“Bobby!” Meg almost screamed. “Bobby! don’t let him drown the kittens.”
Meg was, as her family said, “crazy” about all animals, and kittens were her special delight. But then Bobby didn’t like the idea of drowning four helpless little cats in the icy cold water of the pond, either. He started after Charlie Black, and Meg went after him and really 142 wished she didn’t have a new dress for a moment because she found the box a nuisance to carry.
Charlie could skate fairly well, but that was when he was watching where he was going. This time he was watching Bobby instead and as a result he failed to see a curb and went over it with a jolt that landed him on his knees. Before he could rise, Bobby and Meg had caught Up with him.
“Where––are––the––kittens?” gasped Meg.
“In a bag,” Charlie answered sullenly.
“You give them to us,” said Bobby sternly. “If no one wants them, we can take them home.”
“The man said to drown them––they’re his cats and I guess he has a right to say what he wants done with them,” Charlie retorted.
Meg thought about this a minute.
“I’ll go see the man,” she announced calmly. “Where are the kittens?”
Now whether Charlie really didn’t want to drown the little, soft helpless kittens, or whether he was afraid of Bobby––perhaps his reasons were mixed as reasons often are––no one knew. But he said that Meg and Bobby could come 143 home with him and he would give them the kittens.