p. Isn't it funny?"

Just before auntie and grandma returned, Dr. Bemis came over, and went
to see his little patient. He was amused at Cricket's original plaster,
for which he carefully substituted the proper article, but he pronounced
the dressing of the cut very nicely done, and said that the cut would
not have healed so well as he hoped it would now, if it had been left
open for that two hours that elapsed before he could get there.

CHAPTER IX.

GEORGE W. AND MARTHA.

A rattling, banging, clattering sound, like a small army of tin pans on
a rampage, suddenly woke the echoes one still, sultry afternoon. Auntie
Jean thought it was the circus, and sighed as she wondered if they were
going to keep it up long enough to make it worth while for her to leave
her cool room and her afternoon nap, to go and stop them. Grandma heard
it, and supposed it was Cricket, trying some new experiment as a tinware
merchant, and hoped she would soon turn her attention to some different
employment. Cricket heard it, and promptly started for the scene of
action, meeting, in the hall, Eunice and Edna, who came running
down-stairs, as well as the boys, who appeared from the kitchen, where
they had been foraging for a mid-afternoon lunch.

The disturbance came from the front piazza, but when they went out there
nothing, for a moment, was visible, though the same mysterious whacking
and banging went on, under the table.

"What is it?" they all exclaimed, but straightway the question was
solved, for out from under the table-cover backed a half-grown black
kitten, with its head firmly wedged into a tin tomato can. Backing and
scratching, as a cat will when its head is covered, the poor little
thing, evidently half frantic, tumbled up against the chairs and the
side of the house, mewing most frightfully and banging its inconvenient
headdress against the piazza floor.

"You poor little cat! Has some horrid boy been abusing you?" cried
Cricket, making a dive for it, but dropping it, when she caught it, with
equal promptness, as its sharp claws tore her hands. "Why, stop! you
dreadful little thing! How you hurt me!"

"Pick it up, boys," begged Edna, as the cat resumed its backward way.
"Do get that can off. How did any one ever get it on, do you suppose?
Here, kitty! kitty!"

"Curiosity killed a cat, they say," said Will, watching his chance at
it. "I suppose it wanted to see the inside of that can, and now that it
has seen it, it