The Lady swooned into her chair.
Our Uncle Peter had to get a glass of water to un-swoon her.
I ran for a fan. It bursted my garter. When our Uncle Peter tried to mend it he swore instead.
The Lady came out of her swoon without an instant's hesitation.
"Here at least," she said, "is something that I know enough to do."
Her mouth was full of scorn and pins. It was with pins that she knew enough to do it.
Our Uncle Peter looked very humble.
The Lady patted my knees.
"Little girls are so much easier to manage than little boys," she said. "I don't seem to understand little boys."
"Nor big boys either!" said our Uncle Peter. He said it with gruffness. It sounded cross.
"Perhaps I-don't want to understand them," said the Lady.
Our Uncle Peter's cheeks got sort of red.
"Suit yourself, my dear Madam," he said and started for the door. He picked up my hat and put it on Carol's head.-Carol's head looked pretty astonished. He took Carol's cap and put it on my head. He handed us our coats upside down.-All our pennies and treasures fell out on the floor. He snatched up the little boy's gloves by mistake and thrust them into his own pockets.
The Lady collected everything again and re-distributed them. She seemed to think it was funny. Not very funny but just a little. She looked at Carol sort of specially.
"Oh my dear Child," she said. "I hope you didn't mind because Dicky called you a 'Silence'?"
Carol did mind. He minded very much. I could tell by the way he carried his ears. They looked very stately. Our Uncle Peter whirled round in the door-way. His ears looked pretty stately too.
"All the men in our family," he said, "aim to meet the exigencies of life-sensibly."
The Lady seemed to consider the fact quite a long time before she smiled again.
"Oh very well," she said. "If the Uncle really is as sensible as the nephew perhaps he will consent to leave the children here with me to-night-instead of bearing them off to the confusion and general mis-button-ness of hotels."
Our Uncle Peter's face fairly burst into relief.
"Oh, do you really mean that?" he cried. "It IS their infernal buttons that makes most of the worry!-And their prayers?-What IS the difference anyway between a morning and an evening prayer?-And this awful responsibility about cereals? And how in the world do you make sure about their necks?"
"Oh those are the things I know perfectly," said the Lady. "All the nice gentle in-door things."
Our Uncle Peter began to strut again.
"Oh pshaw!" he said. "It's only the outdoor things that are really important,-how to climb mountains, how to stop a runaway horse,-how to smother a grass fire!"
It put the Lady all in a flutter.
"Oh pshaw!" said our Uncle Peter. "That's nothing!-The very first instant you hear the maddened hoofs on the pavement you place yourself thus! And THUS!-And--"
The Lady tried to explain to him the difference between a morning and an evening prayer. "Now at night, of course," she explained, "everything is so very lonely that-"
Our Uncle Peter didn't seem to care at all how lonely it was.
"The instant you see the horses's blood-red nostrils,-JUMP!" cried our Uncle Peter.
It sounded pretty muddled to me.
"Personally," insisted the Lady, "I consider a rather soft sponge best for the neck."
"So that with your hands clutched like a vise on either side of the mouth," cried our Uncle Peter, "you can saw up and down with all the violence at your command! Now in fighting a grass fire, it's craft, not might, that you need. In that case of course-"
"Two hours if you're using a double boiler," explained the Lady, "but many people consider a rapider action more digestible, I suppose."
"My dear Lady--let me finish my explanation!" said our Uncle Peter.
"But I want to finish mine!" said the Lady.
Our legs got pretty tired waiting for all the explanations to get un-mixed up again.
It was nine o'clock before the Lady gave our Uncle Peter a cup of hot chocolate and turned him out doors.
"Just like a dog," said our Uncle Peter. We heard him say it across his shoulder as he went down the steps.
It made the Lady laugh a little.
It was warm milk in two great blue bowls that she gave us. "Just like kittens," we thought it was!
We heard the little boy's feet come thud-thud-thudding up the stairs. We heard Tiger Lily's toe-nails click-click-click along behind him.
The little boy looked very full of chicken and joyfulness. So did Tiger Lily.
"Cook says I've got to romp him!" he said. "Every day!-Twice every day!-More'n a hundred times some days! Out doors too! Not just in parks,-parks are good enough for cats,-but in real fields! Else he'll DIE!" Almost as though he was frightened he stooped down suddenly and laid his little ear on Tiger Lily's soft breast. "He's alive now!" he boasted. "You can hear his heart nibbling!" He threw back his little head and laughed and laughed and clapped his hands. He took Tiger Lily by the collar and led him over to the table by the window. He climbed up on the table and pulled Tiger Lily after him.
Tiger Lily was frightened, but not too much. He felt proud. His ears looked fluffy. His back was shining silk. His tail hung down across the edge of the table like a plume.
Far off in the city streets somewhere there was a noise that trolly cars make when they're climbing up a hill and the switch is too hard for them. It was a sour sound.
Tiger Lily started to make a little quiver in his back. The little boy threw his arm around him. A mouse nibbled in the wall. Tiger Lily cocked his head to listen but kissed the little boy's cheek instead. It was a nice kiss. But wet. The little boy laughed right out loud. Way down on the very tip end of Tiger Lily's plumey tail about two hairs wagged. When the little boy saw it his face went all shining. He threw both arms around Tiger Lily's neck. "T-Tiger Lily's-little boy!" he said. "T-T-" Something funny happened to his mouth. It was a teeny-weeny yawn that didn't seem to know just what to do about it. Nothing in all the world felt lonely any more.
Except me.
The Lady put me to bed.
Carol put himself to bed all except the knots in his shoestrings.
We went to sleep.
Pretty soon it was morning. And we went home.
Our Uncle Peter changed a lot of our dog-money into nickles so it would jingle. We sounded like cow-bells. It felt rich. Our Uncle Peter held us very tight by the hands all the way. He said he was afraid we might step into something wet and sink.
It had been Wednesday when we went away. It was only Thursday when we got home. It seemed later than that.
Our Mother was very glad to see us. So was our Father.
The Tame Crow flew down out of the Maple Tree and sat on Carol's head.
Our Tame Coon came out of the hole under the piazza and sniffed at our heels.
The posie bed in front of the house was blue with violets. The white Spirea bush foamed like a wave against the wood-shed window.
In spite of our absence nothing seemed changed.
We gave our Father a dollar of our money to buy some Tulips. We gave our Mother a dollar to spend any way she wanted to. We put the rest of it in a book. It was a Savings Bank Book that we put it into.
"For your old age," our Father said.
Our Father's eyes had twinkles in them.
"I hope you've thanked your Uncle Peter properly!" he said.
"For what?" said our Uncle Peter.
Our Father jingled the twenty nickles in his hand. "For all favors," he said.
Our Uncle Peter said he was perfectly repaid. He made a frown at my Father.
When bed-time came I climbed up into my Mother's lap and told her all about it,-the house,-the cocoa,-the toy Ferris Wheel,-the blue daisies on the stair carpet,-the pigeon that lit on my window-sill in the morning,-the splashy way Tiger Lily lapped his milk.
"It will be interesting," said my Mother, "to see what we hear from Tiger Lily as Time goes on."
Time went on pretty quickly. Pansies happened and yellow poppies and ducks and two kittens and August.