Читать книгу Hesper, the Home-Spirit - Doten Lizzie - Страница 10

Aunt Betsey did not find the boys so much of a hindrance as she had expected. They sat very quietly by the fire, looking at the pictures in a book of Natural History, while she continued sewing upon her bed-quilt as before. She soon had occasion though, to stir up the fire, and as she did so, she spied a great muddy foot-mark directly across the white rose in the centre of her rug. “O dear!” she exclaimed, “did I ever see such dirty children?” She was just beginning to scold, when she checked herself, for she thought that she was most to blame, for not telling them to clean their feet well when they came in. Charlie said he was very sorry, and Fred proposed that they should go out and scrape their boots directly. Meanwhile Aunt Betsey took the rug into the kitchen, and after a little drying and brushing it looked as well as ever.

“Well,” said she, “it isn’t so bad after all, and if I don’t meet with anything worse, I’ll not complain.”

When she went back she found that the boys after they had cleaned their boots, had left them in the entry, which pleased her very much. She gave them some apples to roast, and then she concluded to go down to her husband’s store of an errand.

“Be very careful,” said she, as she went out, “and behave yourselves properly till I come back.” When the boys had roasted their apples, they set them aside to cool, and began to play with the cats.

“Fred,” said Charlie, “shouldn’t you think that Aunt Betsey would be afraid that her cats would eat the birds?”

“O no,” said Fred, “for they hang so high they cannot get at them.”

“But,” continued Charlie, whose curiosity was always wide awake, “I wonder what the birds would do if they should see this old grey cat close to the cage?”

“Let’s try;” said Fred. “I’ll hold her tight,” and the “next moment he was standing up in a chair, under the cage, with the cat in his arms.

“I can’t reach,” said he. So he got down and looked about for something higher. Now that he had undertaken, he was quite determined to see the result of the experiment. While Charlie looked out for Aunt Betsey, Fred rolled the dining table into the middle of the floor, placed a chair on top, and then climbed up again with the cat. Of course the birds fluttered about in a great fright, and as might have been expected, the cat sprang at them. In his struggle to hold the cat, Fred lost his footing. He grasped at the cage to save himself, but the hook gave way, and down they all came together. Charlie opened the door and rushed out into the entry, followed by all of the cats. At first he thought he would take his cap and start for home immediately, and then he concluded to go back and see what had become of Fred. There he sat among the ruins looking very much bewildered.