On the long table against the kitchen wall stood an elegant china fruit-dish which Vendla had brought out from the parlor to wash.
“Pretty dish,” said Lucy, fingering the edges lovingly.
“Let that alone, or you’ll break it,” said Jimmy, in the tone of command he often used when speaking to his little sister.
“You’re the naughtiest child, Lucy Lyman Dunlee! You’ll go and break that, and then they’ll go and blame _me_! I _always_ get punished for _you_!”
Jimmy pitied himself as he heard his own words.
“Yes, Lucy Lyman Dunlee, you’re the awfulest acting-est child!
“If you don’t stop picking cake, and spoiling things, and breaking things, I’ll—I’ll—why, they’ll think it’s _me_! and I’ll grow up to be despised!”
Lucy sprang away from the table in alarm. What it was to “grow up to be despised” she had no idea. Something bad, if it made Jimmy look like this!
“There comes Judy! What has she got in her mouth?” cried Jimmy, forgetting his fear of being “despised.” “It can’t be one of Polly’s chickens?”
With that, he and Lucy began to chase the cat about the room. Judy thought it hardly fair to have two children after her at once, and jumped into a chair, and from the chair to the table.
[Illustration: “Who did that?” cried Jimmy.
“She’s smelling the china dish with her nose. Come down; come down!” said Lucy.
Judy did not come, but continued to sniff at the dish.
“Stop that!” said Jimmy. “Come down, or I’ll pull you down!”
In a frolicsome mood he caught her by the tail, not roughly or unkindly. He had been taught gentleness to animals; but somehow in dragging her backward the fruit-dish got in the way. Perhaps Judy’s paw touched it, perhaps Jimmy’s elbow. Yes, it was probably Jimmy’s elbow. At any rate, the dish was overturned; and as it fell to the floor it broke in half a dozen pieces.
“Who did that?” cried Jimmy in dismay. He had not been aware of touching the dish. It was certainly an accident; still he was old enough to know that he was to blame for the accident. He should not have played with the cat while her nose was in the fruit-dish.
Yet he was the good boy who had just been scolding his little sister for nothing at all! The good boy who never did wrong!
“Oh, that beau’-ful dish!” sighed Lucy. “Poor mamma’ll feel _so_ bad!”