Cyclone and the cats always travelled with the family, but John Alden and the rabbits had to go out on the load with the furniture.
“I couldn’t find a box high enough for Johnny to stand up in,” Franklin said, as he brought in his tool chest. “Guess he’ll have to scooch this trip.”
But the limberness of Johnny’s legs when he was turned loose at the lake showed that the trip had not really injured him. The rabbits also were allowed to run where they pleased, and gave delighted skips and kicks through the fern. Weejums cast one glance at the carpenters who were finishing some repairs in the house, and departed to the woods, where she remained for three days. She had never cared for the society of men, possibly because there were none in the family.
While she was away, Mustard and Elijah learned to eat fish, and spit at her when she returned. They were orange-colored babies, with corn-flower blue eyes, and looked like nice, warm muffins.
Every morning, Eunice and Kenneth fished off the dock, while Franklin pulled around in his half of the boat, and put on airs. He never went out very far unless some older person was with him, for both Mrs. Wood and Mrs. Lane had suffered so much from anxiety over the boat, that she was named the “Worry.” But Fred Lane came out from town every night, and he and Franklin took wonderful rows in the sunset, sailing with umbrellas, taking the swells from the steamers, and doing other delightful and dangerous things.
“A NICE WARM MUFFIN”
Weejums was dreadfully afraid of the water at first, and would run back and forth in the road, howling, whenever the children went down to the dock. She seemed to think there was small chance of ever seeing them again. But when she found that fish came out of the water, her dislike of it changed to warm affection. She would tease and coax until Eunice went down to catch her a fish, and would begin eating it almost before it was off the hook. The first fish she always finished herself, and the next she took up to the kittens.
Sometimes, when the boat was tied to the dock, she would jump into it, and sit placidly in the stern, enjoying the slight motion made by the ripples, and apparently admiring the view. When the door of the locker was left open, she would creep inside for a nap, and once or twice she went rowing with the boys, before they discovered her presence.
Ivanhoe and Clytie preferred to play on land, and indulged in regular gymnastic feats through the trees and shrubbery. Whenever Mrs. Wood went anywhere in the evening, they both escorted her, and dashed out from unexpected places with saucy tails, and whiskers stiff with mischief. They liked to tease Cyclone, by making him think that they were weasels and woodchucks, and they frightened people dreadfully who passed the house at night. But the children’s interest in them and their antics was soon lost in an event of greater importance.