Brother and Sister Part 12

He spied the cat and dashed for her. She began to run, on the screen, of course. The audience in the movie house began to laugh, for the dog in his first jump had upset a bucket of paint. The people in the theatre were sure they were going to see a funny picture.

But Brownie had seen the cat, too. He knew cats, and there were many in his neighborhood he meant to chase as soon as he was old enough to make them afraid of him. He scratched vigorously on Sister's blouse and whined.

"Ki-yi!" he yelped, as though saying: "Ki-yi! I'll bet I could catch that cat!"

Barking shrilly, he scrambled out from Sister's middy, shook himself free of her arms, and tore down the aisle of the theatre, intent on catching the fluffy cat.

"Ki-yi!" he continued to call joyously.

"Brownie! Here, Brownie!" called Sister frantically. "Brownie, come back here!"

The theatre was in an uproar in a minute. Ladies began to shriek that the dog was mad, and some of them stood upon the seats and cried out.

The men who tried to catch Brownie only made him bark more, and the louder he barked the more the ladies shrieked. Finally they stopped the picture and turned on the lights.

"Rhodes and Elizabeth Morrison!" said someone sternly. "What are you doing here?"

There, across the aisle from Grandmother Hastings and Brother and Sister, sat Daddy and Mother Morrison with Dr. and Mrs. Yarrow. They had come to the movies, too!

"Is that dog Brownie?" asked Daddy Morrison, coming over to them.

Everyone had left his seat and the aisle was in confusion; people talking and arguing and advising one another.

Sister nodded miserably. She felt very small and unhappy.

"Rhodes, go down and get Brownie at once!" commanded Daddy Morrison.

When they were naughty, Brother and Sister were always called by their "truly" names, you see.

"I'll go get him," gulped Sister. "I brought him--Roddy didn't want me to."

Brownie came willingly enough to Sister and she gathered him up in her arms. He may have wondered, in his doggie mind, what all the fuss was about and what had become of the fluffy cat, but he was getting used to having his fun abruptly ended.

"I didn't know you brought the dog, dear," said Grandmother Hastings, breaking a grim silence as they walked home. "And did you know Mother wasn't willing to have you go at night when you asked me to take you?"

Poor little Sister had to confess that she had asked Grandmother to take them because she knew that in no other way could they get to the movies at night. Grandmother Hastings never scolded, but her grandchildren hated to know that she was disappointed in them.

No one scolded Brother and Sister very much that night. They were put to bed, and the next morning Daddy Morrison called them into his "den"

before he left for the office, and told them that for a week they could not go out of their own yard.

"And I s'pose we can't go with Ralph Sat.u.r.day," wailed Sister.

CHAPTER XV

TROUBLE AGAIN

However, they were allowed to go with Ralph to the movies the next Sat.u.r.day. Ralph himself explained to Daddy Morrison that he had promised to take them and then found he had a previous engagement. He thought, and Daddy Morrison did, too, that having to stay in the yard for a whole week was punishment enough even if one exception was permitted.

So Brother and Sister went down to the "big" theatre with Ralph the next Sat.u.r.day afternoon, and then they had to stay in their yard all day Sunday and all day Monday, and after that they might again go where they pleased.

"Let's go see if Norman Crane's aunt sent him a birthday present,"

suggested Sister the first morning they were free to leave the yard.

Norman Crane was a little friend who lived several blocks away, and whose aunt in New York City sent him wonderful presents at Christmas time and on his birthday. He had had a party a few days before, and of course Brother and Sister could not go--all because they would go to those unlucky movies!

Brother was willing to stop at Norman's house, but when they reached there they found Norman had gone to the city with his mother for a day's shopping.

"I smell tar," declared Brother, as they came down the steps and turned into the street where Miss Putnam lived in the haunted house--only it wasn't called that any longer. "Oh, look, Betty, they're mending something."

There was a little group of children about a big pot of boiling tar and workmen were mending the roofs of three or four houses that were built exactly alike and were owned by the same man. These houses were always repaired and painted at the same time every year.

Nearest to the boiling pot--indeed, with his red head almost in the hot steam--was the little boy Brother and Sister had noticed walking on Miss Putnam's picket fence. A puddle of tar had splashed over on the ground and the red-headed boy was stirring it with a stick held between his bare toes.

"Now don't hang around here all day," said one of the workmen, kindly enough. "Run away before you get burned. Hey, there, Red! Do you want to blister your foot?"

The red-haired lad grinned mischievously.

"I'd hate to spoil my shoes," he jeered, "but you watch and I'll kick over your old pot! I can, just as easy."

The other children drew nearer, half-believing the boy would tip over the pot of boiling tar.

"Here," said another and younger workman, "if we give each of you a little on a stick will you promise to go off and leave us in peace?"

There was an eager chorus of promises, and the good-natured young roofer actually stuck a little ball of the soft tar on each stick thrust at him and watched the small army of boys and girls march up the street, smiling.

"That Mickey Gaffney thinks he's smart," said Nellie Yarrow, who had found Brother and Sister in the crowd, as the red-headed boy dashed past them, waving his stick of tar wildly and shouting like an Indian.

"Do you know him?" asked Sister. "Doesn't he ever wear shoes?"

"I guess so--I don't know. I don't like him," replied Nellie indifferently.

"I don't believe he has any shoes, not even for Sunday," Brother said to himself. "His coat was all torn and his mother sewed his pants up with another kind of cloth so that it shows. I wonder where 'bouts he lives?"

He opened his mouth to ask Nellie, when Miss Putnam swooped down to the fence as they were pa.s.sing her house.

"Go way!" she called, leaving her weeding to wave a rake at them. "Go 'long with you! Don't you drop any of that messy tar on my sidewalk!"

"What lovely flowers!" whispered Sister as they obediently hurried past.

Indeed, Miss Putnam had made a beautiful garden and lawn of her small yard, and she did all the work of taking care of it herself.

Sister and Brother carried their tar home with them and left it in the sand heap. Jimmie had six boys playing in the gymnasium with him and they all stayed to lunch. Molly and Mother Morrison were used to having unexpected guests, and no matter how many there were, in some mysterious manner plenty of good things to eat appeared on the table.

"Can we come out and watch you?" asked Brother when the boys were going back to the barn.