“Fuff—siss—meow!”
“What’s that?” cried Joel, emerging from the big handkerchief with dry and shining cheeks, and pricking up his ears. Little Davie whirled around to listen, too.
“Oh, that?” said the little doctor, bursting into a laugh; “well—run over and ask Phronsie. Good-by, children,” and he skipped to the door and hurried out to climb into his gig and rattle off.
Joel plunged over to Phronsie, little David racing after. “Give her to me, Phron,” screamed Joel, catching sight of the little white ball.
The kitten, quite accustomed now to Phronsie’s fat little arms, had snuggled down, thinking it wasn’t such a very bad place, after all, that she had come to, but at Joel’s loud cry she sprang upright and glared at the two boys,—the very things, if the truth must be told, that she had fled from when she jumped in that old gig standing in the front of her home down in the Hollow.
“Oh, Joel, don’t—you’re scaring her to death,” said Polly, while Phronsie screamed in dismay, and struggled, her face very pink, to hold the little cat.
“Phoh! I ain’t scaring her,” said Joel, poking his stubby black head up closer.
“Don’t, Joey,” begged David, trying to pull him back, but the little white cat, considering it wiser all around to look out for herself, struggled out of Phronsie’s arms and leaped across the kitchen floor, and in a minute there she was, perched up on top of the old corner cupboard and glaring down at them out of two big, angry eyes.
“Now see what you’ve done, Joel,” exclaimed Polly, in vexation. “There, Phronsie, don’t cry; your kitty can’t get away.”
Phronsie, since Polly said so, stopped her screams, and running over to the cupboard,—“Come back, my little white kitty,” she begged, holding up her arms.