Kitty Canary | Page 2

of Billy's, and, knowing he couldn't trust Horson any
more than me, he lent Lady-Bird to a man miles and miles away and I
never saw her again until she was a tame old thing I did not want to
ride. Billy behaves as if I were a child!
And then the very next winter I fell through the ice and he had to jump
in and get me out. He told me not to go to a certain part of the lake. He
had been all over it and tried it before I got my skates on, but I forgot
and went. A boy was with me, a skunky little rat, who, when he saw the
ice was cracking, tried to pull me back, and then he let go my hand and
flop I went in and flop came Billy behind me while the little Fur Coat
stood off and bawled for help and said afterward he didn't know how to
swim. Having on heavy clothes, I went down quick and was hard to get
up, and I would be an angel this minute if Billy hadn't been there. But
Billy is always there, which is what makes this summer so queer. He
isn't here.
On account of servants and things his mother didn't want to open their
country place this year, and my mother didn't want to open hers, so two
houses are closed. That means a scatteration for both families and is
why I am here and Billy in Europe; and if he is having as good a time
as I am he isn't grunting at the change. He didn't want to go to Europe.
His father made him. His mother and two sisters needed a man along
and, as Mr. Sloane couldn't go, Billy had to, and he was a great big
silent growl when he went off. I wasn't. I wanted to come to
Twickenham Town. We had passed through it once on our way to
Florida and I have been crazy to come back ever since, and when I
found Mother was going with Florine and Jessica to a splashy place I
didn't want to go to I begged her to let me come here and board with
Miss Susanna Mason and--glory be--she let me do it!

She is a sort of relation, Miss Susanna is, a farback one, but nothing is
too far back to claim here, and everybody who is anybody is kin to one
another, or kin to some one else's kin, which makes for sociableness,
and I am having a perfectly grand time. In all the world there isn't
another place like the one I am in this summer, and I am getting so
familiar with a new kind of natural history that maybe some day I will
be an authority on it. Ancestry is the chief asset of Twickenham Town,
and though you speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have
not ancestors it profiteth you nothing. That is, among the natives. Being
an outsider, I have decided not to have ancestors, and I am going to see
if the people won't take me in for myself. I have always believed a nice
person was nice if there weren't any family shrubs and things, and a
nasty one was nasty no matter how many coats of arms there were or
how heirloomy their houses, so I have asked Miss Susanna please to
excuse me if I don't call her cousin (we are seventh removed, I think
she said), and also, unless she has to, I hope she won't tell any one my
real name is Katherine Bird, but let everybody call me Kitty Canary, as
everybody does at home. I think she thought it was very queer in me to
say such things, but she smiled her precious, patient little smile, and,
though she didn't promise, she evidently hasn't mentioned my
sure-enough name, as no one here calls me by any other than the one
Billy gave me when I wasn't much bigger than a baby. Just Kitty
Canary will do for me.
CHAPTER II
The way I met Whythe (he's the one I'm almost perfectly certain I am in
love with) was this. When I got to the station in Twickenham Town
there was no one to meet me and take me to Rose Hill, which is Miss
Susanna Mason's home and right far out, because the train was three
hours late, and Uncle Henry, who drives the hack, and Mr. Briggs, who
runs the automobile, had gone home. There wasn't even anybody to
take my bag. I told Mother I had written Miss Susanna what train I
would be on, and because she was so busy and Father away she trusted
me to do things