"It was thrown out among the stuff we are going to leave here, so I guess he won't care. I'd like to take it, though, Tom, for it has the loveliest names in it. Just listen here,—'Theodora Marcella Folwell'—ain't that grand? And here's another, 'Gabrielle Flora Folwell'—"
"What in the world are you reading?" asked the puzzled boy, craning his neck out of the window to see what sort of a Bible it could be with such names as these in it.
"Aunt Maria said it was an old Bible that we've carted around for years and it is such a nuisance to move that they don't mean to pack it this time at all. There are a lot of names in the back and some awfully homely pictures. I rubbed my finger on one and it smooched the nose clear off and blurred both eyes, but he wasn't good looking anyway. It isn't much worse now. On one page it says 'Births,' and on another 'Deaths,' and on the third 'Marriages.'"
"Oh!" Tom was suddenly enlightened. "Hold the book fast now and I'll come down where you are and get it. Don't fall."
His instructions were unnecessary. Tabitha's legs were curled around the big bough so tightly that it would have taken a cyclone to dislodge her, and the mammoth Bible hung suspended by its broken back from an adjacent branch in such a fashion that as long as its heavy binding held it could not fall. But it took considerable effort to haul it up into the house again, and this was finally accomplished only after Tabitha had crawled back through the window to tug at it from above, while Tom pushed at it from below, swaying and bumping in the sycamore until both children held their breath for fear boy and Bible would land in a heap on the ground.
"There!" breathed Tabitha with a sigh of relief when at last the volume lay safe on the wide window-sill. "Now you can see all the names yourself. I never heard such grand ones before. How do you pronounce A-m-a-r-i-a-h? And here's a perfectly beautiful one D-i-o-n-y-s-i-u-s Carpenter. It has him down under the marriages with Pen-e-lope Miranda Folwell. Don't you think that is pretty? They are all so different from John and Frank and—and—Thomas and Tabitha. I wish I could pick out a pretty name for my very own and have folks call me that always. Don't you?"
Tom was intently studying the records penned in faded ink on the yellow pages, and now he raised his head and looked into the eager black eyes upturned to his, as he said slowly,
"Puss, this must be the family Bible that belonged to Mother's folks. I can remember Dad used to call her Dora, and I have an old letter I found in a book a long time ago that has the name Folwell on it. Yes, here's the record. See, Puss? 'Theodora Marcella Folwell and Lynne Maximilian Catt, married Sept. 10th, 18—,' it's blurred so I can't read the rest of it. But that must be Dad. His name is Maximilian, you know, though I never heard the Lynne part of it before."
"Lynne," repeated Tabitha, half to herself. "That might be a pretty name if it belonged to anyone but a Catt man. Lynne Catt—hm! Lean cat. That's what everybody would call him. I bet that's why he used his middle name. I'd rather be nicknamed 'Manx cat' than to be called 'lean cat,' wouldn't you? 'Skinny, scrawny Tabby Catt'—that's what they call me, Tom. My name might as well have been 'Lynne.'"
"Never mind, Puss. When we get moved to Silver Bow, people won't know about that rhyme."