Hanny often went in as well. And though Dele was such a harum-scarum sort of girl, she was good to the children and found no end of diversions for them. Nora was a curious, grave little thing, and her large dark eyes in her small, sallow face looked almost uncanny. She devoured fairy stories and knew many of the mythological gods and goddesses. They had a beautiful big cat called Old Gray. It really belonged to Mr. Theodore, but Nora played with it and tended it, and dressed it up in caps and gowns and shawls and carried it around. It certainly was a lovely tempered cat. Hanny was divided in her affection between the Deans' dolls and Nora's cat. The play-house was too cold to use now, and Mrs. Dean objected to having it all moved down to her sewing-room. But Mr. Theodore's room had a delightful grate, a big old lounge, a generous centre-table where the girls used to play house under the cover, and such piles of books everywhere, so many pictures on the wall, such curious pipes and swords and trophies from different lands. You really never knew whether it was cleared up or not, and the very lawlessness was attractive.
Sometimes they sat in the big rocker, that would hold both, and they would divide the cat between them and sing to her. Occasionally kitty would tire of such unceasing attention, and emit a long, appealing m-i-e-u. If Mr. Theodore was there—and he never seemed to mind the little girls playing about—he would say, "Children, what are you doing to that cat?" and they would no longer try to divide her, but let her curl up in her own fashion.
"Oh, mother!" said the little girl, one rainy afternoon when she had to stay in, "couldn't we have a Sunday cat that didn't have to stay out in the stable and catch mice for a living? Nora's is so nice and cunning and you can talk to it just as if it was folks. And you can't quite make dolls, folks. You have to keep making b'lieve all the time."
"Martha doesn't like cats. And Jim would torment it and plague you continually. And you know I wouldn't let Jim's little dog come in the house."
"But so many people do have cats."
"There's hardly room with so many folks. You wait until Christmas and see what Santa Claus brings you," said her mother cheerily.
There came a little snow and the boys brought out their sleds. For two days the air was alive with shouts and snowballing, and then it was like a drift of gray sand alongside of the street gutter. But winter had fairly set in. Stoves were up.
In the back room at the Underhills' they had a fire of logs on the hearth, and it was delightful.
Ben was tormented more and more. The boys knocked off his cap in the gutter and made up rhymes about him which they sang to any sort of tune. This was one:
"Benjamin Franklin Underhill,
Was a little boy too awfully still:
Forty bears came out of the wood,
And ate up the boy so awfully good."