Rosanna and Myron felt that their time had come. They looked at each other, but Minnie settled the question.
"Now it is Miss Rosanna's turn," she said, "and then Myron's. Ladies first. Give us a real nice story, Miss Rosanna."
"About robbers," said Tommy, chewing on a grass stem.
"I don't know any about robbers," said Rosanna pleasantly, "but I do know one about a cat, or a kitten rather, and it really happened. Helen told one about a dog, and this is about a cat.
"Once there were two little boys, Walter and Harold, and they were going a long, long way to their new home in the West where they were going to live. And they had a pet kitten that they wanted to take along so badly that fin'ly their mother and father said they might take it if they would carry it in its basket all the way and never ask anyone else to take care of it. So they said they would, and by-and-by they had everything packed up and ready, and when the time came, they started off and got on the train, kitten and all.
"They had things for it to eat and milk for it to drink, and when the conductor was not in the car they used to take it out of its basket and pet it and play with it. And the kitten didn't mind it a bit.
"Well, when they had been on the train a couple of days they let the kitten out, and Harold had it on his lap sound asleep.
"But just when they were at a station and the train was standing still, something awfully exciting happened outside the window, and both boys forgot the kitten. She jumped down from Harold's lap and went along under the seats toward the end of the car. She thought she was going to have a nice little walk, but just then the brakeman came into the car and there was a kitten under one of the seats. He thought of course it had hopped on the car there at the station, so he took it up and put the poor little thing off the train, and then that very minute the whistle blew and off they went.
"It was a vestibule train, and when Walter and Harold found out that their kitten was gone they hunted every inch of the car over, and then hunted through the next car, thinking that she might have gone across the vestibule and into the other car. But she was not there. Just then along came the brakeman again and when the boys asked him if he had seen a kitten, he said, 'Why, sure! Was that your cat? I thought she had hopped on the train back there at the last station, and I took her and put her off.'
"Well, the boys felt so badly they didn't know what to do, and the brakeman said they would not stop at any station for sixty miles. Walter said he was going back to see if he could find her, but the brakeman said she was most likely gone by this time or somebody had picked her up. He was awfully sorry about it.