  Every summer grandma Cushing has two visitors. Their names are Blanche Cushing and Dorothy Cushing. Blanche lives in Iowa. She has blue eyes and yellow hair and is seven years old. Dorothy lives in New York City. She has brown eyes and brown hair and is eight years old. They love dearly to play in grandma’s attic. There are queer old bonnets and gowns and cocked hats hanging on the walls. There are trunks full of caps and spectacles and old snuffers and no end of queer things. I cannot begin to tell you everything the cousins play. But there is one thing they like to play ever so much. PLAYING IN GRANDMA’S ATTIC. They like to dress up in the queer old clothes and play Cinderella, and Mother Hubbard, and Red Riding Hood. When Blanche gets on her great-great-grandma Cushing’s cap A VERY CHARMING MOTHER HUBBARD. They sit in the big old chairs and tell stories. Dorothy likes to hear about the wolves. There are wolves where Blanche lives. “Yes, one day when I was a very, very little girl,” said Blanche, “a horrid big wolf came up to the window and looked in. I was sitting in mamma’s lap, and he put his paws on the window and just looked at us horrid! “And then another time, mamma, you know, was going out to meet papa, and she saw a big wolf on the ground, and she thought it was dead, and she was going right up, and it wasn’t dead a bit. It just got up and runned off to the woods, and mamma was awful scared and runned away too.” When Blanche tells the wolf stories they play “scared.” It is fun to play “scared.” They shriek and run and hide. One rainy day they had been playing Mother Hubbard. “Now,” said Blanche, “I will tell a b-eautiful wolf story. It will make us awful scared. See if it doesn’t!” “Oh, what is that, Dotty?” whispered Blanche, clutching Dorothy’s arm. Scratch, scratch, it went again, and then there was a great rattling. “Oh, it’s a wolf!” cried Dotty; and down the attic stairs they flew pell-mell; through the kitchen chamber and the great unfinished chamber, and down the back stairs; through the kitchen and the dining-room, and burst into grandma’s room all out of breath. “What is the matter, children?” asked grandma. “Oh, there’s a wolf in the attic,” they both cried out. “Nonsense! we don’t have wolves in Massachusetts,” said grandma. “Well,” said Dorothy, “something scratched dreadfully.” So grandma went up to the attic to see about it. “Where was the noise?” she asked. BRIGHT-EYES AT HOME. They pointed to the dark place behind the big chimneys. Grandma went up and opened a door and out walked—a wolf! The cousins never know when to expect him. He comes in without knocking. The first thing they know there he is looking at them with bright eyes. They have named him Bright-eyes. They feed him with cake and cheese. He is very tame. Grandma says she never heard of such a thing as feeding a rat. She says Bright-eyes eats her hens’ eggs. He steals them out of the nests. |
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