“But they were so cunning!” sobbed the children.
“All young animals are ‘cunning,’” replied mamma with a smile, “but we should not be very comfortable unless some of them were killed. How would it do to have the house full of mice?”
That did not sound very pleasant, and they began to see that Pussy was not so bad, after all.
“Besides,” said Jimmie, remembering what he had read, “we eat cows and sheep and pigs and chickens ourselves, so we are just as bad as Pussy.”
“Come with me, Charlie,” said Aunt Lillie, “and I will show you a picture-book which I am sure you will like.”
Charlie stopped crying at this promise, and went with his auntie, of whom he was very fond.
But he and Bessie had a quarrel that same day about this very auntie, whom Bessie always claimed as her own property. She didn’t see how she could belong to any one else; and she said to Charlie, “She isn’t your aunt Lillie; she’s mine.”
“Tain’t!” replied Charlie, beginning to blubber; “it’s mine auntie Lillie.”
The little pilgrim was so angry at this that she started to run and ask Aunt Lillie if she wasn’t her very own auntie and no one else’s. But she went too fast, and before she knew it she was down on her nose.
Auntie happened to come along just in time to pick the little pilgrim up and comfort her. Then she told the two little cousins how wrong it was to quarrel, and that she was auntie to both of them.