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94 Sure. Yeah, that's a helpful clarification.

 * BY

At the time that you made the calls based on the script that you were given, what did you understand what "attempted theft" referred to?

You know, I just—like I said, I don't think I really gave it much thought. I really—you know, it was just another job assignment to me.

Okay. And, at any later point of time, did you come to have a different understanding of what "attempted theft" might refer to?

I mean, I believe that that's, you know, another way of—you know, this script's referring to election fraud. But, I mean, I—like I said, I didn't write the script. I don't know what it was referring to.

Understood.

And the same question for you about the sentence just above that one, where it says to the audience of State legislators, "You have the power to reclaim your authority to send a slate of Electors."

At the time that you made the calls based on this seript that you were given, what did you understand that to refer to?

I think I pretty much have the same answer as the previous question. I really didn't give it much thought. I mean, thinking—yeah. I don't have any more to that question.

Okay.

And same question for you about that one. At any point later, did you come to have a different understanding of what this refers to, about "authority to send a slate of Electors"?

Yeah. I mean—sorry. Similar to the question I answered before about


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95 the line below that, I didn't write the script; I don't know what the intended meaning was. I would assume that the script is referring to an alternate slate of electors. But I don't know beyond that.

Okay.

And, before our last break, O think we were talking past each other a little bit about the outcome of the election—

Uh-huh.

—in Pennsylvania, so let me just ask you a question to clarify.

You have described to us that calls were made, based off this script or something similar to it, to legislators in Michigan, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, and Pennsylvania, some combination of those States, towards the end of November or early December of 2020. Is that correct?

That's correct. And I did want to make the clarification, as I don't have any—I can't confirm that calls were made into Pennsylvania and Nevada. I don't have any, like, particular memory of those States.

Okay.

So—but, potentially, yes.

Got it.

Those States that I just listed that we're just discussing, do you agree that these are States that had been called for President Biden that then-President Trump had lost in the November election?

I'd go back to the same problem we were having earlier, as the vagueness of the word "called."

Okay. Do you agree that these States that are identified, that we've been talking about and for which you were asked to make calls to State legislators, that the


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OURCHETTE was a wise old cat who knew how pleasant it is to sit still and do nothing. The top of the cellar doorway was her favourite place. The doors had just enough slope to make them very comfortable for sprawling; the morning sunshine fell warmly there; and the kitchen was just overhead, so

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 she could smell the cooking and get an idea of what the next meal was likely to be. There were many reasons why Fourchette liked the cellar door, though she was too lazy to tell you them all. It was raised above the ground so that she could keep an eye on the kittens, Hops and Malta, as they played about. Just below it, behind the laurel bushes, was an open window into the cellar. It was convenient to be able to flit in there if anything sudden happened. One jump from the sill to the washtubs, one more jump to the cellar floor, and there you were with all sorts of dark hiding places to choose. An experienced cat, no matter how comfortably you see her dozing, has always picked out in her mind which way she will run in an emergency. An emergency means something dangerous that happens very quickly, such as Fritz, the Snyders' dog, coming into the garden and making a dash at her.

Also, Fourchette liked the cellar door because the old weatherbeaten gray paint was just the same colour as her fur. She looked handsome lying there, and a cat of good family thinks of her appearance. Dogs, as you know, don't care. Donny, the long-haired sheepdog, will spend

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 half the night barking through the woods after rabbits, plunge into the marshy edges of Gissing Pond, and come home with his coat full of burrs and mud. Does he mind? Not a bit. He chooses the softest place in one of the flowerbeds and lies down for a nap. But a cat can't sleep until she is clean.

This Sunday moming in summer everything was a little too thrilling for sleep. There had been kippered herring for breakfast, and an exciting fishy whiff still lingered in the bright air, mixed with the warm sweetness of the mint that grew by the back steps. When there was kippered herring, Perez, the Filipino cook, always gave the cats the juice from the can. The herrings had been lying in that juice ever since they were packed somewhere in Scotland; I have often heard Fourchette say there isn't anything more delicious. The only difficulty was that Donny was very fond of it too, and Fourchette always had to stand guard and hiss him away; while she was doing that the kittens, their pink tongues flashing busily, got most of the treat. Then they complained of being thirsty, but Fourchette had taught them to lick little drops of dew from the grassblades. This was more refreshing than the

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 water in Donny's bowl, which had a queer taste because there was a big lump of yellow sulphur in it.

