It would
have helped--oh yes, it would have helped.
Aunt Olivia worried on. It seemed to her that all Rebecca Mary's
meals in one meal would not have kept a kitten alive--and that reminded
her. She would try a kitten. The minister's wife had said a rooster
or a cat. A white kitten, she decided, though she could scarcely have
told why.
The kitten was better, but it was not a cure. Rebecca Mary took the
little creature to her breast and told it her grief for Thomas
Jefferson and cried her Thomas Jefferson tears into its soft, white
fur. In that way, at any rate, it was a success.
"Maybe I shall love you some day," she whispered, "but I can't yet,
while Thomas Jefferson is fresh. He's all I have room for. He was my
intimate friend--when your intimate friend is dead you can't love
anybody else right away." But she apologized to the little cat gently
--she felt that an apology was due it.
"You see how it is, little, white cat," she said. "I shall have to ask
you to wait. But if I ever have a second love, I promise it will be
you. You're a great DEAL comfortinger than that Tony Trumbull rooster!
I could love you this minute if I had never loved Thomas Jefferson.
Do you feel like waiting?"
The little, white cat waited. And Aunt Olivia waited. She made
tempting dishes for Rebecca Mary's meals, and put a ruffle into her
nightgown neck and sleeves--Rebecca Mary had always yearned for
ruffles.
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