It was just then that nurse's voice came calling us to say good-bye to our father and mother. So we slammed down the window in our new friend's face, and pushed the screen back into position, and, bursting with our secret, Willy and I went galloping down the stairs.
Oh, those uncarpeted, twisting stairs! Now that Willy and I have "grown up and gone away," do they creak gaily beneath the happy feet of children still, I wonder, or only groan with the heavy tread of sober grown-ups? Often and often now, while
"In the elders' seat Resting with quiet feet,"
I fall asleep and dream I come to the foot of those enchanted stairs, where for my little companion and me stupid law and irksome restraint ceased, and the liberty we craved began. Then, once more, Willy and I, whose hands will never meet again on earth, mount hand in hand to the region we loved.
We drove with our father and mother to the station, and, coming back, found we had the tiresome formality of our nursery tea to get through before we were free to make tracks for our happy hunting-ground above.
The young man was waiting there, before his open window, his hands in his trousers-pockets. We tore down the screen, flung up our own window. "Have you got it?" we called to him, breathlessly. "Is it there? The kitten?"
It was in his coat-pocket; a little sandy kitten which trembled exceedingly through all its fluffy fur, and piteously mewed. He held it forth to us, finger and thumb about its tiny neck, across the narrow way; but stretch as far as we could we could not reach it. Willy undertook to catch it if it were thrown, but the young man said that for worlds he would not endanger the life of the kitten, and I implored him to run no risks.
"What is that standing up by the side of your bed?" Willy asked him, pointing. "It was not there before--that long board?"
It was a plank, the young man informed us. He was going to make it into a box. He was a carpenter by trade. Didn't we know it?
We told him no, and artlessly informed him we had thought he was a gentleman, assuring him politely at the same time we were glad he was not.
Then Willy suggested that the plank should bridge the space from his room to ours, and that the kitten should be induced to walk on it.