Few people know how many pleasant smells a cat's nose enjoys on a warm morning. That is why cats usually stay near the kitchen where the fragrance is more interesting. Some day when you are walking round the house you can make a list of the different things you smell. Fourchette, as she lay with her front paws tucked under her, could feel in her nose not only the breakfast herrings, but the first cracklings of the leg of lamb that Perez had in the oven for lunch, and the cool ashy whiff from the cellar entry below her, oily and leathery smells from the garage, ticklings of heliotrope and mignonette in the flowerbed, and a soft mixed sweetness that drifted out of the woods on the other side of the house. There was a cat-bird in the wood, who made a queer mewing sound as if on purpose to tease her. When Fourchette heard that her ears tingled and twitched just as they do when you blow in them.

There was the smell of the kittens. Kittens smell very fragrant, like warm sweet biscuits.

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 Louise knows that, and though she has been advised not to put stray cats up to her face, because they are often lively with fleas, yet I think I have seen her do it just to enjoy their smell.

And there were odours of dog. The smell of Donny, of course, was quite strong by the back steps; but Fourchette was used to that. Her nose also told her that Donny's friends Mike Hopkins and Fritz Snyder had been to call that morning.

Hops and Malta were squabbling over the Funny Paper. There was plenty of it for both of them, and by taking turns they ought to have been able to enjoy it without fuss. But they always did fuss about it and Fourchette had threatened many times, if that sort of thing went on, to burn it up, before anyone had seen it at all, in the big wire basket where rubbish is put. The incinerator, she called it, a word that had a great effect on the kittens. They knew that sin meant things that were unpleasant, and this long word incinerator, they supposed, had something to do with it. "If you do that, I'll put you in the

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 incinerator," Hops once shouted at Malta when they were quarrelling over their croquet. Fourchette then explained to them that the word simply means something that turns other things into ashes. Fourchette, who was a well-educated cat, worried a good deal about the kittens' training. She was a Wonderful Mother, the kind handsomely described on the Greeting Cards, but there are moments when even they are less Wonderful. She felt, lying there in the sunshine, that she really ought to punish the kittens for squabbling, but she was in one of those drowsing moods that are so helpful in the lives of middle-aged cats. There are times when even kittens must be left to settle things for themselves, as we all have to do sooner or later. But the squalling went on, and a little angriness began to prickle in her lazy muscles. Her eyes opened and brightened, and she was just getting ready for a sudden spring when she was startled by a very polite voice beside her.

"Is there where Madame Fourchette lives?" it said, with a slight foreign accent.

Fourchette was greatly surprised; so much so that for a moment she forgot her dignity and her manners and simply stared. The stranger was a

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 snail, a creature quite rare in Long Island gardens. A large, fat, and very comely snail with a round striped shell and two bright anxious eyes at the ends of queer elastic prongs. Snails are rather short-sighted, which sometimes makes their behaviour seem bold and forward without their intending it, for they are really quite bashful. So the visitor had come very close before he saw Fourchette at all. Now, when she gave a start of astonishment, the stranger retired nervously inside his shell. There was a long silence.

"I beg your pardon," said Fourchette presently, still a little bewildered. "Did you say anything?"

The snail, very carefully, put out one eye from under his shell and looked at her. His eye was courteous but wary. Fourchette almost laughed, he was really rather amusing, peering up like that.

"Forgive me for taking you by surprise," he said, "I am so short-sighted. I really ought to wear glasses, but with eyes like mine it would be so difficult to keep them on." This was true, for now that he had put his head out again his eyes were constantly moving forward and back

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 and waving to and fro. He kept gazing at her with a sort of nervous hopefulness which Fourchette found slightly embarrassing.

"I introduce myself," he continued. "My name is Escargot, pronounced S-car-go—with a slight accent on the go. You see, I am French. And when I heard your name mentioned at the station, I thought perhaps I would have the pleasure of meeting another person from my own country."

"How do you do, Mussoor," said Fourchette. "I believe that some of my ancestors were French. But before my marriage I was a Roulston."

Of course Fourchette's notion about French ancestry was nonsense: her name was given her by Louise when the family had lately come back from Normandy. Her connections were all with the chain-stores: she herself had grown up at Roulston's grocery, down by the station, and her husband (when last heard of) worked for the A & P in Roslyn Heights. He was that rather handsome cat who used to lie in a sack of white beans in the window.

"That is a long journey, from France," she said kindly. "You must be tired."

