“I’m goin’ to warn you folks,” went on Peg, without heeding the child’s interjection, “that—if—you don’t want their necks wrung, you’d better keep ’em out of my way.”
Saying this, she dropped the mother cat with a soft thud, and without looking up, dumped the kittens on top of her, and stalked out of the room.
When Jinnie appeared five minutes later in the kitchen with a small kitten in her hand, Peg was stirring the mush for breakfast.
“You hate the kitties, eh, Peg?” asked Jinnie.
The two tense wrinkles at the corners of Mrs. Grandoken’s mouth didn’t relax by so much as a hair’s line.
“Hate ’em!” she snapped, “I should say I do! I hate every one of them cats, and I hate you, too! An’ if y’ don’t like it, y’ can lump it. If the lumps is too big, smash ’em.” 121
“I know you hate us, darling,” Jinnie admitted, “but, Peg, I want to tell you this: it’s ever so much easier to love folks than to hate ’em, and as long as the kitties’re going to stay, I thought mebbe if you kissed ’em once—” Then she extended the kitten. “I brought you one to try on.”
“Well, Lord-a-massy, the girl’s crazy!” expostulated Peg. “Keep the cats if you’re bound to, you kid, but get out of this kitchen or I’ll kiss you both with the broom.”
Jinnie disappeared, and Peggy heard a gleeful laugh as the girl scurried back to the shop.