he wall of the enchanted garden. On
the worn bricks, unless they have crumbled away, there may still be seen
the scratches from my penknife, by which I tried to persuade myself that
each rapidly passing week marked a visible increase in my stature.
Though I was a big boy for my age, the top of my straw-coloured hair
reached barely halfway up the spiked wall; and standing on my tiptoes my
hands still came far below the grim iron teeth at the top. Yet I
continued to measure myself, week by week, against the barrier, until at
last the zigzag scratches from my knife began to cover the bricks.

It was on a warm morning in spring during my ninth year, that, while I
stood vigorously scraping the wall over my head, I heard a voice
speaking in indignant tones at my back.

"You bad boy, what are you doing?" it said.

Wheeling about, I stood again face to face with the little girl of the
red shoes and the dancing feet. Except for her shoes she was dressed all
in white just as I had last seen her, and this time, I saw with disgust,
she held a whining and sickly kitten clasped to her breast.

"I know you are doing something you ought not to," she repeated, "what
is it?"

"Nothink," I responded, and stared at her red shoes like one possessed.

"Then why were you crawling so close along the wall to keep me from
seeing you?"

"I wa'nt."

"You wa'nt what?"

"I wa'nt crawlin' along the wall; I was just tryin' to look in," I
answered defiantly.

An old negro "mammy," in a snowy kerchief and apron, appeared suddenly
around the corner near which we stood, and made a grab at the child's
shoulder.

"You jes let 'im alont, honey, en he ain' gwine hu't you," she said.

"He won't hurt me anyway," replied the little girl, as if I were a
suspicious strange dog, "I'm not afraid of him."

Then she made a step forward and held the whining grey kitten toward me.

"Don't you want a cat, boy?" she asked, in a coaxing tone.

My hands flew to my back, and the only reason I did not retreat before
her determined advance was that I could hardly retreat into a brick
wall.

"I've just found it in the alley a minute ago," she explained. "It's
very little. I'd like to keep it, only I've got six already."

"I don't like cats," I replied stubbornly, shaking my head. "I saw Peter
Finn's dog kill one. He shook it by the neck till it was dead. I'm goin'
to train my dog to kill 'em, too."

Raising herself on the toes of her red shoes, she bent u