"Well, Miss Peyton is some mobilizer," sighed Dee as she snuggled down in her bed after our first study hall had been lived through at Gresham. "Just to think, here we are hard at work when we have been here only two days."

"Well, I'm glad, for one," said Dum. "If they work us hard enough, we won't get Zebedee-sick. That's what Dee and I call homesick. Wherever Zebedee is, is home for us."

"My Father and Bracken and Mammy Susan and the dogs are so mixed up in my mind that I can't tell what or which or whom I miss most," and I scrambled into bed in a great hurry just as the bell rang to warn us that lights must be out in five minutes. I had not been twenty-four hours with other girls before I had learned many things that girls know. One of them was that the last one up has the chores to do, such as raising the window at the bottom and pulling it down at the top, a mighty chilly performance when clothed in nothing but a nightgown; also, the tardy one has the light to put out.

"Oh, you foxy creatures!" cried Dum. "I bet you haven't cleaned your teeth, you've been in such a hurry to beat me to bed."

"'Deed we have," we declared, "while you were calling on Annie Pore."

"You haven't said your prayers, then," persisted Dum.

"I have," I said. But Dee had neglected this means of grace and had to crawl out of her nice, warm bed; and she and Dum knelt together. There was silence for about three minutes; then Dum bounced into bed and pulled the covers up to her square chin. There she lay, with eyes closed.

"Dum Tucker, you skipped something. I don't believe you said a single thing but 'NowIlayme,'" and Dee stood over her sister like an avenging angel.

"What's it to you?" yawned Dum. "That's a matter between me and my conscience. Open the window; and turn out the light; and crawl into bed before our room gets reported."

"Well, it was a matter between my conscience and me whether I said my prayers at all; and you went and butt in on us. Now you take that toploftical stand about you and your conscience! Well, you and your conscience can just lie on the floor together." With which tirade, Dee yanked Dum and all her bed clothes out on the floor. She then whisked off the light and, quickly raising the window, jumped into bed.

I wondered what would be the outcome of this battle and if it would have to be settled according to the Tuckers' code of honor: a duel with boxing gloves. But just then there was a sharp rap on the door.

"Less noise, please," said a determined voice outside, "or I shall have to report 117 to the principal."

Dum lay on the floor convulsed with giggles. "Sh-h—." I warned. "Be careful, or we'll all have to write pages from the dictionary for two hours."

"You won't have to, surely, when Dum and I made all the racket," whispered Dee.

"The teacher said '117,' and that means me, too. Can you get back into bed? Is the foot untucked?"

"I believe I can if I don't start giggling again," and Dum began to squirm out of the covers.

"Let me help," said the penitent Dee, and Dum was soon back in her cot and silence reigned supreme. After a while I heard Dum whisper:

"Say, Dee, I did skip. Conscience bids me confess to thee."

"Well, Dum, I'll give it to you that you and your conscience are perfect gentlemen," said Dee admiringly.

"Thanks awfully," yawned Dum. "I know one thing, I'm a mighty sleepy gentleman;" and in a trice the quiet breathing from the disheveled bed told that Dum and her conscience were at rest.

There were constant surprises in store for one who shared a room with the Tucker twins. They certainly had the gift of infinite variety in the kind of scrapes they could get themselves into. They usually got out of scrapes as easily as they got into them by a certain frankness and directness that would disarm Miss Peyton herself. They didn't break rules, because they did things that nobody had ever thought of making rules about. The principal at Gresham was not so farseeing as the teacher in "Mary Had a Little Lamb," who seems to have made a rule about lambs in school:

One day when we were taking a sedate walk, the school out in full force with two teachers to keep order along the blue-coated, black-hatted lines, we saw by the roadside a little kitten, so young its eyes were hardly open.

