The Story of Dago | Page 5

it with the conductor. I know that
there was a great deal said, and Matches and I were both sent back to
the baggage-car. All the rest of the journey I had an aching head and a
bruised shoulder to keep me in mind of that hateful little Matches, and I
resolved long before we reached home that I would do something to get
even with her, before we had lived together a week.
CHAPTER II.
WHAT DAGO SAID TO THE MIRROR-MONKEY ON TUESDAY.
Ring-tail, what do you think of Miss Patricia? I'm afraid of her. The
night we came home she met us in the hall, looking so tall and severe in
her black gown, with those prim little bunches of gray curls on each
side of her face, that I went under a chair. Then I thought I must have
misjudged her, for there were tears in her eyes when she kissed the
children, and I heard her whisper as she turned away, "poor little
motherless lambs!" Still I have seen so many people in the course of
my travels that I rarely make a mistake in reading character. As soon as
she caught sight of me I knew that my first thought had been right. Her
thin Roman nose went up in the air, and her sharp eyes glared at me so
savagely that I could think of nothing else but an old war eagle, with
arrows in its talons. You may have seen them on silver dollars.
"Tom Tremont," she exclaimed, "you don't mean to say that you have
brought home a monkey!" I wish you could have heard the disgust in
her voice. "Of all the little pests in the world, they are certainly the
worst!"
"Yes, Aunt Patricia," he answered. "They've been a great pleasure to
the boys."
"_They!_" she gasped. "You don't mean to say that there are two!"
Then she saw Matches climbing up on Phil's shoulder, and words failed

her.
"Yes; their grandfather gave each of the boys one of his pets. He said
that they would be company for them on the way home, and would help
divert their thoughts from their great loss. They grieved so, poor little
lads."
That softened Miss Patricia again, and she said nothing more about our
being pests. But when she passed me she drew her skirts aside as if she
could not bear to so much as brush against me, and from that hour it
has been war to the knife between us.
Matches and I were given a little room up in the attic under the eaves,
but at first we were rarely there during the day. The boys took us with
them wherever they went. We had been there some time before we
were left alone long enough for me to do any exploring.
It was almost dark when that first chance came. I prowled around the
attic awhile. Then I climbed out of the window and swung down by the
vines that covered that side of the house, to the shutters of the room
below. It happened to be Miss Patricia's room. As I perched on the top
of the shutters, leaning over and craning my neck, I could see Miss
Patricia sitting there in the dusk beside her open window. Her hands
were folded in her lap, and she was rocking gently back and forth in a
high-backed rocking-chair, with her eyes closed.
I thought it would be a good chance for me to take a peep into her room,
so I ventured to swing over and drop down on the window-sill beside
her, on all fours. I did it very quietly, so quietly, in fact, that I do not
see how she could possibly have been disturbed; yet I give you my
word, Ring-tail, that woman shrieked until you could have heard her
half a mile. I never was so terrified in all my life. It paralysed me for an
instant, and then I sprang up by the vines to the lightning-rod, and
streaked up it faster than any lightning ever came down. Once in my
room, I shook all the rest of the evening.
[Illustration]

Matches said that Miss Patricia was probably worse scared than I was,
but that's impossible. I never made a sound, and as for her--why, even
the cook came running when Miss Patricia began to shriek, and she was
in the coal-cellar at the time, and is deaf in one ear.
But Matches always disagreed with me in everything, and I was not
sorry when we parted company. I'd better tell you about that next. It
happened in this way. Stuart came into the room one day with Sim
Williams, one of the boys who was always swarming up the stairs to
see us. Sim