Jessie paid no attention to this remark but continued her line of thought. “I think she misses my playing with her as much as I used to, so I’ll tell her she can play with the crow all she likes. I wonder what we’d better call him. He’s as shiny and black as coal; you know the kind that has all sorts of colors in it. He looks that way when he turns his head.”
“I don’t think Coal would be a very pretty name,” objected Adele.
“I don’t think so either,” Jessie agreed with her. “I’ll have to think of something else.” They turned over in their minds all the things that suggested blackness or darkness, from ink to thunder-clouds, finally hitting upon Ebony, which was a happy thought of Jessie’s who remembered an ebony chest in her Aunt Lucy’s house. “We can call him Ebon for short,” she said. “It is a nice, easy name.”
“And Eb would be still shorter,” said Adele. “Hello, Eb.”
The crow responded by putting his head to one side and remarking “Caw!” in a way which made both girls laugh.
“When I get the gray kitten,” said Jessie, “I shall have two new pets.”
“And I haven’t any,” said Adele wistfully.
“I am sure Effie Hinsdale would give you one of the kittens,” said Jessie. “I’ll ask mother if we can go there Saturday. I know she will be glad—Effie I mean—to get a good home for another kitten. There is a gray something like mine and two black ones.”
“I’d rather have black, I think, and I’ll call it Velvet,” said Adele swift in decision.
“I’ve named mine Cloudy,” Jessie told her. “We can’t have them yet, you know.”