d that they
must be just nervous to feel so upset by it. So she speaks up sort of
sharp.

"'Don't you know that you mustn't pull the kitty's tail?' says she.
'Don't you know you hurt the poor kitty, and she'll scratch you if you
don't take care. Poor kitty, you mustn't hurt her.'

"And with that she said the child stopped pulling that cat's tail and
went to stroking her just as soft and pitiful, and the cat put his back
up and rubbed and purred as if he liked it. The cat never seemed a
mite afraid, and that seemed queer, for I had always heard that animals
were dreadfully afraid of ghosts; but then, that was a pretty harmless
little sort of ghost.

"Well, Mrs. Bird said the child stroked that cat, while she and Mrs.
Dennison stood watching it, and holding onto each other, for, no matter
how hard they tried to think it was all right, it didn't look right.
Finally Mrs. Dennison she spoke.

"'What's your name, little girl?' says she.

"Then the child looks up and stops stroking the cat, and says she can't
find her mother, just the way she said it to me. Then Mrs. Dennison
she gave such a gasp that Mrs. Bird thought she was going to faint
away, but she didn't. 'Well, who is your mother?' says she. But the
child just says again 'I can't find my mother--I can't find my mother.'

"'Where do you live, dear?' says Mrs. Bird.

"'I can't find my mother,' says the child.

"Well, that was the way it was. Nothing happened. Those two women
stood there hanging onto each other, and the child stood in front of
them, and they asked her questions, and everything she would say was:
'I can't find my mother.'

"Then Mrs. Bird tried to catch hold of the child, for she thought in
spite of what she saw that perhaps she was nervous and it was a real
child, only perhaps not quite right in its head, that had run away in
her little nightgown after she had been put to bed.

"She tried to catch the child. She had an idea of putting a shawl
around it and going out--she was such a little thing she could have
carried her easy enough--and trying to find out to which of the
neighbours she belonged. But the minute she moved toward the child
there wasn't any child there; there was only that little voice seeming
to come from nothing, saying 'I can't find my mother,' and presently
that died away.

"Well, that same thing kept happening, or something very much the same.
Once in awhile Mrs. Bird would be washing dishes, and all at once the