nk
toes. After a very slow dressing, she had a still slower breakfast out
of a tin cup of warm milk, of which she generally spilt a good deal, as
she had much to do in watching everybody who came into the room, and
seeing that there was no mischief done. Then she would be placed on the
floor, on our only piece of carpet, and the kittens would be brought in
for her to play with.

We had, at different times, a variety of pets, of whom Annie did not
take much notice. Sometimes we had young partridges, caught by the
little boys in trap-cages. The children called them "Bob and Chloe,"
because the first notes of the male and female sound like those names.
One day I brought home an opossum, with her blind bare little young
clinging to the droll little pouch where their mothers keep them.
Sometimes we had pretty little green lizards, their color darkening or
deepening, like that of chameleons, in light or shade. But the only pets
that took Baby's fancy were the kittens. They perfectly delighted her,
from the first moment she saw them; they were the only things younger
than herself that she had ever beheld, and the only things softer than
themselves that her small hands had grasped. It was astonishing to see
how much the kittens would endure from her. They could scarcely be
touched by any one else without mewing; but when Annie seized one by the
head and the other by the tail, and rubbed them violently together, they
did not make a sound. I suppose that a baby's grasp is really soft, even
if it seems ferocious, and so it gives less pain than one would think.
At any rate, the little animals had the best of it very soon; for they
entirely outstripped Annie in learning to walk, and they could soon
scramble away beyond her reach, while she sat in a sort of dumb despair,
unable to comprehend why anything so much smaller than herself should be
so much nimbler. Meanwhile, the kittens would sit up and look at her
with the most provoking indifference, just out of arm's length, until
some of us would take pity on the young lady, and toss her furry
playthings back to her again. "Little baby," she learned to call them;
and these were the very first words she spoke.

Baby had evidently a natural turn for war, further cultivated by an
intimate knowledge of drills and parades. The nearer she came to actual
conflict, the better she seemed to like it, peaceful as her own little
ways might be. Twice, at least, while she was with us on picket, we