“No, no,” said Phronsie, shaking her head, “I want to stay here, Polly, I do.” And she seized Polly’s hand to drag her along. “Oh, there’s a kitty!” And she dropped the hand and ran off.
“Don’t touch her, Phronsie,” called Polly, racing after, but too late!—Phronsie already had in her arms a mangy, yellow cat, very dirty, and with big green eyes, now at their widest with fright.
“She’ll bite you,” screamed Polly. “Put her down, child,” as she got up to Phronsie’s side.
But Phronsie only hugged the dirty cat closer. “She won’t bite me,” she said. “Polly, she truly won’t,” as a small boy in a ragged pair of blue cotton overalls dashed out of the doorway and over the broken steps.
“You put down my cat, you girl, you!” he cried, with a fierce jump at Phronsie, who was quite willing now to drop the yellow cat. But unfortunately the cat’s long claws of one leg caught in Phronsie’s pinafore and in trying to get away from the dirty hands of the boy, toward whom she seemed to have very little love, she put her claws on Phronsie’s neck, and as she leaped over her shoulder, there was a long red mark left to show where she had sprung off.
“Now, you see, you’ve driven off my cat!” screamed the boy, anger all over his dirty little face, as the yellow cat leaped over the refuse heap and disappeared into a patch of scrub oaks.
“Oh, Phronsie,” exclaimed Polly, in distress, “just look at your neck,” which was quite impossible for Phronsie to do, as the long scratch was up over the little pink pinafore ruffle. But it was there, Phronsie knew quite well, as it began to sting and ache. “It hurts, Polly,” she said, putting up her hand to it, as she huddled up next to Polly’s gown to get away from that dreadful boy.
“I know, child,” said Polly, soothingly; “well, Doctor Fisher will fix it when he gets through in the house.”
“He ain’t ever goin’ to get through, the doctor man ain’t,” said the boy, quite ready to hold conversation, visitors being few and far between. “Mother’s got hurt, an’ he’s fixin’ her up.”
“Your mother’s got hurt?” repeated Polly, her eyes widening in sympathy. “O dear me, how?”