Of course Meg's attention was held at once.
"Where did you get any kittens, Charlie?" she asked, half inclined not to believe him.
Charlie wriggled along the ground till he was a safe distance from Bobby, then scrambled to his feet.
"A man gave 'em to me," he said. "He wants me to drown 'em!" and away he skated as fast as he could go.
"Bobby!" Meg almost screamed. "Bobby! don't let him drown the kittens."
Meg was, as her family said, "crazy" about all animals, and kittens were her special delight. But then Bobby didn't like the idea of drowning four helpless little cats in the icy cold water of the pond, either. He started after Charlie Black, and Meg went after him and really wished she didn't have a new dress for a moment because she found the box a nuisance to carry.
Charlie could skate fairly well, but that was when he was watching where he was going. This time he was watching Bobby instead and as a result he failed to see a curb and went over it with a jolt that landed him on his knees. Before he could rise, Bobby and Meg had caught Up with him.
"You give them to us," said Bobby sternly. "If no one wants them, we can take them home."
"The man said to drown them--they're his cats and I guess he has a right to say what he wants done with them," Charlie retorted.
"I'll go see the man," she announced calmly. "Where are the kittens?"
Now whether Charlie really didn't want to drown the little, soft helpless kittens, or whether he was afraid of Bobby--perhaps his reasons were mixed as reasons often are--no one knew. But he said that Meg and Bobby could come home with him and he would give them the kittens.
The bag was in the woodshed and it was such a dirty old bag--made of canvas that looked as though it had been carried for years and never washed--that involuntarily Bobby held it at arms' length from him.
"They won't bite you," said Charlie scornfully, thinking he was afraid of the kittens--they could be heard mewing inside the bag.
"What is the man's name and where does he live?" Meg asked quietly.
"Ah, I was only fooling--he doesn't care what happens to those old cats," said Charlie. "It's Mr. Fritz--over on Beech Street. He's cross enough anyway without being asked a lot of extra questions."