“Nina, leave the table at once!” cried her father angrily. “Stepan, throw the kittens into the slop-barrel this minute! I won’t have such filth in the house!”
Vania and Nina were horrified. Apart from its cruelty, death in the slop-barrel threatened to deprive the old cat and the wooden horse of their children, to leave the box deserted, and to upset all their plans for the future, that beautiful future in which one cat would take care of its old mother, one would live in the country, and the third would catch rats in the cellar. The children began to cry and to beg for the lives of the kittens. Their father consented to spare them on condition that the children should under no circumstances go into the kitchen or touch the kittens.
When dinner was over, Vania and Nina roamed disconsolately through the house, pining for their pets. The prohibition to enter the kitchen had plunged them in gloom. They refused candy when it was offered them and were cross and rude to their mother. When their Uncle Peter came in the evening they took him aside and complained to him of their father who wanted to throw the kittens into the slop-barrel.
“Uncle Peter,” they begged. “Tell mamma to have the kittens brought into the nursery! Do tell her!”
“All right, all right!” their uncle consented to get rid of them.
Uncle Peter seldom came alone. There generally appeared with him Nero, a big black Dane with flapping ears and a tail as hard as a stick. He was a silent and gloomy dog, full of the consciousness of his own dignity. He ignored the children and thumped them with his tail as he stalked by them as if they had been chairs. The children cordially hated him, but this time practical considerations triumphed over sentiment.
“Do you know what, Nina?” said Vania, opening his eyes very wide. “Let’s make Nero their father instead of the horse! The horse is dead and he is alive.”
They waited all the evening for the time to come when papa should sit down to his whist and Nero might be admitted into the kitchen. At last papa began playing. Mamma was busy over the samovar and was not noticing the children—the happy moment had come!
“Come on!” Vania whispered to his sister.
But just then Stepan came into the room and announced with a smile: