"Goodness me, Tottie, why don't you fasten the button!" cried Tessie to
her little sister. But Tottie was too frightened to answer; she just
stood still while sister fastened the little white pants which had
slipped down on the tops of her pink slippers.
"Let's go out in the garden now," said Tessie, and the two little
sisters ran out on the piazza and down the walk. They found brother
Teddy already there filling his wagon with grass, for the lawn had just
been cut and was covered with the loose grass.
"We'll make a big hay mow!" cried the children, and very soon they had
piled up the fragment grass as high as their heads. It was great fun
rolling over it, or covering each other up until nothing but a little
toe stuck out at one end, or the tip of a little pug nose showed at the
other.
[Illustration: "_Goodness Me, Tottie, Why Don't You Fasten the
Button!_"]
After a while pussy came by, but when she had been covered up deep with
the ticklish grass, she escaped by jumping over the green haymow, and
ran off to the barn. She most likely thought it was more fun in the hay
loft hunting for mice than being covered up in a big green grass hay-mow
out on the lawn. Perhaps, too, she was afraid some one might step on her
when under the grass. At any rate, she didn't come back, and by and by
it was time for the children to go in for luncheon. I don't know whether
pussy heard the bell or not, but she came in from the barn in time to
get her saucer of milk before the children had finished.
"Pussy never has to bother with buttons," said Tessie, looking over at
Tottie, and smiling.
"No," answered Tottie, "'cause she has only fur."