Kitty Canary

Kate Langely Bosher
Kitty Canary

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Kitty Canary, by Kate Langley
Bosher This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and
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Title: Kitty Canary
Author: Kate Langley Bosher
Release Date: October 25, 2005 [EBook #16946]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KITTY
CANARY ***

Produced by Al Haines

[Frontispiece: Kitty Canary.]

Kitty Canary
A NOVEL

BY
KATE LANGLEY BOSHER

AUTHOR OF
"MARY CARY" ETC.

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON

HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK
ESTABLISHED 1817

Copyright, 1913, by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the United States of America
Published February, 1918

KITTY CANARY
CHAPTER I
I am in love. It is the most scrumptious thing I have ever been in.
Perfectly magnificent! Every time I think of it I feel as if I were going
down an elevator forty floors and my heart flippity-flops so my teeth
mortify me. He used to be engaged to Elizabeth Hamilton Carter, the
niece of the lady at whose house I am boarding this summer, but he did

something he ought not to have done, or he didn't do something he
ought to have done, and they had a fuss. No one seems to know the
cause of it, but it was probably from her wanting him to be blind to
everything on earth but her, and a man isn't going to be blind when he
wants to see, and then she got hurt. I'd rather live in a house with a
cackling hen or a grunting pig than the sort of person who is always
getting hurt. But she's very pretty. Pink-and-white pretty, with uplifting
eyes and a little mouth that shuts itself when mad and says nothing, and
oozes more disagreeableness than if it talked. He still thinks there isn't
another girl in town who can touch her in looks. I don't suppose a man
ever gets over a real case of pink-and-white. It's the kind that makes a
tender memory if it isn't the best sort to live with, and men like to have
a memory to sigh over in secret. Her rejected one may sigh in secret,
but in public he does not seem to be suffering. He isn't suffering. We
like each other very much.
The reason I am glad I am in love is that I am sixteen and I was getting
afraid I wasn't ever going to fall in love. Three or four times I have
thought I was in it, but I wasn't, and I was beginning to be sure I was
the sort of person who doesn't fall. And, besides, it is good for Billy,
who, because he is twenty, thinks he is old enough to have some things
settled which there is no need to settle too soon. Settled things are not
exciting. I love excitement and not knowing what a day may bring forth.
Billy doesn't. He wants his ducks to be always in a row.
Ever since he fished me out of the water-barrel sunk in Grandmother
Hatley's garden, when I was four and he eight, he has seemed to think I
belonged to him; and, though he doesn't imagine I know it and never
mentions it, he is always around when I am in danger or trouble, to get
me out. I suppose saving my life three or four times makes him feel I
can't take care of myself and therefore he must take care of me, but
that's a mistake. I have never had a horse to run away with me but once.
Billy did tell me not to ride her, and when she ran and would have
pitched me over her head and down a gully he caught her in the nick of
time and caught me, too, but that's the only time a thing of that sort
ever happened. He was real nice about it and never said anything
concerning having told me so and didn't make remarks of the sort

which other people rub in, but the next day the horse was sent away.
That's the thing which makes me fighting furious with Billy sometimes.
He doesn't say things. He does them. I wasn't afraid of that horse and
was going to keep on riding her, but the next day there was no
Lady-Bird to ride. The reason he sent her away was I wouldn't promise
not to ride her. Our summer homes are on adjoining places and Horson,
their stableman, a nice, drinky old person, lets me take out anything I
want, anything
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