“Let me frow one in,” cried three-year-old Kenneth, much excited, picking up one helpless little straggler, and pitching it eagerly into the water. “Pote it down, Zaidee!”
Eunice and Cricket were so much amazed at this blood-thirsty sight, that at first they simply stared. But when little Kenneth pushed down the heads of the helpless victims, Eunice recovered herself and rushed to the rescue.
“Why, you naughty, naughty children,” she said, in her severest tones, “to drown the poor little kittens! How would you like me to poke you down under the water like that, Kenneth?”
“Sylvie says it doesn’t hurt ’em,” said Kenneth, opening his big blue eyes.
“Of course it hurts to be thumped on the head,” said Eunice. “Eliza, you ought not let them do so.”
“Oh, law! them kittens don’t mind,” said the nurse, carelessly. “They’ll never know what killed ’em.”
“Mamma told Dennis to drown zem, her own self, she did,” objected Sylvie, clinging to her stick.
“Dennis doesn’t drown them that way, goosie,” explained Eunice. “He ties them up in a bag, and puts a stone in it, and they all drown so fast that they never know it. It’s cruel to hit them that way, you naughty little things, and you must promise never to do it again.”
The children, subdued by Eunice’s sharp words and older-sister authority, duly promised, very gravely, though Sylvie could not resist a last sly rap. The little, helpless, bobbing things by this time floated quietly on the surface, and one by one the little bodies drifted beyond reach of the children’s sticks.
Then Kenneth, who was only a baby, began to whimper.