As she read it again, her eyes twinkled and her chin tilted to its most rebellious angle. “I reckon mother would put her foot down hard if she knew about it,” she said to herself, and then pursed her lips and whistled a few notes. “And Rhoda would think it a very shocking thing for me to do. But I don’t care, I’m going to. I reckon father wouldn’t mind—indeed, I’m sure he’d be pleased. Yes, father would be glad enough if Jeff should— So it’s all right.” She giggled softly and the look of amusement deepened on her face as she addressed the envelope.
“There!” she exclaimed as she sealed the letter, “now there’ll be some fun!” Springing to her feet she danced about the room, stopping in front of the mirror after a few steps to practise tilting her hoopskirts, without seeming to do so, at a higher angle than she had ever dared before.
Mrs. Ware, starting downstairs, in bonnet and shawl, with her letter in her pocket, heard a shriek from Charlotte’s room. “What’s the matter, dearie?” she called in quick alarm, and opened the door.
Charlotte was standing on a chair in front of her closet door, her skirts drawn up to her knees, her two plump calves and slender ankles and trim little feet trembling with the agitation which shrilled in her voice: “Oh, mother, there’s a mouse in my closet!”
“Oh, is that all, honey! My heart was in my throat, for I thought you must have half-killed yourself. Get Bully Brooks and shut him up in your room. He’s getting to be a fine mouser. Dress yourself, honey, and look for him. I’d bring him up for you, but your father’s waiting for me and I must hurry. Good-by, dear. I’ll be back in two or three hours.”
With anxious haste and many apprehensive glances at the harboring closet, now closed and locked, Charlotte dressed herself and hurried down stairs. “Do you know where Bully Brooks is?” she asked of Lizzie in the kitchen.
“Dat good-fo’-nuthin’ cat?” teased Lizzie, with a broad grin at Charlotte’s pantomimic threats of displeasure and retaliation. “I done see him jess now streakin’ out to’d de bahn wif his tail in de air, like he was totin’ a flag at de head of a percession.”
Charlotte sped down the walk to the barn and looked all about and called softly, “Bully Brooks! Bully Brooks!” The door leading from the barn into the woodshed was open and she thought, “Maybe he’s gone in there.”
“My! What a lot of wood we’ve used this winter!” she said to herself. “The last time I was in here, last fall, the shed was nearly full. And now there’s only that pile in the middle.” She moved toward the back of the inclosure, her gaze searching the corners, then falling upon the irregularly piled sticks at the back of the neat cords.
“There he is!” she exclaimed softly, as she saw a gray tail sticking out from between the logs. Speedily she bore down upon him. “Here, ‘yo’ good-fo’-nuthin’ cat,’” she muttered, “come out here.” She made a grab for his tail, but he whisked it suddenly aside, and went on, threading his way between the chunks of wood, his head stretched out and nostrils working.