t was almost surrounded by
a chain of these miniature lakes. As Tabitha rushed out of the door in
her mad flight, she found herself confronted by a huge puddle which she
could not cross without wetting her feet, and ever mindful of Aunt
Maria's heroic treatments for colds, she paused to choose a better path.
This gave Carrie a chance to overtake her, but before the little
peacemaker could say a word of comfort to the wounded heart, Jerome's
laughing tones rose clearly above the rest of the clamoring voices,

"Oh, Tabitha, wait a minute."

She hesitated, half turned as if to heed his entreaty, and then--then it
happened.

"Susie's reader has a new poem in it; one that I never saw before,
Tabitha," the teasing voice continued. "It says:

'My little black Tabby is perched on my knee;
As fierce as a lion or tiger is she;
She wakes--'"

Tabitha's books fell unheeded to the ground, she leaped toward her
tormentor with fury in her heart, and dealt him a staggering blow full
on the nose, screaming in rage,

"I would rather be a Tabby Catt than a cross-eyed, red-headed
chimpanzee."

Pushing him violently from her, she turned and fled through the wide
puddle and up the slope toward home, never hearing the loud splash
behind her and the mingled screams and laughter, and not aware that the
debonair Jerome with the blood spurting from his nose had lost his
balance and toppled into the muddy water.

Indignant Carrie faced him as he rose to his feet, and stamping her foot
in her extreme vexation, she boldly cried,

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Jerome Vane. Teacher said we
mustn't tease her, and I'm glad you're hurt. You deserve to be." And she
sped tearfully away in pursuit of her fleeing mate before the
discomfited boy could find breath to tell her that he was ashamed of
himself--thoroughly ashamed.

Miss Brooks had witnessed the fray from the window, but she wasn't the
only grown-up spectator. A tall, dark man loaded down with a huge
watermelon had come up the road just in time to hear and see the whole
performance, and a smile of satisfaction lit his face when the girl came
off victorious.

"Poor kid," he said under his breath. "She is a regular Catt all right.
How will she come out of it?"

He found himself hoping that life might have much more sweetness in it
for her than it had had for him. And he had named her Tabitha!

With wild rebellion in her heart and a keen sense of the injustice d