XII
MRS. WHITE-SPOT AND HER KITTENS
TIMMY lived in the red farmhouse at the foot of the mountain. Up the lonely mountain road, just above, runs a merry brook which crosses the road occasionally, and at such places it flows beneath a little plank bridge.
Over this road Timmy often traveled on his way to and from the cow pasture. It was a very quiet, lonely road, thickly hedged upon each side with bushes and overhanging white birches upon which Timmy loved to swing, and on the dark green spruces he found lumps of amber gum; so, altogether, he thought it a most attractive road. Just before the brook decides to cross the road, in one very secluded spot, it spreads itself out and makes quite a fine deep pool, which forms a splendid swimming hole. Not many of the boys knew about it, but all the little wild dwellers of fur and feathers, who lived near by in the forest, knew all about that pool, and often came there to drink and bathe.