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Page 61
"Well, she called 'Kitty, kitty, kitty!' and sure enough the kitty
came, and when he came in the door he gave a big yawl that didn't
sound unlike what they had heard.
"'There, sister, here he is; you see it was the cat,' says Mrs.
Bird. 'Poor kitty!'
"But Mrs. Dennison she eyed the cat, and she give a great screech.
"'What's that? What's that?' says she.
"'What's what?' says Mrs. Bird, pretending to herself that she
didn't see what her sister meant.
"'Somethin's got hold of that cat's tail,' says Mrs. Dennison.
'Somethin's got hold of his tail. It's pulled straight out, an' he
can't get away. Just hear him yawl!'
"'It isn't anything,' says Mrs. Bird, but even as she said that she
could see a little hand holding fast to that cat's tail, and then
the child seemed to sort of clear out of the dimness behind the
hand, and the child was sort of laughing then, instead of looking
sad, and she said that was a great deal worse. She said that laugh
was the most awful and the saddest thing she ever heard.
"Well, she was so dumfounded that she didn't know what to do, and
she couldn't sense at first that it was anything supernatural. She
thought it must be one of the neighbour's children who had run away
and was making free of their house, and was teasing their cat, and
that they must be just nervous to feel so upset by it. So she
speaks up sort of sharp.
"'Don't you know that you mustn't pull the kitty's tail?' says she.
'Don't you know you hurt the poor kitty, and she'll scratch you if
you don't take care. Poor kitty, you mustn't hurt her.'
"And with that she said the child stopped pulling that cat's tail
and went to stroking her just as soft and pitiful, and the cat put
his back up and rubbed and purred as if he liked it. The cat never
seemed a mite afraid, and that seemed queer, for I had always heard
that animals were dreadfully afraid of ghosts; but then, that was a
pretty harmless little sort of ghost.
"Well, Mrs. Bird said the child stroked that cat, while she and
Mrs. Dennison stood watching it, and holding onto each other, for,
no matter how hard they tried to think it was all right, it didn't
look right. Finally Mrs. Dennison she spoke.
"'What's your name, little girl?' says she.
"Then the child looks up and stops stroking the cat, and says she
can't find her mother, just the way she said it to me. Then Mrs.
Dennison she gave such a gasp that Mrs. Bird thought she was going
to faint away, but she didn't. 'Well, who is your mother?' says
she. But the child just says again 'I can't find my mother--I
can't find my mother.'
"'Where do you live, dear?' says Mrs. Bird.
"'I can't find my mother,' says the child.
"Well, that was the way it was. Nothing happened. Those two women
stood there hanging onto each other, and the child stood in front
of them, and they asked her questions, and everything she would say
was: 'I can't find my mother.'
"Then Mrs. Bird tried to catch hold of the child, for she thought
in spite of what she saw that perhaps she was nervous and it was a
real child, only perhaps not quite right in its head, that had run
away in her little nightgown after she had been put to bed.
"She tried to catch the child. She had an idea of putting a shawl
around it and going out--she was such a little thing she could have
carried her easy enough--and trying to find out to which of the
neighbours she belonged. But the minute she moved toward the child
there wasn't any child there; there was only that little voice
seeming to come from nothing, saying 'I can't find my mother,' and
presently that died away.
"Well, that same thing kept happening, or something very much the
same. Once in awhile Mrs. Bird would be washing dishes, and all at
once the child would be standing beside her with the dish-towel,
wiping them. Of course, that was terrible. Mrs. Bird would wash
the dishes all over. Sometimes she didn't tell Mrs. Dennison, it
made her so nervous. Sometimes when they were making cake they
would find the raisins all picked over, and sometimes little sticks
of kindling-wood would be found laying beside the kitchen stove.
They never knew when they would come across that child, and always
she kept saying over and over that she couldn't find her mother.
They never tried talking to her, except once in awhile Mrs. Bird
would get desperate and ask her something, but the child never
seemed to hear it; she always kept right on saying that she
couldn't find her mother.
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