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 "I am very glad to be here," he said. "I left France because, though it is a beautiful country, they have one very regrettable habit. They eat snails. I fled from my home to avoid being eaten. Perhaps fled is too hasty a word," he added thoughtfully. "At any rate, I departed. Tell me, Madame," he said, waving his eyes anxiously, "in this country, snails are not, I believe, considered a delicacy?"

"Certainly not," Fourchette reassured him.

"So I understood," he said, "from the conversation of an American family that was visiting France. I was one of a platter of snails that their cook, old Julie, a truly murderous woman, had gathered for their dinner. But when they heard about it, they refused to have those brave snails sacrificed for their nourishment. Julie was instructed to replace us in the garden. Our lives were saved, and I have come to America to express my gratitude. As you say, it is a long journey, but I affixed myself to the baggage of some travellers and got here at last. It is true that I had some difficulty in the Pennsylvania Station, where I just escaped being trodden upon."

He moved his eyes rather wildly, and Four-

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 chette noticed that he did not look at all well. She hastened to bring him a fragrant leaf of mint, but he had retired into his shell, speechless. Escargot had fainted.

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HE visitor lay quite ill for several days. They carried him tenderly to the rabbit hutch beside the garage, where he lay on a lettuce leaf. Rabbits are the most sympathetic nurses, and Binny and Bunny tended him with care, even trying not to keep munching when they were close to him because it made him nervous. Bunny, who is a white lady rabbit with beautiful ruby eyes, was as pretty as a Red Cross nurse in a white uniform. Fourchette had explained the situation to everyone, and they all tried to keep as quiet as possible. The breakdown was really caused by the fact that Escargot had tried to board his first Long Island train just at the time when the rush of commuters was at its thickest. Again and again the bewildered snail had approached the gate where he saw the sign OYSTER BAY. This had attracted him because he thought that people travelling

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 on a line associated with oysters would be quiet and reposeful. But each time, as the gate was opened, the hurry of feet had frightened him away. This had gone on all Saturday afternoon and evening; it was not until early Sunday morning that he could get aboard a train. Even then he had to change at Jamaica, which was difficult. He had arrived at Roslyn in a very nervous state.

Mr. Mistletoe, the writer, looking out of his workroom window, was unfeeling enough to—hope, secretly, that Escargot would be ill a long while. For children and animals all kept much quieter on the snail's account than they ever had for the sake of his work. By the rabbit hutch Junior had put up a sign which said

There were ten children and two dogs who did most of their playing just outside Mr. Mistletoe's window. Perhaps that was why Mr. Mistletoe, though only thirty-seven, had four gray hairs by one ear and two by the other. The four

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 gray hairs were by his left ear, which was the one nearer the window as he sat at his writing. But now, out of consideration for the suffering snail, there was a good deal of silence. The four young Mistletoes, the four young Snyders, the two young Cassidies, rode their bicycles and velocipedes elsewhere. Donny, who is rather a noisy dog, turned his face away when the iceman or Masini the grocer or Craft the meat market came to the house. He pretended not to see, so he would not feel it his duty to bark. Donny is a sheep dog who has never seen a sheep. All his ancestors were trained to herd sheep, so naturally he has a strong family desire to do so too. But never having seen a sheep, he does not know just what it is that he misses. He thinks that tradesmen and callers are sheep and wants to herd them.

Louise and Helen and Blythe, the three younger Mistletoes, held a meeting at the Sand Club, a mysterious little summerhouse in the back garden, and elected Escargot an honorary member. Junior got out a special number of the Roslyn Estates News, a typewritten newspaper, to report the invalid's progress. Hops and Malta tried hard not to quarrel. Fourchette kept com-

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 ing out from the kitchen with leaves of Mr. Masini's best lettuce or spinach to tempt the snail's appetite. Perez, whose bedroom in the garage was just beside the rabbit hutch, sat there in the evenings playing soft encouraging music on his ukulele. At last the invalid seemed to shake off his weakness. His eyes no longer peered timidly from under his shell, but came out and waved boldly and gratefully. He even disputed with Bunny her habit of eating the old sheet of lettuce when she made his bed fresh every morning. He began eating part of it himself. He was getting better.

