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Chinese Kitten

<h1>THE CHINESE KITTEN</h1> BY EDNA A BROWN <hr /> <h2 id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I THE SURPRISE</h2> “I think,” said Lucy Merrill in a whisper to her sister Dora, “that Uncle Dan has a surprise for us.” Dora was industriously setting the table for supper. Lucy, at the kitchen dresser, was peeling peaches. Lucy had on a big apron belonging to her mother, and it covered both her and the stool on which she sat. Dora wore a pink apron over her checked pink-and-white dress, and Dora’s apron was just like the big one, only the right size. Lucy owned a proper-sized apron also, but Lucy had been unlucky enough to upset the blueing bottle when she took a dish from the[12] kitchen closet. Her apron wasn’t hurt a bit, but Mrs. Merrill had rinsed it out and now it was flapping on the line in the back yard. The closet floor was bluer than the apron and not so easy to wash. “What makes you think there is a surprise?” asked Dora, standing back from the table to see whether she had remembered everything that anybody could use during supper. No, she had forgotten the pulverized sugar for the peaches. “Because,” said Lucy, “he keeps following Mother everywhere she goes, and I know he is teasing her to do something. I heard him say something about the beach.” Dora stopped in the pantry doorway, her eyes big and blue. “Do you think we can be going to the beach?” she asked eagerly. “My, I hope so!” said Lucy. “We haven’t been away this summer. And Father[13] said last night that the press was going to shut down for the week after Labor Day.” Dora looked out of the window across the street at the low brick building where Father Merrill worked in the printing office. “We had better not ask too many questions,” she said wisely. “Perhaps Uncle Dan is going to take us to White Beach for a day. But we did go to the vacation school, Lucy, and that was a great deal of fun.” “It was,” agreed Lucy. “And it cost a dollar a week. But just one day at the beach would be lovely. I wish the Sunday-school picnic had gone there.” Dora didn’t agree with Lucy. That annual picnic had been held at World’s End Pond. Even the salt water could not be nicer than that place. Just as Lucy finished the last peach, Mrs. Merrill came in. Dora brought the sugar-bowl[14] from the pantry and looked hard at her mother. Sometimes it was possible to tell by Mother’s face how she felt about things. Mrs. Merrill did not seem disturbed, but neither did she look as though she was thinking of anything especially pleasant. She put the rest of the supper on the table and told Lucy to call her father and Uncle Dan. It was Uncle Dan who told the secret. Right in the middle of supper he turned to his sister. “You know, Molly,” he began, “Jack says I may have his tent and we should need only one.” “Dan!” said Mother Merrill, and everybody was still. The children looked at Uncle Dan. Then Father Merrill laughed. “A tent!” shrieked Lucy. Dora jumped right out of her chair and ran around the table to her uncle. [15] “Are we going, too?” she asked quite breathlessly. “Can I sleep in a tent? I never did, you know.” Mr. Merrill laughed again, and this time Dan laughed with him. “You’ve done it now, Dan,” said his sister. “You may as well tell them.” But Uncle Dan didn’t explain. “Oh, Molly, then you will go?” he asked as eagerly as the little girls. “I suppose I shall have to,” said Mrs. Merrill, but she didn’t look as though she would find it very hard work. “What is it? What is it?” Dora was asking with her arms around her young uncle’s neck. “Quit choking me,” said Dan. “Go back and eat your supper.” Dora gave him one last hard hug before returning to her chair. “I know it is nice,” she[16] said. “But is it the beach, Uncle Dan, and are we to sleep in a tent?” “Maybe,” said Dan. “The press is going to shut down for a week,” said Mrs. Merrill, “and Dan can get off, too. He wants to go over to White Beach. There’s a little shack we can have for not much money, but it has only two rooms. Dan thinks he can bunk on the porch. He wants Olive Gates to go with us, and she and you children would have to sleep in the tent.” “I wouldn’t be scared if Olive was with us,” said Lucy. Dora was too happy to say anything at all. Her eyes shone and looked bluer than ever. When one is only eight, there are a great many important things in life. To go to the beach and to sleep in a tent seemed almost too good to be true. “Alice Harper is at the beach this summer, but she sleeps in a house,” said Lucy. Nobody[17] was listening. Dan and Mr. Merrill were both talking, and it was plain that they wanted to go just as much as the children did. “What shall we do with Timmy?” asked Dora, a sudden cloud coming over her face. It would never do to leave the tiger-striped pussy to take care of himself for a week. “Can he go with us?” “No,” said Mrs. Merrill. “He would be scared to death, if he didn’t run away entirely.” Dora looked so distressed that Mr. Merrill could not stand it. “We’ll plan for Timmy,” he said kindly. “I never did think much of people who go off for a vacation