"I'm tired now, and sleepy, too,
Come put me in my little bed."
She had laid the baby's little fisting hands into his and told him that he must always take good care of little sister. He never saw the mother again, but after days of hushed voices and light steps in the big house, Aunt Maria had come to take care of them, and they moved away to another town.
The baby lived and had grown from year to year until she was now past eight years old, and he had tried his best to take care of her. But she had never known a mother's love nor a father's. Oh yes, the father was living. Tom could remember the tall, dark man having once seized him in his arms and pressed passionate kisses upon his lips, but he had never seen him caress the little helpless bundle the mother had left when the angels carried her away. Sometimes it seemed as if he could faintly recall having heard the father say bitterly to that unconscious babe, "You have killed your mother." And then it seemed as if a woman's voice answered him accusingly, "You killed her yourself when you named the child Tabitha." Tom was fourteen years old now, but some of these memories were so dim that he could not be sure they were really memories and not dreams that had come to him in the night and clung, as so often such fancies do.
There had been no one to ask, for Aunt Maria had not come until later, and even then, she did not talk to the children very much, so he had grown accustomed to thinking of these things just to himself. Tabitha was too young to be made his confidante in such matters; indeed, he could never tell her some things. They would only make her hate the austere father more than ever. So he sighed. This was the fifth time they had moved from one town to another since the mother had died, and each place was worse than the last. No sooner were they well established in one city than the restless spirit seized the father and they moved again. How would it end?
"Do you, Tom? This is the third time I have asked you that."
"I'm sorry, Puss. I was thinking about something else just then. What is it?"
"Do you s'pose we will ever have any friends? Rosalie says next week three of her little friends where they used to live are coming to stay with her until school begins in September; and when she asked me if I ever had any friends come to visit me, I had to tell her I never had any friends. She seemed ever so surprised, and I did want to stay in one place long enough to have some friends. But I s'pose it is my name that keeps folks from being friends with me. No one would want to say, 'My chum's name is Tabitha Catt.' Would they? Everybody would laugh and maybe they would sing:
'Tabby Catt, Tabby Catt,
Drink some milk and make you fat,
Skinny, scrawny Tabby Catt.'
Wouldn't that make the friend feel awful? Am I very skinny, Tom?"
Poor Tom! How could he answer the avalanche of questions? At fourteen one is not very wise, but Tom squeezed the rough hand still holding his, and answered hopefully, "Some day we will have some friends, Pussy. And some day when I get big and can work for you, we will settle down and live in one town, and people will come to see us, and they won't care anything about our names."