"Go "way," returned Meg fearfully. "Leave Bobby be. That"s my new dress."
Tim"s voice changed to a high, squeaky, thin note.
""Call me early, Mother,"" he chortled, ""for I"m to be Queen of the May, Mother, I"m to be Queen of the May.""
"You take the box, Meg," said Bobby angrily, "while I hit that big chump."
Meg reached for the box, but Tim was quicker and he knocked it spinning. Then away he went, running at top speed, his shouts of laughter echoing up the street.
"I"ll bet it"s all mud!" mourned Meg, crying a little. "Oh, Bobby, did it fall in a puddle?"
Bobby was peeping under the tissue paper covers.
""Tisn"t hurt a mite," he declared. "Not one spot, Meg. See, the box fell right side up. Isn"t that lucky?"
Just at that moment Charlie Black came flying around the corner on his roller skates and ran into Meg before he could stop himself. He knocked her down and landed on top of her.
"Meg, Meg, did he hurt you?" Bobby had Meg on her feet in a second.
"No? You sure? Well, just you watch me pound him."
Bobby was furious, and hitting Charlie Black he felt would relieve his feeling almost as much as a fight with Tim Roon. The two bad boys never lost an opportunity to torment him or Meg, and Bobby felt that here was a heaven-sent opportunity to even up old scores.
"I"ve got my skates on," whimpered Charlie, as Bobby leaned over him.
"Don"t you dare touch me, Bobby Blossom! Go "way! I tell you "tisn"t fair! I"ve got my skates on!"
"Well, I don"t care if you have!" roared Bobby. "Stand up, and see what you"ll get! Stand up!"
Charlie much preferred to lie down, and now he simply rolled over on his back and pawed the air wildly.
"Don"t you dare touch me!" he kept crying. "Go away! Leave me alone."
Bobby looked disgusted.
"You leave me alone and I"ll give you something," Charlie whimpered.
"Honest I will, Bobby."
"What?" said Bobby shortly.
Charlie Black sat up and tried to grin at Meg.
"I got four kittens," he said, careless as usual of his grammar.
"They"re beauties."
CHAPTER XV
MR. FRITZ"S KITTENS
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.
"Where--are--the--kittens?" gasped Meg.
"In a bag," Charlie answered sullenly.
"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.
Meg thought about this a minute.
"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."
But Meg was determined to see Mr. Fritz and she made Bobby go around to Beech Street with her.
"It"s just as Charlie said--they are his kittens," she argued. "And of course if he says they have to be drowned they have to be: only we won"t do it."
"Don"t you want to look at them?" asked Bobby, swinging the bag gently.
Meg shook her head.
"Not if somebody has to drown them," she said.
Mr. Fritz lived in a large old-fashioned house, set back from the street. When the children rang the door bell a deaf woman who did all the housework for him--he was an old bachelor--came to the door.