I opened the door, and found Mrs. Beck. I told her we had come to take Coachy home.
Mrs. Beck walked a little toward her hot cook-stove before she spoke:
"Well, we'll give her a live one to take home. I'm certain she can't take the dead one."
"I've got her a-boiling," answered Mrs. Beck.
Boiling!-- Coachy boiling! I had been there all this while and hadn't smelled chicken. I felt like talking to Mrs. Beck; but I didn't. I shut my teeth, made her a slight bow, and went out to Bessie.
She was back among the cushions, with her hands over her eyes.
"Why, we _must_ get her!" she cried, straightening up. "_Why_ can't we get her?"
"Why," said I, gently as I could--"why, they are--cooking her."
Bessie's cheeks flamed. In less time than it takes to tell it she sprang from the carriage, burst open the kitchen door, ran against a toddling boy, blindly knocked him over, and faced Mrs. Beck.
"How did you _dare_ do such a thing!" she almost screamed, seizing the astonished woman by her dress skirt. "She's mine! my own Coachy! and I'll carry her home in a pail!"
Jumping on a stool, she reached up to a shelf of tin-ware. Grasping a good-sized pail, she pulled it from its place in such a hurry that half a dozen milk-pans were dragged off with it. Clattering like crazy things they whirled to the floor.
"Put my Coachy in there!--put her in!" she commanded, setting the pail down hard on the stove, and twisting the cover off.
Such a din I never heard. Those tin pans banged and rattled, Bessie's voice piped high, the boy on the floor broke into a hoarse scream, and our horse shied and started for home.
"Whoa! whoa!" I shouted, leaping off the steps, and bringing him round into place again.
Turning to go back to the tragedy in the house, I nearly collided with Bessie. She was running out with the pail in her hand, and with all the Beck children following. Thrusting it upon me, she hurried into the carriage; then reaching after it, she wrapped it in the lap-robe, and leaned back with a sigh of relief.
During the few minutes that it took us to rattle home I wondered what was to be done with poor Coachy. I didn't have long to wait. I led the horse into the stable, and as I was returning I discovered my little girl sitting on the grass by a rose-bush, with what we had brought at her feet.