wildly. “I can’t leave them behind. I can’t live without a cat.”
“Nonsense! There are barn cats at New Moon, but they are never allowed in the house.”
“Don’t you like cats?” asked Emily wonderingly.
“No, I do not.”
“Don’t you like the feel of a nice, soft, fat cat?” persisted Emily.
“No; I would as soon touch a snake.”
“There’s a lovely old wax doll of your mother’s up there,” said Aunt Laura. “I’ll dress it up for you.”
“I don’t like dolls—they can’t talk,” exclaimed Emily.
“Neither can cats.”
“Oh, can’t they! Mike and Saucy Sal can. Oh, I must take them. Oh, please, Aunt Elizabeth. I love those cats. And they’re the only things left in the world that love me. Please!”
“What’s a cat more or less on two hundred acres?” said Cousin Jimmy, pulling his forked beard. “Take ’em along, Elizabeth.”
Aunt Elizabeth considered for a moment. She couldn’t understand why anybody should want a cat. Aunt Elizabeth was one of those people who never do understand anything unless it is told them in plain language and hammered into their heads. And then they understand it only with their brains and not with their hearts.
“You may take one of your cats,” she said at last, with the air of a person making a great concession. “One—and no more. No, don’t argue. You may as well learn first as last, Emily, that when I say a thing I mean it. That’s enough, Jimmy.”
Cousin Jimmy bit off something he had tried to say, stuck his hands in his pockets, and whistled at the ceiling.
“When she won’t, she won’t—Murray like. We’re all born with that kink in us, small pussy, and you’ll have