"Poor little foundling!" "I wonder where it came from!" "I'd like to pick him up!" ejaculated several of the girls, but Dee Tucker was the one who acted. She was bringing up the rear with Miss Sears, the Latin teacher. As they were passing the forlorn little feline, Miss Sears stepped forward to admonish a couple who were talking too loudly. Dee stooped and quickly scooped into her muff the poor pussy. No one saw her and kitty very considerately said nothing. He lay there warm and contented, dreaming he was back with his soft, loving mother, and forgetting the rude hand that had put him into a bag with his brothers and sisters. The bag had had a merciful hole, and he, being the runt of the family, had fallen through before the proposed drowning came off.

We marched on, all unconscious of the addition to our ranks. When we got back to school and went up to our room to take off our hats, etc., I noticed that Dee had very shining eyes and her dimple seemed to be deeper, but she did not divulge to Dum and me what she had up her sleeve, or rather her muff. I also noticed at supper that she swiped some bread and very adroitly concealed it in her middy blouse. She also very cleverly called the attention of every one at our table to the autumn moon, that was peeping into the dining room window, and while they were looking the other way, she filled a little vial with milk from her glass.

Naturally I said nothing, but adopted the watchful, waiting attitude, certain that sooner or later I'd find out what Dee was up to. And I did, all right.

After supper we had an hour before study hall which we usually spent in the gymnasium dancing. Dum and Dee had undertaken to teach Annie Pore and me the new dances. All dances were new to poor Annie and me. I could cut the pigeon wing and dance "Goin' to Church," which is a negro classic (but the Tango and Maxixe with all of the intricate steps and side-stepping seemed very difficult). But I must learn, and learn I did. As for Annie, her sense of rhythm was so great that she took to dancing as a duck does to water. She had to get over a certain self-consciousness that was her ruling fault, but when the Victrola was started in one of the tunes that would make a dead darkey want to get up and pat, why, Annie would forget all about Annie and her ill-fitting clothes and would sway to the music with the utmost abandon.

I believe I have forgotten to tell whom Annie got for a roommate. It was none other than Josephine Barr, the good-natured, dressy Senior, for whom Miss Sayre felt so sorry because of her great wealth. I fancy Jo, as we soon called her, was not very well pleased at first at having to share a room with such a seemingly dismal person; but it was either Annie or Mabel Binks, as all the other rooms were filled and Jo had not registered in time to have much choice.

She couldn't bear Mabel Binks; and she did feel sorry for the poor little new girl who seemed so ready to dissolve into tears. Jo was the best old thing in the world, with a heart as big as all outdoors and an optimistic nature that was bound to influence Annie and make her more cheerful; at the same time, Annie's breeding and careful speech had its good effect on the husky Jo. Before the year was up, they were as intimate as a Senior and Sophomore could be.

On that famous evening which was afterward known as the "Kitten Evening," Dee kept disappearing between dances. She would come back, flushed and a little troubled-looking, but would go on with the dance with a do-or-die expression. Study hour in the assembly hall from eight to ten and then half an hour to get to bed before the bell rang for lights out: that was the order of procedure. As we studied, I noticed how Dee kept fidgeting and twisting. Dum noticed it, too, and the fidgets seemed to be catching. We were on our honor not to speak during study hour, and of course that settled the matter for the Tuckers and me. Dee could squirm herself into a bowknot and Dum and I could die of curiosity, and still honor forbade our making a sign to find out what was the matter.

I never spent such a long and unprofitable two hours in my life. I tried to concentrate my attention on my lessons, but it was impossible with Dee at the desk in front of me never still a minute.

"The bell at last!" exclaimed Dee.

"Well, your lessons have been Reeling and Writhing, Dee Tucker. I never saw such a wiggler in my life." But Dee was off like a whirlwind, without a word to Dum and me. She didn't even take her books with her or gather up the scattered papers that were strewn over her desk. We mercifully saved her some demerits by putting things in order for her.

"What do you reckon is up with Dee?" said Dum anxiously. "She is either brewing some mischief or is already in a scrape."

