The Chinese Kitten
CHAPTER I
THE SURPRISE
“I think,” said Lucy Merrill in a whisper to her sister Dora, “that Uncle Dan has a surprise for us.”
Dora was industriously setting the table for supper. Lucy, at the kitchen dresser, was peeling peaches. Lucy had on a big apron belonging to her mother, and it covered both her and the stool on which she sat. Dora wore a pink apron over her checked pink-and-white dress, and Dora’s apron was just like the big one, only the right size.
Lucy owned a proper-sized apron also, but Lucy had been unlucky enough to upset the blueing bottle when she took a dish from the kitchen closet. Her apron wasn’t hurt a bit, but Mrs. Merrill had rinsed it out and now it was flapping on the line in the back yard. The closet floor was bluer than the apron and not so easy to wash.
“What makes you think there is a surprise?” asked Dora, standing back from the table to see whether she had remembered everything that anybody could use during supper. No, she had forgotten the pulverized sugar for the peaches.
“Because,” said Lucy, “he keeps following Mother everywhere she goes, and I know he is teasing her to do something. I heard him say something about the beach.”