“Don’t dare suggest such a thing!” cried Ruth.
“I’m to have company this afternoon, and if that cat and her kittens appear on the scene—”
“Oh, I wasn’t going to carry them in!” interrupted Dot, with an air of injured innocence. “They’re Almira’s kittens, and she can do what she likes with them, I suppose,” she added as an afterthought. “Only I know that every once in a while she takes a notion to plant them in a new place. Once Uncle Rufus found them in his rubber boots, and they scratched him like anything when he put his foot inside.”
“Well, if you have to go to the store for Mrs. MacCall you won’t have any time to help me arrange the flowers,” observed Ruth, anxious to put an end to the discussion about the family cat and kittens, for she knew Dot had a fund of stories concerning them.
“Yes, traipse along now, my bonnie bairns,” advised the Scotch housekeeper, and, bribed by two cookies each, a special good measure on Saturday, Dot and Tess were soon on their way, or at least it was so supposed.
Linda was helping Mrs. MacCall clear away the baking utensils, and Ruth and Agnes were in the parlor and library, tastefully arranging the wild flowers that Dot and Tess had gathered.
“Isn’t Dot queer to cling still to her dolls?” remarked Agnes, as she stepped back to get the effect of a bunch of red flowers against a dark brown background in one corner of the room.
“Yes, she is a strange child. And poor Almira! Really I don’t see how that cat stands it here, the way Tess and Dot maul her.”
“They aren’t as bad as Sammy Pinkney. Actually I caught him yesterday tying the poor creature to the back of Billy Bumps!”
“Not on the goat’s back!” cried Ruth.