The illness of Escargot had brought the neighbourhood together in a way nothing had done before. Every morning they would all gather round the rabbit hutch to inquire about the snail, and their interest in him seemed to make them forget any private feuds of their own. You would have been surprised to see them. Pigeons and chickens from Mr. Hopkins's, robins and squirrels from the woods near by, Fourchette and her kittens, Donny and Fritz, even Cap, the big red setter who hardly ever goes off Mr. Hopkins's grounds, all would sit quietly together beside the wire netting of the rabbit run while

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 Bunny made her morning report. Fourchette and Fritz, who were too confirmed enemies to be really friendly, could not pretend any pleasure in their meetings, but they ignored each other with careful politeness. If Fritz ever caught Fourchette's eye he looked quickly in another direction. Fourchette did not forget that Fritz had once killed one of her cousins, and Fritz remembered the scratch she had given him across the tenderest part of his nose. But for the time all were on their best behaviour. Even the chipmunks who live in the wall of Mr. Mistletoe's study, behind the bookshelves, ventured out to join the meetings. Mr. Mistletoe believes that these gay little chipmunks have a kind of night club in the passages between his walls and ceiling. Late at night he hears them dancing: they scamper and skirmish in there, scrambling and pattering to and fro. Light, light are their tiny feet, frolicking in the dry dusty tunnels between the beams. They frisk there like thoughts in the back of the mind. Mr. Mistletoe, as he lies on his couch at night, thinking severely of things he wants to write, has a horrid suspicion that perhaps sometimes they nibble at the electric wires. He wonders whether this could cause

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 a short circuit somewhere, so that some evening he might start up and find the whole house wreathed in flame.

Day by day, as Escargot grew stronger, he delighted them all with his charming ways. His French accent was pleasant to listen to: it seemed to give new and quaint meaning to very simple sayings. His small face was humorous and polite; with shy courtesy he thanked them all for their kindness. Fourchette, who had reached the time of life where she meditated much on the meanings of things, perceived that Escargot was a philosopher. For as soon as he was tired, he withdrew into his spiral cell. What he did or thought about in there, no one knew, but inside that personal fortress he could not be interrupted. How lucky are people with shells, Fourchette thought.

Cats have a love of quiet, and this general truce that accompanied Escargot's illness was a great joy to Fourchette. A secret fear had been troubling her for some time. She had seen Mr. Mistletoe, a man of sudden tempers, looking rather fiercely from his workroom window while the animals were at their pranks. Fritz would bark at the rabbits, the kittens would scream at

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 Fritz, Donny would growl at them all or sprawl his heavy body in the flowerbeds, breaking down the irises and hollyhocks, squirrels would ride up and down the drive chattering on their velocipedes, and in the middle of all this hubbub Mr. Mistletoe would shout furiously from his window for a little silence.

"If this sort of thing goes on," he would yell, "I'll pack you all into the car and take you to the Bide-a-Wee." Fourchette had only a vague notion of what the Bide-a-Wee might be. But she knew, from whispered rumour among the cats and dogs of the neighbourhood, that it was a kind of farm, over on the South Shore, where animals were taken when they became a nuisance. It might be a very pleasant place, but animals have a strong sense of Home and hate to leave any place to which they are well accustomed. So the name became an omen, almost a Bad Word. The most embarrassing thing that one could say to another, in moments of temper, was "You go to Bide-a-Wee!"

So Fourchette's great idea came to her. The animals were all sitting around the rabbit run, and now that Escargot was getting stronger they were beginning again to be a bit noisy. One

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 reason why animals squabble among themselves is that they are almost always hungry; and the sight of the rabbits, perpetually munching, was really irritating. It occurred to Fourchette that if she and Escargot started a tea room, in the grape arbor behind the garage, where the various creatures could always get something to eat whenever they wanted it, it would keep them all quiet and good humoured. Escargot, who was such a restful sort of person, would be an admirable manager for a tea room: and she herself could be waitress.

Bones, dog biscuits, milk, nuts, lettuce and carrot salads, corn for the chickens, a little oats now and then for the rabbits, fish occasionally for the kittens—Fourchette's eyes brightened when she thought of the car from the Roslyn Sea Food Market driving up the hill.

"But how would we pay for the food?" said Donny. "We haven't any of us any money."

"We'll arrange a course of lectures in connection with the tea room," said Fourchette. Just as Donny was a sheep dog who had never seen a sheep, so was Fourchette a well-educated female who had never been to lectures, and there was a vacancy in her life. She knew that whenever Mr.

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 Mistletoe was very hard up he went off somewhere and gave a lecture.

"Here we have Mussoor Escargot, a distinguished foreigner," she said. "People will always pay more for lecturers from abroad. He can give a series of talks."

