
said Lois, and she told the whole story.
Mrs. Draper laughed heartily at Ellen’s prank.
“I never knew any one so lucky as I am,” Jessie said to Lois as they
went to bed that night. “Most children would get a dreadful scolding
for tearing their clothes, and here I am having my dress mended by Mrs.
Draper, and we are to have this lovely darning-class.”
“It is a fortunate thing to own a witch kitten,” said Lois.