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Page 47
Eugenia's frenzied wail became a byword, and for many days one had only
to say, "Oh, _don't_ eat me!" to start a peal of laughter.
CHAPTER XI.
SOME STORIES AND A POEM.
"What is the worst thing you evah did in yo' life, Joyce?" asked the
Little Colonel. It was the first day after their recovery from the
measles that the girls had been allowed to go down-stairs, and they were
trying to amuse themselves in the library. Time had dragged for the last
half-hour, and Lloyd's question was welcomed with interest.
"Um, I don't know," answered Joyce, half closing her eyes as she tried
to remember. "I've done so many bad things that I have been ashamed of
afterward, that I can hardly tell which is the worst. One of the meanest
things I ever did was when I was too small to know how cruel it was. It
was so long ago that I could not talk plainly, but I remember distinctly
what a stifling hot day it was. Mamma had been packing her furs away for
the summer in moth-balls. You know how horridly those camphor things
smell. I hung over her and asked questions every time she moved. She
told me how the moth-millers lay eggs in the furs if they are not
protected, and showed me an old muff that she had found in the attic,
which was so badly moth-eaten that it had to be thrown away. I watched
her lay the little balls all among the furs, and then tie them up in
linen bags, and pack them away in a chest.
"It happened that I had an old cat named Muff, and as soon as mamma had
gone down-stairs, I took it into my head to pack her away in camphor
balls. So I put her into an old pillow-case with a handful of
suffocating moth-balls, and tied her up tight. She mewed and scratched
at a terrible rate, but I tugged away at the heavy lid of the chest
until I got it open, and then pop went poor old Muff in with the other
furs.
"Luckily, mamma found an astrakhan cape, several hours later, that she
had overlooked, and went back to the attic to put it into the chest, or
the poor cat would have smothered. When she raised the lid there was
that pillow-case squirming around as if it were alive. It frightened her
so that she jumped back and dropped the lid, and then stood screaming
for Bridget. I didn't know what had startled her, and she did not know
that I had any connection with it, for I stood looking on as innocent as
a lamb, with my thumb in my mouth.
"When Bridget came and saw the pillow-case squirming and bumping around,
she said, 'Shure, ma'am, an' it's bewitched them furs is, and I'd not be
afther touching 'em wid a tin-fut pole. I'll run call the gard'ner next
dure.' So she put her head out at the attic window and screamed for
Dennis, and Dennis thought the house was on fire, and came running up
the stairs two steps at a time. He untied the pillow-case and turned it
upside down with a hard shake, and, of course, out bounced poor old Muff
in a shower of moth-balls, nearly smothered from being shut up so long
with that stifling odour. She was sick all day, and Bridget said that it
was a lucky thing that cats have nine lives, or she couldn't have gotten
over it.
"I cried because they had let her out, and said I didn't want the nasty
moths to spoil my kitty's fur, and mamma laughed so hard that she sat
right down on the attic floor. Then she took me in her lap and explained
how Muff took care of her own fur, and did not need to be packed away in
the summer-time."
"That makes me think of a scrape that Lloyd and I got into," said
Eugenia, "when she lived in New York. We had seen a mattress sent away
from the house to be renovated, and had asked the nurse all sorts of
questions about it. We concluded it would be a fine thing to renovate
the mattress of one of our doll-beds. So we ripped one end open and
pulled out all the cotton and excelsior it was stuffed with, and burned
it in the nursery grate. Then we began to look around the house for
something to refill it with.
"Down in the library was a beautiful fur rug. I don't remember what kind
of a wild beast it was made from; I was so little, then, you know. But
papa was very proud of it, for he had killed the animal himself out in
the Rocky Mountains, and had had the skin made into a rug as a souvenir
of that hunting trip. It had the head left on it, and we were a little
afraid of that head. The glass eyes glared so savagely, and the teeth
were so sharp in its open jaws! But the fur was long and soft and thick,
and we decided to shear off a little to stuff our mattress with. We
thought it wouldn't take much. So I took the nurse's scissors, and we
slipped down into the library with the empty mattress-tick.
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