But a black tragedy blotted
out that little happy family in the pigsty, and Death, in the shape of Amos
Bartlett, Mr. Chirgwin's head man, fell upon them. Then the farmer learned
that his niece could be angry. One morning Joan found the mother cat
running wildly here and there, with a world of misery in its cry; while a
moment afterward she came upon the kittens in a duck pond. Mr. Bartlett was
present and explained.
"Them chets had to gaw, missy. 'Tis a auld word an' it ban't wise to take
no count of sayings like that. 'May chets bad luck begets.' You've heard
tell o' that? Never let live no kittens born in May. They theer dead chets
comed May Day."
"You'm a cruel devil!" she said hotly; "how'd you like for your two lil
children to be thrawed in the water, May or no May? Look at thicky cat,
breakin' her heart, poor twoad!"
Mr. Bartlett was justly angry that Joan could dare to thus class his
priceless red-headed twins with a litter of dead kittens, and he said more
than was wise, ramming home a truth, and that coarsely.
"Theer's plenty more wheer them comed from, I lay. Nachur's so free, you
see--tu free like sometimes. Ban't no dearth o' chets or childern as I've
heard on. They comes unaxed, an' unwanted tu. You might a heard tell o'
some sich p'raps?"
She blushed and shook with passion at this sudden new aspect of affairs.
Here was a standpoint from which nobody had viewed her before.
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