A VAMPIRE BAT.
A NIGHT VISITOR.
We were all sitting in the parlor one evening last summer when in flew a creature through the open window. Bump—bump, he went against the wall and ceiling.
“A bat! a bat!” shrieked aunt Mary, and ran behind the door. Mamma jumped up into a chair and gathered her skirts about her, just as though it were a mouse. Grace and Mabel ran out of the Room, while papa and Frank and Kate chased the bat.
The poor little bat fluttered about, and almost fell into the kerosene lamp chimney. Then he got entangled in the window draperies. You know a bat cannot see by a light any more than an owl can. He finally tumbled behind the sofa where papa caught him.
Mamma then got down from the chair, aunt Mary came out from behind the door, Grace and Mabel ventured in, and we all gathered about and looked at the bat. How he panted!
“Think of being afraid of such a little creature as that,” said Kate scornfully.
“But he bites,” said Grace. “Doesn’t he, papa?”
“I don’t think he would bite,” said papa. “He’s a good deal more frightened than you were.”
“What made him fly into the window then?” asked Grace.