We found the door to 117 carefully closed and Dee already in bed. How she ever managed to get in so rapidly, I could not see, unless she followed the plan of "Diddle, diddle dumpling, my son, John."

"Now, Dee Tucker, what is the matter with you?" begged Dum anxiously.

"The matter with me?" said Dee with feigned coolness. "Nothing on earth, my dear sister. What should be the matter with me? I am simply sleepy and thought I would get into bed."

"How about your teeth and your prayers?"

"Cleaned 'em and said 'em," said Dee laconically, and she turned over rather gingerly, I noticed, and pretended to have fallen into a deep sleep.

"She won't be able to keep it to herself very long," whispered Dum to me. "If it is any fun, she can't be low enough not to share it; and if it is trouble of some sort, she is sure to let us in on it. I'll take the motto of Prosper le Gai: 'I bide my time.'"

Respecting Dee's evident desire for silence, Dum and I went very quietly to bed and had the light out long before it was time.

A knock at the door! "Come in," called Dum. It was Annie Pore, very apologetic at disturbing us.

"It is ten minutes before lights out bell. I had no idea you had all gone to bed. I was worried about Dee. Is she all right? She looked so feverish."

"Oh, yes, she's all right; just sleepy," said Dum politely. "Thank you all the same, Annie."

Annie softly closed the door. I heard strange sounds from Dee's bed but could not tell whether she was laughing or crying.

Another knock!

"Come in," a little wearily from Dum.

Miss Jane Cox this time!

"Oh, girls, excuse me! I did not know you were in bed, I was a little anxious about Dee." A snore from Dee's bed, rather melodramatic in tone. "She seemed so upset during study hour. I was on duty and I did not know whether she needed castor oil or a demerit." The snoring stopped. The snorer was evidently deliberating.

"I think she is all right now, Miss Cox," I ventured. "She went right off to bed as soon as study hour was over. Maybe she won't have to have either, demerit or oil. My private opinion is she had a flea down her back, but she says she was just tired and sleepy." A gratified snore from Dee and Miss Cox with a little snicker went to her room.

Lights out bell had rung, and the girls all along the corridors in Carter Hall had gone to bed and to sleep. I had a feeling of impending something, not necessarily evil, but excitement, at least. Dum was breathing gently and regularly like a sleeping infant. Dee stirred every now and then and occasionally muttered an unintelligible something. I dozed but waked with a start.

"Mieuw—mieuw—mieuw!" came in a heart-rending wail from Dee's bed.

"Shhhh-shhhh! Poor ittle titty puss! Don't you cwy, honey child! Shhh——"

"Mieuw—mieuw-mieuw-mieuw!!!!" More subdued endearments from Dee. Dum slept on, but I heard a door open way down the hall! Some teacher, with sharp ears, no doubt.

"Dee," I whispered, "put your little finger in its mouth and let it suck until that busybody down the hall goes back into her room." There was the sound of a door closing.

"What is your advice, Page?"

"Have you anything for it to eat?"

"Bread and milk, but it won't eat."

"Of course not, it is too little. Did you warm the milk?" I inquired.

"No, how could I with no stove?" One of the rules of the institution was: no alcohol stoves.

"Wait a minute. I've got a candle that Mammy Susan put in my bag in case of accidents." How I blessed the kind old woman who had thought of everything. "Them newfangled lights may be mighty fine but if they 'cide not to wuck some night, a good ole tallow can'le 'll come in mighty handy, chile, also some saftest matches," she had said as she overrode all my objections and tucked the life-saving candle and matches in my already overworked grip.

I got up, donned slippers and dressing gown, gently closed the window, as the night was decidedly frosty, and found the matches and candle. We did not dare to light the electric light because of the transom over the door. Pussy might at any moment let out another wail, and then the wakeful teacher, seeing the light, would make for our room. In feeling for the table, I touched Dum's foot and she waked with a start.

