Copy-Cat Other Stories | Page 3

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This etext was prepared by Judy Boss, Omaha, NE

The COPY-CAT & Other Stories
BY MARY E. WILKINS FREEMAN

CONTENTS
PAGE
I. THE COPY-CAT . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
II. THE COCK OF THE WALK . . . . . . . . . 33
III. JOHNNY-IN-THE-WOODS . . . . . . . . . 55
IV. DANIEL AND LITTLE DAN'L . . . . . . . . 83
V. BIG SISTER SOLLY . . . . . . . . . . 107
VI. LITTLE LUCY ROSE . . . . . . . . . . 137
VII. NOBLESSE . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
VIII. CORONATION . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
IX. THE AMETHYST COMB . . . . . . . . . . 211
X. THE UMBRELLA MAN . . . . . . . . . . 237
XI. THE BALKING OF CHRISTOPHER . . . . . . . 267
XII. DEAR ANNIE . . . . . . . . . . . . 293

THE COPY-CAT

THE COPY-CAT
THAT affair of Jim Simmons's cats never became known. Two little
boys and a little girl can keep a secret -- that is, sometimes. The two
little boys had the advantage of the little girl because they could talk
over the affair together, and the little girl, Lily Jennings, had no
intimate girl friend to tempt her to confidence. She had only little
Amelia Wheeler, commonly called by the pupils of Madame's school
"The Copy-Cat."
Amelia was an odd little girl -- that is, everybody called her odd. She
was that rather unusual crea- ture, a child with a definite ideal; and that
ideal was Lily Jennings. However, nobody knew that. If Amelia's
mother, who was a woman of strong charac- ter, had suspected, she
would have taken strenuous measures to prevent such a peculiar state of
affairs; the more so because she herself did not in the least approve of

Lily Jennings. Mrs. Diantha Wheeler (Amelia's father had died when
she was a baby) often remarked to her own mother, Mrs. Stark, and to
her mother-in-law, Mrs. Samuel Wheeler, that she did not feel that Mrs.
Jennings was bringing up Lily exactly as she should. "That child thinks
entirely too much of her looks," said Mrs. Diantha. "When she walks
past here she switches those ridiculous frilled frocks of hers as if she
were entering a ball- room, and she tosses her head and looks about to
see if anybody is watching her. If I were to see Amelia doing such
things I should be very firm with her."
"Lily Jennings is a very pretty child," said Mother-in-law Wheeler,
with