"You needn't tell the neighborhood," Bobby said a little crossly, for he was tired, "but kittens are in it."
"Kittens!" Twaddles shouted, leaping ahead to spread the news.
"Mother!" he called, racing into the house. "Oh, Mother, come and see the kittens Bobby has in a bag!"
Mother Blossom and Aunt Polly and Norah came into the hall and Bobby sat down on the rug, with Meg and the twins almost on top of him.
"They're four," he explained as he began to untie the string that was knotted around the bag. "Charlie Black was going to drown them for Mr. Fritz, but he said Meg could have them. Maybe they are pretty."
He turned down the bag and a black kitten walked out. Then a gray and white one. Then a yellow one and next a striped "tiger" kitten.
"Four, is it?" she giggled. "Then I must be seeing double, Bobby, for there's six already and--yes, here's another--that makes seven!"
Well, there they were--seven kittens, none especially fat and none especially pretty, all "just kittens," as Twaddles named them.
But Meg thought they were lovely and she was anxious to take them out to the garage and give them some warm milk. The garage was always chosen as a good place to feed stray animals, for the cement floor could be more easily washed than the linoleum that was the pride of Norah's heart in the kitchen.
"Meg, darling, we simply cannot keep all those kittens," Mother Blossom declared regretfully. "Seven kittens are a great many and I don't believe Annabel Lee will welcome so much company."
"But, Mother, we can't drown them!" said Meg, her eyes round with horror. "We have to take care of them."
"I think you children will have to find homes for them," Mother Blossom announced. "Think over all the folk you know and try to find homes for these homeless little cats. That will be something for you to do, too, Dot and Twaddles."
"I'm going to think now," said Twaddles, sitting down on the lowest step of the stairs.
"I'm going to think, too," Dot declared, sitting down beside Twaddles, to his great annoyance.
"You always talk," he complained, as Dot pushed him over toward the wall.
Meg and Bobby postponed their thoughts till they had taken the kittens out to the garage and fed them. They begged a piece of rug from Norah and an old box from Sam, and they made a comfortable bed.