“They’ve brought the kitten, mother,” screamed Anne.
Old Sally had just re-filled a cushion, and was holding it before her at arm’s-length.
“Is it fat enough?” she screamed back at her daughter.
“It isn’t fat at all,” said Maisie, who with Dennis was untying the hamper; “it’s a thin little kitten, but it’s very good.”
“Dear Miss Maisie,” said Anne, with a chuckling laugh, “it’s the cushion mother means, not the cat.”
What with old Sally’s deafness, and the increasing thickness of the air, in which the two old figures were dimly seen as through a woolly veil, conversation was really impossible. There were many questions Maisie would have liked to ask about the kitten’s future comfort, but she saw that they would be useless; so she contented herself with quietly saying good-bye to her favourite, and dropping a few secret tears over it. Dennis, however, had made up his mind to know one thing, and he advanced a little way into the cottage, and shouted: “Is Tuvvy at work to-day?”
Anne was seen indistinctly to nod in answer to this. “He’s got the sack, though,” she said. “He won’t be there not after next week.”
The blow had fallen! Both the children left the cottage in low spirits, and for some time walked along in silence; Maisie grieving for the kitten, and Dennis with his mind full of Tuvvy’s disgrace. He had so hoped Mr Solace would not send him away. And now the worst had come, and soon there would be no Tuvvy in the barn.
They had reached the middle of the rick-yard, and Maisie was casting her usual anxious glances round for the turkey-cock, when Dennis came to a sudden stop, and exclaimed:
“I know what I’ll do!”