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d her tell mamma so. He saved the baby when it was so terribly sick and the other doctor said it could not get well."
"Maybe it would do for part of the name, though I wouldn't want to call him Vane every day. That would sound as if he was a peacock. See him pull that flower to pieces just as if he was trying to study how it is put together. Maybe he will grow up to be a big botany man. I would like to be one myself if I didn't intend to keep house for Tom. Oh, the baby has started for the river!"
Both girls sprang up and gave chase and Carrie straightway forgot all about the name problem, but Tabitha's busy brain puzzled over it all that happy day, even while she romped and played with her mates in lively games of "Farmer in the Dell," "Old Mother Witch," "Drop the Handkerchief," and all the other childhood favorites. Once she almost forgot it. They were playing "Blind Man's Buff," when Jerome, who was "it," succeeded in catching her by her hair after an animated scrimmage. Her braid promptly gave away her identity, for no other girl in school possessed such long tresses; and Jerome was elated at having so readily discovered who his prisoner was, all the more so because this was the first time Tabitha had been caught; so he teasingly cried, "Aha, this is Miss Me-a-ow!"
How the children shouted, and for a moment Tabitha's face was crimson with passion and she lifted a doubled-up fist threateningly; but before the expected blow fell, Tabitha's lips curved suddenly into a smile, her arm dropped to her side, and she gayly answered, "Yes, Mr. Ki-yip-ki-yi-yi, put on my blinders."
Only Miss Brooks of the grown people had witnessed the child's struggle, and as they were sitting down to the generous lunch spread under the cottonwoods, she drew the flushed face down beside her and said very softly, "That was well done, dear. I am proud of you."
"You needn't be," was the candid reply. "I was all ready to scratch for all I was worth when I saw the baby and I knew I wasn't a fit person to