3. But the black kitten had been finished with earlier in the afternoon, and so, while Alice was sitting curled up in a corner of the great armchair, half talking to herself and half asleep, the kitten had been having a grand game of romps with the ball of worsted Alice had been trying to wind up, and had been rolling it up and down till it had all come undone again. There it was, spread over the hearthrug, all knots and tangles, with the kitten running after its own tail in the middle.
4. "Oh, you wicked, wicked little thing!" cried Alice, catching up the kitten and giving it a little kiss to make it understand that it was in disgrace. "Really, Dinah ought to have taught you better manners! You ought, Dinah; you know you ought!" she added, looking reproachfully at the old cat and speaking in as cross a voice as she could manage. Then she scrambled back into the armchair, taking the kitten and the worsted with her, and began winding up the ball again.
5. But she didn't get on very fast, as she was talking all the time, sometimes to the kitten, and sometimes to herself. Kitty sat very demurely on her knee, pretending to watch the progress of the winding, and now and then putting out one paw and gently touching the ball, as if it would be glad to help if it might.
6. "Do you know what to-morrow is, Kitty?" Alice began. "You'd have guessed if you'd been up in the window with me – only Dinah was making you tidy, so you couldn't. I was watching the boys getting in sticks for the bonfire – and it wants plenty of sticks, Kitty! Only it got so cold and it snowed so they had to leave off. Never mind, Kitty; we'll go and see the bonfire to-morrow."
7. Here Alice wound two or three turns of the worsted round the kitten's neck, just to see how it would look. This led to a scramble, in which the ball rolled down upon the floor and yards and yards of it got unwound again.
II
8. "Do you know, I was so angry, Kitty," Alice went on as soon as they were comfortably settled again, "when I saw all the mischief you had been doing, I was very near opening the window and putting you out into the snow! And you'd have deserved it, you little mischievous darling! What have you got to say for yourself?
9. "Now, don't interrupt me!" she went on, holding up one finger; "I'm going to tell you all your faults. Number one: You squeaked twice while Dinah was washing your face this morning. Now, you can't deny it, Kitty; I heard you! What's that you say?" – pretending that the kitten was speaking – "Her paw went into your eye? Well, that's your fault for keeping your eyes open. If you'd shut them tight up it wouldn't have happened.
10. "Now, don't make any more excuses, but listen. Number two: You pulled Snowdrop away by the tail just as I had put down the saucer of milk before her! What! you were thirsty, were you? How do you know she wasn't thirsty, too? Now for number three: You unwound every bit of the worsted while I wasn't looking.
11. "That's three faults, Kitty, and you've not been punished for any of them yet. You know I am saving up all your punishments for Wednesday week. Suppose they had saved up all my punishments," she went on, talking more to herself than to the kitten, "what would they do at the end of a year? I should be sent to prison, I suppose, when the day came.
12. "Or – let me see – suppose each punishment was to be going without a dinner? Then, when the miserable day came, I should have to go without fifty dinners at once. Well, I shouldn't mind that much. I'd far rather go without them than eat them.
13. "Do you hear the snow against the window panes, Kitty? How nice and soft it sounds! Just as if some one was kissing the window all over outside. I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, 'Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.'
14. "And when they wake up in the summer, Kitty, they dress themselves all in green and dance about whenever the wind blows – oh, that's very pretty!" cried Alice, dropping the ball of worsted to clap her hands: "And I do so wish it were true."
Rē̍ prōach´fụl ly̆: chidingly. Dē̍ mūre´ly̆: soberly. Mĭs´chiē̍ voŭs: doing harm in play.
Round, square, broad, yellow, silver, sweet, gold, narrow, sour, brown, crooked, stony.
Place together the words which show (1) form; (2) taste; (3) color; (4) material.
Use each of the words in a sentence telling something which always has the quality named: as, a ball is round.
The Kitten and the Falling Leaves
William Wordsworth (1770-1850): An English poet. He found poetry in the simplest scenes and incidents of everyday life, and helped others to see the beauty of nature, to reverence God, and to sympathize with even the lowliest of their fellowmen. "Intimations of Immortality," "Laodamia," "The Excursion," and "The Prelude" are among the best of his longer poems.
That way look, my infant, lo!
What a pretty baby show!
See the kitten on the wall,
Sporting with the leaves that fall,
Withered leaves – one, two, and three —
From the lofty elder tree!
Through the calm and frosty air
Of this morning bright and fair,
Eddying round and round they sink
Softly, slowly: one might think,
From the motions that are made,
Every little leaf conveyed
Sylph or fairy hither tending,
To this lower world descending,
Each invisible and mute,
In his wavering parachute.
But the kitten, how she starts,
Crouches, stretches, paws, and darts!
First at one, and then its fellow,
Just as light and just as yellow;
There are many now – now one —
Now they stop and there are none:
What intenseness of desire
In her upward eye of fire!
With a tiger-leap, half-way
Now she meets the coming prey,
Lets it go as fast, and then
Has it in her power again:
Now she works with three or four,
Like an Indian conjurer;
Quick as he in feats of art,
Far beyond in joy of heart.
Ĕd´dy̆ ĭng: moving in a circle. Cŏn ve̱yed´: carried. Sylph: a fairy. Păr´ȧ çhṳte: a sort of umbrella by means of which descent is made from a balloon. Cȯn´jŭr ẽr: magician. Fēats: tricks.
The Snow-Image
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864): An American novelist. His best works are "The Scarlet Letter," "The House of the Seven Gables," and "The Marble Faun." Hawthorne wrote also several delightful books for children; among these are "Grandfather's Chair," a collection of stories from New England history, "Biographical Stories," "The Wonder Book," and "Tanglewood Tales" – the two latter being volumes of stories from Greek mythology.
I
1. One afternoon of a cold winter's day, when the sun shone forth with chilly brightness, after a long storm, two children asked leave of their mother to run out and play in the new-fallen snow.
2. The elder child was a little girl, whom, because she was of a tender and modest disposition, and was thought