Then Charlie roared harder than ever, and held up a little fat hand to show a great scratch on it. Pussy had scratched him because he was taking her babies up by the tail.
“He is real naughty,” said Nellie, who had followed him; “he makes the little kittens squeal, and that is why Pussy scratches him.”
Charlie fairly bellowed now, because his scratch hurt him and because he could not do as he liked with the kittens. He had been sick a great deal, and had had his own way too much.
Aunt Lillie put a piece of thin plaster on the scratch, and then Charlie said, “All well now,” and ran back to the barn with his face full of smiles. His mamma thought he had been punished enough, for Pussy gave him a pretty hard scratch, and he promised to be very gentle with the kittens.
Bessie was seated on the barn-floor with all the little kittens in her lap, and Mother Puss was purring around her and not minding it at all. They were such pretty little things—white, with black tails, and they all had blue eyes! They had just got their eyes open.
“Here is some milk for you, Pussy,” said Martha as she put a large dish of it down on the floor. Martha was the girl who took care of the milk and butter, that were kept in a little house half sunk in the ground. This was the dairy.
Pussy did not like to leave her kittens long, even to get something to eat, and Martha often brought her milk, so that she would not be hungry.
“Come with me,” said Martha to the children, “and I will show you some babies smaller than these kittens; I found them yesterday.”
The kittens were quickly put back into their straw nest in the manger, and the children followed Martha to see what she had to show them.
She took them into the corn-crib, which was near the barn; and where the corn was all kept with which the animals were fed. In a dark corner, right under a sloping beam, there was an old box, and in this box there was a funny sort of nest made of straw and rags.