"Nonsense!" said Louis, who felt very much wiser than Carrie, she being to his mind "only a girl;" "I don't believe nurse's story. I can always understand what Fritz says, and I say he can not bow-wow any plainer than he did this morning when he bid me good-by."
"Yes, he can," persisted Carrie. "Nurse says so, and she knows, for her grandfather told her all about it when she was a little bit of a girl, and he was a real old, old man. If people believed it so many years ago, it must be true."
Louis's confidence in his own wisdom was somewhat weakened by the thought of nurse's grandfather, but, boy-like, he only began to sing tauntingly:
"Into woods where beasts can talk,
I went out to take a walk."
"I'm going to stay awake anyway, and talk to my kitty," said little Hope, "because I know what nurse said is true. I saw my kitty laugh when she heard nurse say it." Carrie was silent. She walked at Louis's side, kicking the pebbles of the gravelled path with her feet.
"Oh, if you girls are going to make such a fuss about it, I'll sit up with you," said Louis; "and if nurse's grandfather said so," he added, hesitatingly, "perhaps it is true, after all. He was a very old man, and he must have known."
"Of course he knew," said Carrie, "for nurse said he had a cow, a red and white one, that told him lots of things every year on this very night."
After the mention of the red and white cow, Louis made no more opposition, and the children soon separated, Louis to spend the day in school while Carrie and Hope scampered home, said their lessons to mamma, and then went to play with Fritz, the big dog, Bess, the white kitty, Lorito, a large gray parrot, and the new canary which papa had bought only the day before.
When evening came papa and mamma went to the party, and nurse, who had forgotten all about her grandfather and the red and white cow, wondered why the children went to bed so willingly, for they were sometimes very willful, and made nurse a great deal of trouble when she undressed them. She was very glad they were good to-night, because, as "missis" was away, she had made up her mind to go to a party herself, the house-maid having promised to run up to the nursery if she heard the children calling. There was little danger, however, that they would call for a drink of water or anything else that night, for as they were not in the least sure of nurse's sympathy in their midnight vigil, they had agreed to go to bed as quiet as mice and watch their chance of slipping unobserved to the library, where their pets spent the night. Long after nurse had gone down stairs, and when the house was very, very still, Carrie sat up in bed and gently called her brother, who slept in a little room of his own adjoining the nursery.
"Louis! Louis!" she said.