gh of that to go on any farther in his teaching. In
fact, he never got any farther than to succeed in keeping them still for
a few minutes while he read the letters aloud. The cat that kept still
the longest, he said, was the best scholar that day; he put their names
down in a little book, and gave them good and bad marks according as
they behaved, just as he and Rosy used to get marks in school.

[Illustration: "Rosy Chapman running among the Verbena beds, and half a
dozen kittens racing after her."--PAGE 37.]

After Johnny got all his flags up, the cats' house looked very pretty.
It had four flags on it; one was a big one with the stars and stripes,
and "Our Republic" in big letters on it; one was a "Garfield and Arthur"
flag, which had been given to Johnny by the Garfield Club in Mendon;
underneath this was a small white one Johnny made himself, with "Hurrah
for Both" on it in rather uneven letters; then at two of the corners of
the house were small red, white, and blue flags of the common sort. But
the glory of all was a big flag on a flagstaff twenty feet high, which
Uncle Frank put up for the boys. This also was a "Garfield and Arthur"
flag, and a very fine one it was too. The kittens used to look up
longingly at all these bright flags blowing in the wind above their
house; but Johnny had taken care to put them high enough to be beyond
their reach even when they climbed up to the ridgepole. They would have
made tatters of them all in five seconds if they could have ever got
their claws into them.

As soon as the kittens were big enough to enjoy playing with a mouse,
or, perhaps, taking a bite of one, Mammy Tittleback returned to her old
habits of mouse-catching. There had never been such a mouser as she on
the farm. It is really true that she had several times been known to
catch six mice in five minutes by Mr. Frank Wellington's watch; and once
she did a thing even more wonderful than that. This Phil described to me
himself; and Phil is one of the most exact and truthful boys, and never
makes any story out bigger than it is.

The place where they used to have the best fun seeing Mammy Tittleback
catch mice was in the cornhouse. The floor of the cornhouse was half
covered with cobs from which the corn had been shelled; in one corner
these were piled up half as high as the wall. The mice used to hide
among these, and in the cracks in the walls; the boys would take long
sticks, push the cobs about, and roll them