"What's the matter, Dee? Are you sick?" And Dum sat up in bed.

"Shhh—No, Dum, she's not sick but the little kitty is hungry," I whispered.

"The what is hungry?"

"Not so loud, Dum dear, please! It's just a poor, miserable little foundling of a kitty puss that I simply could not leave by the roadside. I've got it in bed with me here."

"Oh, Caroline Tucker! A nasty little cat in bed with you? What would Zebedee say?" and Dum sniffed the air disdainfully.

"He would say just what I say, Virginia Tucker, that it is a mighty funny thing that you, who were in line before me and must have seen the poor little wretched kitten first, didn't feel it your duty to rescue it from its misery. I am ashamed of you, belonging to the S. P. C. A., too," and Dee gave her little charge a brand new finger to suck.

Things were looking rather serious: Dum and Dee calling one another Virginia and Caroline and that in no modulated tones; and the candle making such a bright light that I expected every minute to hear a teacher rapping on our door.

"Now, look here, Tweedles, both of you stop your fussing and 'tend to the business in hand. You can fight it out to-morrow, but for Heaven's sake, put all of your surplus energy now on getting the kitten fed and quiet and 117 not in a deluge of demerits. Dum, get up and pin two middy ties over the transom."

Dum obediently carried out my instructions while I warmed the milk that Dee had purloined from the supper table over the blessed candle. I sweetened it a little and diluted it with water. I warmed it in Dee's silver pin-tray, as we had no pan of any sort.

"Dip your finger in here, Dee, and let the kitten taste it so it can realize succor is near. It is lots too young to lap and will have to suck a rag."

Dum tore up an old handkerchief for me and in a little while kitty was tugging away for dear life, one end of the bit of cambric in its pink flannel mouth and the other in the pin-tray of milk.

Dum was soon won over to the helpless little thing. "It is sweet, Dee, I declare; let me hold it a minute."

Dee magnanimously handed it over to her sister who held the pin-tray very carefully and let kitty feed as tenderly as any young mother. It soon got its fill and curled up and purred "just like a fairy buzz-saw," Dum declared.

"To think of a tiny cat like that knowing how to purr!" exclaimed Dee.

"To think of a tiny cat like that having such enormous fleas on it," shuddered Dum. "Here, take the beastie, I'm going back to bed before I get full of 'em."

"Yes, they are something awful," sighed Dee, "I am literally eaten alive."

"Poor old Dee! Change your nightgown and leave your bed to the pussy and come snuggle in with me," said Dum.

Pussy slept very well in Dee's bed, waking only about every two hours and mewing for nourishment. Dee and I would get wearily up, warm the milk and administer.

"Oh, who could be a cat with kittens?" sighed Dee.

Morning finally came and the problem of what to do with our adopted child had to be faced.

"Do you know what I'd do if I were you, Dee? I'd go right to Miss Peyton and tell her all about it. I'll go with you. She would sympathize with you, I really believe, and help you find a home for pussy," I said.

"I'll go, too," cried Dum.

Miss Peyton was fine. She seemed to think Dee had merely been imprudent, not at all naughty. She agreed with Dee that it was a strange thing that the whole line of girls and teachers should have passed the little waif by.

"Girls, I am proud and happy that you should have felt I was the person to confide in. If all the school could only understand that I am their friend and not just the principal and dealer in demerits. Of course you can't keep the kitten in your room, but I will see that a good home is found for it with someone who will take the trouble to feed it until it can lap for itself. I think I know exactly the right person in the village."

We went from the principal's office in very happy and exalted states of mind.

"Isn't she wonderful?" exclaimed Dee. "Wasn't she splendid to us?"

"She was fine," enthused Dum. "I am certainly relieved."

I said to myself: "Miss Peyton was awfully nice, but it is plain to be seen she is fond of cats. I wonder how she would have felt if it had been an orphan snake or an abused Billy-goat!"