“Algernon Paul,” called Mrs. Holmes, shrilly, “let the kitty alone!”
Every one else on the premises heard the command, but “Algernon Paul,” perhaps because he was not yet fully accustomed to his new name, continued forcing Claudius Tiberius to walk about on his fore feet, the rest of him being held uncomfortably in the air by the guiding influence.
“Algernon!” The voice was so close this time that the cat was freed by his persecutor’s violent start. Seeing that it was only his mother, Algernon Paul attempted to recover his treasure again, and was badly scratched by that selfsame treasure. Whereupon Mrs. Holmes soundly cuffed Claudius Tiberius “for scratching dear little Ebbie, I mean Algernon Paul,” and received a bite or two on her own account.
“Come, Ebbie, dear,” she continued, “we are going now. We have been driven away from dear uncle’s. Where is sister?”
“Sister” was discovered in the forbidden Paradise of the chicken-coop, and dragged out, howling. Willie, not desiring to leave “dear uncle’s,” was forcibly retrieved by Dick from the roof of the barn.
Mr. Harold Vernon Perkins had silently disappeared in the night, but no one feared foul play. “He’ll be waitin’ at the train, I reckon,” said Mrs. Dodd, “an’ most likely composin’ a poem on ‘Departure’ or else breathin’ into a tube to see if he’s mad.”
She had taken her dismissal very calmly after the first shock. “A woman what’s been married seven times, same as I be,” she explained to Dorothy, “gets used to bein’ moved around from place to place. My sixth husband had the movin’ habit terrible. No sooner would we get settled nice an’ comfortable in a place, an’ I got enough acquainted to borrow sugar an’ tea an’ molasses from my new neighbours, than Thomas would decide to move, an’ more ’n likely, it’d be to some new town where there was a great openin’ in some new business that he’d never tried his hand at yet.
“My dear, I’ve been the wife of a undertaker, a livery-stable keeper, a patent medicine man, a grocer, a butcher, a farmer, an’ a justice of the peace, all in one an’ the same marriage. Seems ’s if there wa’n’t no business Thomas couldn’t feel to turn his hand to, an’ he knowed how they all ought to be run. If anybody was makin’ a failure of anythin’, Thomas knowed just why it was failin’ an’ I must say he ought to know, too, for I never see no more steady failer than Thomas.
“They say a rollin’ stone never gets no moss on it, but it gets worn terrible smooth, an’ by the time I ’d moved to eight or ten different towns an’ got as many as ’leven houses all fixed up, the corners was all broke off ’n me as well as off ’n the furniture. My third husband left me well provided with furniture, but when I went to my seventh altar, I didn’t have nothin’ left but a soap box an’ half a red blanket, on account of havin’ moved around so much.
“I got so’s I’d never unpack all the things in any one place, but keep ’em in their dry-goods boxes an’ barrels nice an’ handy to go on again. When the movin’ fit come on Thomas, I was always in such light marchin’ order that I could go on a day’s notice, an’ that’s the way we usually went. I told him once it’d be easier an’ cheaper to fit up a prairie schooner such as they used to cross the plains in, an’ then when we wanted to move, all we’d have to do would be to put a dipper of water on the fire an’ tell the mules to get ap, but it riled him so terrible that I never said nothin’ about it again, though all through my sixth marriage, it seemed a dretful likely notion.