"ONE-OLD-CAT."
RANDMA sat at the window one fine afternoon, knitting. In a group, on the ground below, sat three little boys dressed in blue sailor suits, red stockings, and polo caps. "What nice-looking little boys!" thought grandma.
Presently up jumped one boy, and said, "Come on, fellows, let's play something."—"All right," said another boy, "One-old-cat." Then they all ran into the house.
"Dear me!" said grandma, "I thought they were good boys; but they seem to be going to tease pussy." In a few minutes the boys came back. One of them carried a large club, while another had something which grandma, who could not see very well, took to be a stone.
"Oh, what cruel boys!" thought the old lady. "It's bad enough to tie things to a cat's tail; but to beat her with a club and to throw stones at her is still worse."
"I'll be pitcher," shouted one of the boys. "There!" said grandma, "he says he'll pitch her. Who would believe that boys in red stockings and blue suits could be so cruel?"
"I'll be inner," cried another boy.
"Inner!" said grandma. "What does that mean? Some new expression. I have no doubt, which I never before heard; but an old lady of eighty years can't be expected to keep up with the times. It's something dreadful, of course."
But what was the old lady's surprise when the boys threw aside their blue jackets, and two of them began to throw the "stone" back and forth, one to the other; while the third boy stood between, striking at it as it flew through the air, and sometimes hitting it and sometimes not. There they staid all the afternoon doing the same thing.
"Why," said grandma, putting on her glasses, and looking more closely. "I declare! they're only playing ball, after all. Well, I'm glad they're not so cruel as I thought them. They are such pretty little boys, and have such pretty red stockings too!"
"But," said she, after a long pause, "there is still one thing that troubles me. Where is the 'old cat'?"
MATTIE B. BANKS.
