She hesitated, half turned as if to heed his entreaty, and then—then it happened.
"Susie's reader has a new poem in it; one that I never saw before, Tabitha," the teasing voice continued. "It says:
'My little black Tabby is perched on my knee;
As fierce as a lion or tiger is she;
She wakes—'"
Tabitha's books fell unheeded to the ground, she leaped toward her tormentor with fury in her heart, and dealt him a staggering blow full on the nose, screaming in rage,
"I would rather be a Tabby Catt than a cross-eyed, red-headed chimpanzee."
Pushing him violently from her, she turned and fled through the wide puddle and up the slope toward home, never hearing the loud splash behind her and the mingled screams and laughter, and not aware that the debonair Jerome with the blood spurting from his nose had lost his balance and toppled into the muddy water.
Indignant Carrie faced him as he rose to his feet, and stamping her foot in her extreme vexation, she boldly cried,
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Jerome Vane. Teacher said we mustn't tease her, and I'm glad you're hurt. You deserve to be." And she sped tearfully away in pursuit of her fleeing mate before the discomfited boy could find breath to tell her that he was ashamed of himself—thoroughly ashamed.
Miss Brooks had witnessed the fray from the window, but she wasn't the only grown-up spectator. A tall, dark man loaded down with a huge watermelon had come up the road just in time to hear and see the whole performance, and a smile of satisfaction lit his face when the girl came off victorious.
"Poor kid," he said under his breath. "She is a regular Catt all right. How will she come out of it?"