“She’s smelling the china dish with her nose. Come down; come down!” said Lucy.
Judy did not come, but continued to sniff at the dish.
“Stop that!” said Jimmy. “Come down, or I’ll pull you down!”
In a frolicsome mood he caught her by the tail, not roughly or unkindly. He had been taught gentleness to animals; but somehow in dragging her backward the fruit-dish got in the way. Perhaps Judy’s paw touched it, perhaps Jimmy’s elbow. Yes, it was probably Jimmy’s elbow. At any rate, the dish was overturned; and as it fell to the floor it broke in half a dozen pieces.
“Who did that?” cried Jimmy in dismay. He had not been aware of touching the dish. It was certainly an accident; still he was old enough to know that he was to blame for the accident. He should not have played with the cat while her nose was in the fruit-dish.
Yet he was the good boy who had just been scolding his little sister for nothing at all! The good boy who never did wrong!
“Oh, that beau’-ful dish!” sighed Lucy. “Poor mamma’ll feel so bad!”
“Well, ’twas the cat did it,” said Jimmy quickly.
His forehead was full of wrinkles; his eyes were full of tears. Lucy always made ready to cry when he cried, and now she turned up the corner of her apron; and for half a minute the room was so still that you could almost have heard a fly walking on the roller-towel.