“The rest of the tale is obvious enough,” said my friend Annabel Lee, laughing gently and changing her tone.
“But please tell it,” said I, with much eagerness.
“Well, then,” said my friend Annabel Lee:—
“The afternoon waned, and Mrs. Kaatenstein came home. She heard unusual noises in her beloved duck-yard, and fled thither, as fast as her goodly proportions would allow.
“Her eyes met a sight which was maddening to them.
“They beheld little Willy Kaatenstein, looking decidedly pale and puffy, sitting weakly on a box containing a setting-duck—and the two objectionable Kelly children actually at that moment feeding her choicest goose with gum-drops. Scattered all about the once neat duck yard was rubbish in frightful variety, and a half-dozen of her tiny ducklings were busy at an atrocious watermelon. Certainly no one but those Irish young ones could have brought in so much litter. It did not take Bill and Katy Kelly long to gather that they were not wanted there. Mrs. Kaatenstein quite quenched, for the time, their fondness for feasts. As they went, she ordered them to take their vile belongings with them, which they were willing enough to do—as much of them as they could carry. They bestowed an apprehensive glance on little Willy Kaatenstein—but little Willy Kaatenstein’s face was only pale, puffy and very passive. Having dispersed the Kellys, Mrs. Kaatenstein led her son into the house and stopped in the kitchen to demand of Emma why she allowed such things to happen, and ordered her to go at once and clean out the duck-yard. Emma obeyed, first giving up Mrs. Kaatenstein’s bed-room key and explaining her own possession of it.
“Then Mrs. Kaatenstein, after doctoring little Willy Kaatenstein’s poor little stomach and laying him neatly out on a sofa in a cool, dark room, went on to her own room, whence proceeded unusual noises. Unlocking and opening the door, a sight the like of which she had not of late years known overwhelmed her spirit.
“The short, dead silence that followed her appearance on the threshhold was but emphasized by the merry tinkling of the gay little circus which had been wound up and would not stop, even under the dark influence of impending tragedy.——
“Well,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “the case of Harry Kaatenstein and Leah Kaatenstein and Jenny Kaatenstein was attended to by their mother. She whipped them all soundly and sent them to bed.