CHAPTER V.
WHAT DAGO TOLD ON FRIDAY.
Before the bell stopped ringing, some one called Elsie to the house to get ready for kindergarten, and Phil ran down to the stable with me. He tied me to an iron ring in one of the stalls by a halter. Of course any knot that a boy of that size could tie would not keep me a prisoner very long. By the time he was halfway to school I was free and on my way back to the house.
I stayed in the laundry nearly all day, for the sun went under a cloud soon after breakfast, and a cold drizzling rain began to fall. It gave me the rheumatism, and I was glad to curl up in a big market-basket on the shelf behind the stove, and enjoy the heat of the roaring fire. Nora was ironing, and singing as she worked. Not since I left the warm California garden had I been as peaceful and as comfortable. The heat made me so drowsy that not even the thump, bump of Nora's iron on the ironing-board, or the sound of her shrill singing could keep me awake. I dreamed and dozed, and dozed and dreamed all day, in a blissful state of contentment.
It was nearly dark when I roused up enough to stretch myself and step out of the basket. Nora had gone up-stairs and was setting the supper-table. I could hear the cook beating eggs in the pantry. There would be muffins for supper. The sound made me so hungry that I slipped into the dining-room, and hid under the sideboard until Nora had finished her work and gone back to the kitchen. The cook was still mixing muffin batter in the pantry. I could hear her spoon click against the crock as she stirred it, so that I knew she would not be in to disturb me for some time.
I never saw a table more inviting. After I had leaped up on it, I sat and looked all around a moment, trying to decide what to take first. Everything was so good. There wasn't much room to walk about, and when I stepped over the jelly to reach the cheese, which seemed to tempt my appetite more than anything, my long tail switched the roses out of the bowl in the middle of the table. That confused me slightly, and in trying not to upset anything else I stepped flat into the butter, and dragged my little plaid flannel skirt through the applesauce. Why they persist in dressing me in this ridiculous fashion is more than I can understand.
You may be sure that I would have starved a week rather than have climbed on that table, if I had had the slightest foreboding of what was to follow. But how could I know that Miss Patricia was to choose that very moment for walking into the dining-room? She had just come in from the street, for she had on her bonnet, and carried an umbrella in her hand. Phil and little Elsie followed her.
"Oh, you little torment!" she cried, when she saw me, and, before I could make up my mind which way to jump, she flew at me with her umbrella, trying to strike me without breaking any of the dishes. I dodged this way and that. Seeing no way of escape from the room, I ran up the curtains, over and under the chairs, around and around,—anywhere to keep out of her way. She was after me at every step. WhenI ran up to the top of the high, carved back of the old-fashioned sideboard, I found myself out of her reach for one breathless minute. She was climbing on a chair after me, when the cook, hearing the unusual sounds, opened the pantry door and looked in.
