I pressed my advantage:—
"And don't tell Mam' Chloe—please! She'll think it is cruel. But it isn't. It's just only justice. And it can't bring them back."
I clenched my fists, and my eyes filled.
"That's so, Miss Molly, that's so," sobering instantly. "It is mighty hard on you—powerful hard."
"And, Uncle Ike,"—hurrying to get it out lest my voice should fail,—"please don't let anybody give me any more old hares, or any 'live things to keep. They'll just die, or be murdered by other folks' cats—or something. It's no use making myself happy for a little while just to be sorry for ever and ever so long afterward."
With which epigram I ran away, afraid to try to utter another word.
That evening we were all on the front porch. The air was breezeless, the moon as yellow as brass through sultry fogs. My mother, in a white dress, lay back in her rocking-chair and fanned herself languidly. My father smoked his Powhatan pipe upon the steps, leaning against one pillar of the roof. Mary 'Liza in pale-blue lawn, occupied the other end of the step. Her hands were in her lap. Cinderella dozed upon a fold of her skirt. Dorinda had been undressed and rocked to sleep at sunset. Preciosa had gone upstairs at the same time. I saw her lying upon the foot of our bed after supper, her eyes narrowed to slender slits with sleep or slyness. I had a shrewd impression that if I were to go upstairs now I should not find her in the same place. Instead of verifying the surmise in this way I stole noiselessly out of the family group, sauntering along carelessly until I turned the corner of the house, after which I ran like a lapwing to the garden gate, the rendezvous agreed upon between Uncle Ike and myself.
He was there with the various "properties" I had ordered.
Imprimis, a big dish-pan; second, a monstrous black pot from which steam arose into the hot night; third, a stout twine, to one end of which was attached a brick; a lump of raw liver dangled at the other. By my directions the pan was balanced upon the shelf where the cottage had stood, so that a slight pull would overset it, the brick was laid in the bottom, the string with the liver attachment hanging over the side. Lastly, Uncle Ike mounted upon the stool I was wont to use when I visited my murdered dears, and filled the pan from the pot. All being ready, we conspirators withdrew to the unlighted dining room, and stationed ourselves at a window.
Our watch was not tedious. I was the first to discern a moving speck in the dim vista of the walk leading from the gate far down the garden. It enlarged and assumed a definite form, slowly. Evidently it was a scout, and the advance a reconnoissance. Feline artifice was in every line and motion. A ray of misty moonlight lay athwart the entrance to the garden. The gate was propped open. As the cat crossed it, we recognized a wily and wicked old Tom from the stable, a disreputable plebeian prowler, never tolerated in the house grounds. I hardly smothered an ejaculation as dainty Preciosa glided into the illuminated area and took part in the furtive inspection of the preparations made for the reception of last night's marauders. A third, and yet a fourth, miscreant joined the first two, and heads were laid together in a council of war.