“You did not tell me any thing about the bow-knot before,” said Lucy.
“No,” said Royal; “I just thought it would be a good plan to have a bow-knot.”
“Well, what else?” said Lucy.
“When the boy found that he could teach his cat so much, he concluded that he would teach her to sail on a board, in the little pond;—for you must understand that there was a little pond behind his father’s house. So, in order to teach her, he used to feed her at first very near the water; then on the board, which he would place every day more and more on the water. At last he taught her to go on eating a piece of meat while the board was sailing about the pond; and finally she would lie quietly on the board, when she had not any thing to eat, and so let him sail her all about the water. He made a board of the shape of the deck of a vessel, and put two masts into it; and he fastened a long string to the bows, and he would take hold of the end of this string himself, standing on the shore. When his cat was sailing, he used to call her Captain Merry of the ship Floater. She looked beautifully when she was sailing, sitting up straight, with her face towards the bows, her tail curled round to one side, and the beautiful bow-knot under her chin.”
Here Lucy clapped her hands, and seemed much delighted with the picture which Royal thus presented to her imagination.
“Besides,” said Royal, “Merry’s red collar was useful as well as beautiful; for, after a while, the mice in the field were all terribly afraid when they saw any thing red; and so Jeremiah just scattered a parcel of red rags about, and that frightened them all away.”
Here Royal and Lucy made the road ring with long and loud peals of laughter. When their glee, however, had in some measure subsided, Lucy said,—
“And is that what you call a probable story, Royal?”
“Why—yes,” said Royal, with some hesitation, “all except frightening the mice away. I don’t think that is very probable. But all the rest is; for a boy might very easily put a red ribbon around his cat’s neck for a collar, and then he might teach her to sail on a board, by managing kindly and carefully. But as for frightening away all the mice by red rags, I think myself that that was rather extravagant.”
“And now, Royal,” said Lucy, “tell me an extravagant story.”