CHAPTER II.
A RIDE.
At Catskill Mr. Cary and Julia left the boat; and Ellen, too, with her hands full of baskets, bags, and wraps.
They walked aside from the crowd on the dock, towards a man who was holding the reins of two bright bay horses.
This was uncle Benjamin. He had left his hay-field, ten miles away, and come down to the river to welcome our travellers. Smiles and black eyes lit up his sunburnt face cheerily.
If you had been looking off from the boat to see Julia go ashore, you would have wished you too might have been lifted by his strong arms into his easy carriage.
Ellen and the baskets were next put in. Mr. Cary sprang to the front seat, and uncle Benjamin got up beside him.
The horses started as if they were in a hurry to get through the bars of their green pasture-lot again. Away they went over the hills.
Julia thought there was no other man so good as uncle Benjamin. She thought he owned all that country, that all the calves and colts scampering about the farms they passed belonged to him, and many an eager question she asked about what she saw.
“O uncle Benjamin!” she shouted at last, so quickly that he half stopped his horses, as he turned to hear, “have you got any kittens for me?”
“Ha! ha!” he laughed; “I thought you had dropped your hat or bag in the road. Got any kittens? Can’t say. Charley or Johnny will know.”
A few more hills were crossed, and uncle Benjamin was at home.
Aunt Abby stood smiling at the open door; but the boys met the carriage at the gate. They were in haste to see this dear little cousin who came but once a year.
Before Mr. Cary had hung up his dusty linen coat, Julia whispered,
“Papa, they have got kittens, four of them. Please ask if I may have one for my own self.”
Mr. Cary told aunt Abby how lonely Julia was at home without her mother; how for weeks her heart had been so sad she could hardly play at all. She was getting used to the stillness in the house, and the heartache was wearing away. But she wanted some live thing to play with, she said, and hoped to take home a real kitten.
“Poor little motherless girl!” sighed aunt Abby.
When called to tea, Julia came in smiling, with Charley and Johnny, who had been showing her their out-door pets.
After tea, Julia led her father to the old woodhouse stairway, where there was a more lowly kind of mother-love to be seen.
A large contented-looking cat lay on the door-step, winking fearlessly at them. The cunningest of four kittens was climbing on her back. Two prettier kittens were having a frolic at her feet, while the other one sat soberly looking on. Sometimes the wild ones rolled over and over each other down the steps.
“Did you ever see such lovely, pesshus kittens, papa dear?”
“None so precious to you and this mother-cat,” her papa said, smiling to see her so pleased.
“And I can have one! All the folks say so. Now help me find out, papa, which is the bestest kitty.”
“I wish a mouse would come along; then I’d tell you which I think is the best,” said Charley.
“But I don’t care ’bout my kitty’s catching mice; I only want her to play with me. She shall have milk to drink, and part of my dinner every day.”
“Kittens would look prettier to me if I didn’t know they would grow to be cats,” Johnny said.
“Bah! yes!” said Charley. “Up on that shed, by your bedroom window—see, Julia—see that big striped cat! Johnny and I just loved him when he was a kitten. But he kills our birds, and that we can’t forgive.”
Up spoke kind-hearted Johnny: “I b’lieve he’s the wickedest, badest cat that meows. So many nests he has spoiled! Then the mother-birds cry and call so, we have to stop our ears. When I get a gun, I b’lieve I’ll shoot you, Mr. Tom.”
Johnny handled a willow-rod as if it were a gun, and pointed it up at the big gray cat. But it did not fear him, it was up so high. Perhaps it knew nothing about guns.
“Better go to bed now, Julia. Dream about the kittens, and in the morning we will see which one we like the best.”