me the unprincipled old cat was found in the
cellar, wiping her lips and purring over a little soft, speckled down.

"It was you that did it, was it, you wicked mizzable kitty?" burst forth
the bereaved Dotty behind the swinging broomstick. "I must strike you
with the soft end. I will! I will! If I'd known before that you'd eat
live duckies! O, pussy, pussy, when I've given you my own little bones
on a plate with gravy!"

"Whose little bones did you say, my dear!" asked Abner.

"Chickens and turkeys, and so forth!" replied Dotty, dancing about in
her rage.

"Why, dear little damsel, do I really understand you to say you eat
chickens? Then you are as bad as the cat."

"Why, Abner!"

"And worse, for you have no claws."

"No claws?"

"No--have you? If you had, I should conclude they had been made to tear
little birds and mice in pieces."

"Is that what kitty's claws were made for?"

"So I am told. The truth is, she behaves much better for a cat than you
do for a little girl."

Dotty scowled at her feet and patted them with the broom.

"And better than I do for a young man."

"But she ate my duckies--so there!"

"And Prudy's too," said Abner. "But Prudy doesn't beat her for it. It
isn't pleasant to see nice little girls show so much temper, Dotty. Now
I'm going to tell you something; all those ducklings were a little
crazy, and it didn't make much difference what became of them."

"Crazy?"

"Yes, their minds were not properly balanced. There's one left, I
believe. I'm going to make a lunatic asylum for him, and put him in this
very day."

Dotty calmed herself and watched Abner as he made a pen with high
stakes, and set in one corner of it a pan of water for swimming
purposes.

The "speckling," as she called him, was Dotty's own; and when he was put
into this insane hospital, all safe from the cat, his little mistress
was in a measure consoled.

"I am sorry he is crazy," said she; "but I s'pose the hen didn't hatch
him well. Maybe he'll get his senses by and by."

All this while dear little Charlie Gray was very ill. But I will tell
you more about him in another chapter.

CHAPTER XII.

"THE CHARLIE BOY."

Dotty heard of Charlie's illness every day; but, like all young
children, she thought very little about it. Some one said he was "as
white as his pillow." Dotty was amazed, for she had never seen any one
as white as that. Then she heard her grandmother say she was "afraid
Charlie wou