“Oh poor Kitty! I’se felled on the top of poor Kitty!”
But no, Kitty was not as much to be pitied as Mary herself, for the poor little girl’s knees were sadly scratched by the gravel and one of her hands was really bleeding. While, there was Kitty, galloping home in great glee—Leigh’s handkerchief spreading out behind her like a lady’s train.
Mary scarcely knew whether to laugh or cry. I think she did a little of both. Leigh wanted to catch pussy again, but nurse would not hear of it, and proposed instead that they should use the perambulator to bring home a beautiful lot of primroses for their mother, from the woods.
After this adventure with the kitten, Leigh tried one or two other “tricks,” as nurse called them. He wanted to make a coachman of one of his guinea-pigs, who sat quite still as long as he had a leaf of lettuce to munch, but when that was done let himself roll out like a ball over and over again, till even Leigh got tired of catching him and putting him back. Artie’s pet rabbit did no better, and then it was decided that when the dolls were ill it would be best to use the perambulator as a cart, for fetching flowers and fir-cones and all sorts of things. This was such fun that the dolls were often obliged to stay at home, even when their colds were not very bad.
And for nearly a week the children kept away from the smithy. Papa had been home during that week, of course, and they had tried to ask about the puppy. But he was very busy and hurried; all he could say was that he must see the dog first, and that of course he had had no time for.
At last there came a morning on which, when the children went down to see their father after the nursery breakfast, they found him sitting comfortably at the table pouring himself out a second cup of nice hot coffee and reading the newspaper, as if he was not in a hurry at all.
“Oh papa,” said Leigh, “how jolly it is to see you like that, instead of gobbling up your breakfast as if the train was at the door.”
“If the train came as near as that I shouldn’t be so hurried,” said his father laughing, but Mary did not look quite pleased.
“Papa doesn’t gobble,” she said. “Leigh shouldn’t speak that way, it’s like gooses and turkeys.”
“I didn’t mean that kind of gobbling,” said Leigh. “Turkeys gobble-wobble—it’s their way of talking. I didn’t mean that of papa.”