HAPPY SUSIE.
DO you really wish to know what I am doing, my dear old pussy cat?" said Susie May, as she leaned against the garden gate.
Pussy looked up at her with a "Meow" which Susie took to mean "Yes," and she continued,
"Well! I'll tell you, pussycat, I'm knitting a pair of suspenders for Grandpa Simons. You know he's very poor, pussy cat, and he hasn't anybody to make little nice things for him; and I am going to play that I am his little grandchild, and I'm going to do ever so many things to make him happy."
To this remark pussy said again, "Meow," and Susie continued again:
"There, I knew that you would think it was nice, pussy. You always like to have everybody do what is right, don't you?"
Again pussy said, "Meow."
Just at this interesting part of the conversation, Susie dropped the ball of yarn out of her pocket, and the playful kittens flew at it, and boxed it about as only kittens can when a plaything falls within their reach.
"There, there, pussy cat. I wish you would call your kittens away."
"Meow," says pussy cat again, as if she were saying, "I think they are trying to help you." At least that was what Susie thought she said, and so, like the good-natured little girl that she is, she replied,
"Well, dear little things, perhaps they are trying to help. I'd better think so, any way, and be thankful to them, and keep happy, than to get cross, and scold, and fret at them for pulling my yarn, as they box the ball about. So play away, and I will play that you are helping, and we'll have a real good time with our play."
So the sport went on, and kittens, cat, and little girl, all were happy in making grandfather Simons's suspenders.
E. M. B