“And one is tortoise-shell like—no, not like Weejums. Isn’t it a funny color, Mamma?”
“Yes, if she was ever planned for a tortoise-shell, her colors must have run.”
Eunice looked alarmed, and wondered if all the other kittens’ colors would run together, like the dyes of Easter eggs when they come out wrong. But there was really nothing strange about this kitten, except that where her black spots should have been black, to make her a regular tortoise-shell, they were a kind of mixed brindle and maltese, with speckled and drab lights. The rest of her was a nice yellow and white, as it should be.
“She looks like my old laundry-bag,” said Grandmother; “but I kept her for the sake of that alley cat.”
“Oh, say, come out and see the rabbits try the new house!” called Franklin at the shed-door, and everybody but Grandmother hurried out into the yard; for the rabbits had just come home from “Beansy’s,” where they had spent the summer, and were to begin house-keeping in their new quarters.
Mrs. Wood was particularly interested in the big rabbit-house, because she had helped draw plans for the billiard and drawing rooms, and herself suggested that there should be an upstairs.
There were two rabbits, a black one with white spots, and a white one with black spots, and they were called Mercurius Dulcis and the Overture to Zampa. Franklin had found the first name on one of his mother’s medicine-bottles, and admired it; but Mrs. Bun was always called Dulcie for short. The Overture was a fine, big fellow with muscular sides, and a louder stamp of the hind leg than any other rabbit in the Rabbit Club. Indeed, Franklin had been made president of the Rabbit Club, just because of the size and strength and sound of the Overture’s feet. Even Beansy’s white buck, Alonzo, was nothing beside him.
“You put Stamper in the front door,” Franklin said to Beansy, for Stamper was the Overture’s club name, “and I’ll put Dulcie in the cupola. Then he’ll have to go up, and she’ll have to come down.”
The cupola had a top that came off, something like the cover of a baking-powder tin, and Dulcie was thrust in, with a terrific kicking and scrambling of resentful hind legs. But she was no fun at all afterwards, for she sat perfectly still in a frightened bunch, with her nose wiggling very fast,and did not try to move.
“Stamper’s all right, though,” Beansy said, with his face against the wire-netting. “He’s going upstairs.”