and leave their cats to take care of themselves. We will leave the key of the house with Jim Baker, and ask his little girl to come over twice a day to feed Timmy and to let him into the kitchen every night if he wants to sleep inside. But these nice nights, Timmy may prefer to stay out.” [18] Dora’s face looked bright again. Of course she could not enjoy the beach if Timmy were not cared for. He was used to being petted and fed regularly. Now there was not a cloud in her sky. Uncle Dan was as pleased as the little girls. He talked much more than usual during supper, and after it was over and the dishes were being washed, he came to where his sister was mixing bread. “All right for me to ask Olive?” he inquired. “Yes,” said Mrs. Merrill, smiling a little. “Tell her we all want her to go with us.” Dan was off in a hurry, but before he went he gave his sister an awkward hug. Never were dishes done with such speed! Mrs. Merrill looked at them suspiciously but did not say a word. Lucy had washed them properly and Dora had wiped them as dry as[19] could be, even though they worked so fast. And yet neither of them knew why they were hurrying. They were not to go to the beach for three days, not until Saturday. There was plenty to do between then and the end of the week. First, they had to decide what clothes to take, and were surprised to find that Mother did not think as they did about the dresses. She came and looked at them when Lucy and Dora had laid them out on their bed. “You won’t need your good clothes,” she said. “Those must be kept for school. You will be playing on the beach all day, and not need to be dressed up. When we go over, you will have on one good dress apiece, and that is enough.” Lucy and Dora were disappointed. They thought that people who went away on a vacation should take all their best clothes. [20] “But not people who live in tents,” said Mrs. Merrill. “That makes a great difference. We are only going to camp, you know.” “But I may take Arcturus?” Dora begged, bringing from her bureau the little silver bear on her neck-chain, the bear which had been named for a star. “Arcturus does really need sea air, Mother.” “He looks as though he were pining away,” said Mrs. Merrill, but she said that on the way over Dora might wear the necklace. After Mother had edited that collection of clothes, Lucy and Dora packed them very easily into one suit-case. When they considered that this was to be a camping-trip, it was fun to see how much one could get on without. Then there was the question of food. Mother made a great many cookies, both of sugar and molasses, and shut them into tin boxes. She also made some cake. [21] On Friday a pleasant thing happened. The man who owned the printing-press where Mr. Merrill was foreman, said that he would have all their things taken over to the beach in the delivery truck belonging to the press. There would be room on the driver’s seat for Mr. and Mrs. Merrill. The little girls could sit on the soft baggage in the back of the truck. This made it very easy to take whatever they wished. Mrs. Merrill wrapped up some more blankets and made some more cake. She also filled a basket with apples. Though they were expecting to find it great fun, Lucy and Dora did not ride on the back of the truck. Jack Simmons, who lent Uncle Dan his tent, had a little Ford car. He offered to take Olive and Uncle Dan and the two children. He would stay and help Uncle Dan pitch the tent. It was important to have a pleasant day on[22] Saturday. All Friday afternoon, while they were doing the last things, Lucy and Dora kept looking at the sky. Their looking did not seem to make any difference, for it did not become more blue, nor any less so, no matter how hard they gazed. One of the very last things was to go to the Public Library and choose some books to take with them. For, as Mrs. Merrill said, it might rain at the beach, and then they would be glad of something to read. The children did not wish to think of rain, but they chose the library books with great care. Lucy decided to take “What Katy Did,” but Dora could not find any book which seemed suited to so important an occasion. Finally she asked the librarian, Miss Perkins, to choose one for her. When Miss Perkins knew that the story must last a week and was to be read at the[23] beach, she agreed that no ordinary book would do. She went to a shelf in the back of the library and brought Dora the “Story of Doctor Dolittle.” “You will like this book very much, Dora,” she said. “And I think your Uncle Dan will like it, too. It is a new book, just put into the library, so you will take very good care of it, won’t you?” “Oh, I will!” said Dora, who had caught sight of the funny pictures in the text. “I will be very careful of it, Miss Perkins.” “And is Arcturus going to the beach with you?” asked Miss Perkins as she slipped “Doctor Dolittle” into an envelope for safe traveling. Dora explained that Arcturus would benefit from sea air, and Miss Perkins at once said that it would do him good. <hr /> [24] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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