"What is it?" they called. "Can we come in, Jud, can't we come see?"
Jud made a quick scoop with his hand and brought out the miserable, clawing, spitting little kitten.
"You stay where you are!" he ordered the twins. "Say, where'll I put this?" he asked helplessly, turning to Meg.
She held up her skirt again and he dropped the kitten in it, since that seemed to be the only place, and as Meg afterward said she was "a little damp" from the cat's splash and more water wouldn't hurt.
Then Jud took hold of Meg's hand more firmly and Bobby's, too, and they managed to reach the opposite bank without any more mishaps.
"What is it? What is it?" Dot and Twaddles begged, running up and down madly. "Did you find something, Meg? Did you see the buttons on the shirt? Did the man come and ask you who took it?"
"We didn't see anybody," said Bobby, who felt it was his duty to answer this flood of questions. "I don't believe the man lives very near, because we didn't see any house. But Meg found something."
By this time Aunt Polly and Linda had come down to the brook, to see what was making the twins more excited than usual.
"Meg found something!" Dot told Aunt Polly.
"Did you, dear?" asked Aunt Polly, smiling. "Don't tell me it is another shirt, Meg."
Meg stepped back and faced the group dramatically.
"It's a cat!" she said, and held her "find" up for them to see.
To her amazement, Linda and Jud went off into fits of laughter and even Aunt Polly seemed to be trying not to smile.
"I don't see anything funny," Meg announced stiffly. "It's a poor little almost dead cat. Bobby and I found it down the brook, hanging on a tree and afraid to climb off."
"Why, the poor little thing!" said Aunt Polly with ready sympathy. "We must take it home and feed it, Meg."
"I'm only laughing," Linda explained, wiping her eyes, "because it is such a distressed-looking cat, Meg. It's so dirty and so little and so--so mad!" she finished as the cat humped up its back and spit at Twaddles who tried to stroke it.
"Stray kittens don't make friends very readily," said kind Aunt Polly. "They think everyone is their enemy, till proved otherwise. We must teach your kitten, Meg, that at Brookside Farm we like kitty cats."
"Where do you suppose it came from?" Bobby asked.