a was sitting.

"Let's walk down a little way," suggested Bobby. "We'll come right
back: Jud didn't say we couldn't go wading. He only said to be here
when he came. Maybe we'll find the man's house."

Meg was willing enough, for she was no more fond of sitting still than
Bobby was. Holding hands, they began cautiously to wade down stream.

The water rushed more swiftly than they actually liked, but neither
would say so. Instead they slipped over the stones and tried to walk
as fast as the water, and presently Meg had to stop to get her
breath.

"I hear a kitty crying," she said the next minute. "Listen,
Bobby--don't you hear a cat?"

But as noises often do, as soon as Bobby listened intently, the noise
stopped. He couldn't hear a thing and said so.

"There! Now don't you hear it?" cried Meg. "It's a little kitty and it
must be lost. Oh, Bobby, we have to find it!"

Bobby could hear the kitten mewing now and he was as eager to find it
as Meg was. But how could a kitten be in the brook?

"It's back there!" Meg said, waving her hand toward the marshy land.
"Maybe, if we call it, it will come."

And together they called, "Kitty! Kitty! Kitty!" but the little faint
"Meow" sounded just the same.

"Well, I'll have to hunt for it," declared Bobby, looking at the wet
and soggy ground rather regretfully. "I hope there aren't any snakes
in there," he added gloomily.

Meg had a horror of snakes and she didn't want her dearly loved
brother to go where they might be. Neither could she go away and leave
the kitten. So, like the brave and affectionate little girl she was,
she said she was going with Bobby.

They hoped with all their hearts they wouldn't see a snake and they
didn't know what they would do if they did, but they had no intention
of leaving that forlorn kitty cat to its own fate. And, as sometimes
happens, it turned out that they did not have to go where they dreaded
to go at all.

"I see it!" cried Meg suddenly, her sharp eyes having searched the
bank near them, where it jutted out into the water. "Look, Bobby, in
that crooked tree, hanging out over the brook."

Bobby looked. At the very tip end of the longest branch, there clung a
tiny ball of dirty white which must be the kitten.

"Scared to death," commented Bobby. "I don't see how we can get it
down: the more I shake the tree, the harder it will dig its claws in.
That's the way cats do."

But Meg was ready with a plan.

"You climb up the tree,"