"I don't think I should be very good at lecturing," said Escargot. "Why don't we all tell stories?"

The animals pricked up their ears at this. For all animals love stories. They get them not out of books but out of the exciting things that actually happen.

"A very good idea," said Donny. "You say the kittens need some education, that's the best way to give it to them. If you'll supply the food, we'll tell Hops and Malta some fairy tales that will put sense into them. They can't ever be more than cats, but at least they'll be cats with some respect for intelligence."

And the chickens, squirrels, birds, rabbits, dogs, frogs, spiders, insects, all the creatures of the Roslyn Estates who were sitting by the rabbit run listening, echoed Donny's idea. So the Grape Arbor Tea Room and Storytelling School was founded.

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 Now I must tell you just a word about the grape arbor. It was not much of an arbor, only a place behind the garage where a long grape vine trailed down from a tree beyond the fence, and was propped on poles. But the animals all liked that little back-lot because a few years before it had been a regular small jungle of briars and thickets, snakes and poison ivy and violets. So it still had something of the good smell and feeling of a wild place. You go to it by a little path that passes under an arch of lilac and round the end of the garage. Behind the garage is a strip of blue gravel. The wide branches of an oak tree overhang the fence, and it is all quite snug and private. By the grape arbor is the little workroom, built against the end of the garage, where you can go if it rains. The grass is coarse and ragged, but there is a hollow in the ground where the sunshine is very warm and yellow. You feel that you are by yourself, and like it.

So they hurried to sweep and clean the arbor. Perez, always good natured, was glad to help. Fourchette, in a clean apron, made the tea on an oil stove in the workroom, and served meals on paper plates on the ground. Escargot, sitting on a large grape leaf where he would not get

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 walked on, was master of ceremonies. Junior painted a sign for the arbor and typed the menu cards. The news soon went round among all the animals. People got the habit of dropping in about the hungry time of the afternoon. It was understood that the stories told after tea were specially for the benefit of the kittens, but there were amusements for others too. Sometimes Perez, sitting on a little bench under the trees, would play music for the company, or the squirrels would give a climbing exhibition. Once the Gissing Pond Choir, the best singers among all the frogs of the neighbourhood, came up to give a concert. Escargot made a rule that anyone who caused disturbance or argument would not be admitted again. It was a happy time.

Mr. Mistletoe became curious about this congregation of animals behind the garage. He used to see them quietly slipping toward the back lot. He would hear the silken whirr of pigeons' wings as they flew over from Mr. Hopkins's barn, or notice a file of frogs and wild rabbits hopping briskly up the drive. Writers are inquisitive, and many times he went out into the garage and hung about in the hope of hearing what went on. But animals are shy

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 and whenever he was near they pretended they were doing something else. The tales they told would never have got into this book if it had not been for Escargot. How that happened you will learn later. Meanwhile, here are some of the stories.

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HE kittens were always delighted when the picnic season began. It was a family that believed in picnics, and from April to October one might expect, almost any fine day, to see Fourchette burst out of the kitchen door, sniff the air, and suddenly exclaim "I'm sickantired of ordering meals! Let's shut up the house and go for a picnic!"

Then there was hurrying to collect bathing suits, towels, sweaters, sun hats, water wings, tin spades, toy boats, pieces of string, the old steamer rug, paper drinking cups, all the odds and ends that fill up the car and make a picnic a success.

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 But no food. It was understood that a picnic was to relieve Fourchette of the strain of housekeeping. When she went on a picnic she didn't even want to know what she was going to have to eat. That was to be a surprise.

There are all sorts of places to go picnicking, depending on the weather. You can go out the Parkway, where you see the airplanes over the flying fields and have a fine view across those wide grassy plains. Later on you get into the pine woods, or even go as far as Lake Ronkonkoma—a name the kittens found it hard to say. Or you can go to Lloyds Neck, a wonderful region they highly approved. If you knew the lanes and trails of Lloyds Neck you could find your way past that huge oak tree (the biggest on Long Island) to Target Rock. Donny used to remark, a little anxiously, as he drove the car, that all those wonderful lonely beaches on Lloyds Neck were "Private Property." But in those days the Neck was very quiet, they disturbed no one and were never moved off. Indeed the kittens came to believe that the words Private Property simply meant a fine place for a picnic.

Or there was the lighthouse at Eatons Neck, another excellent shore to visit. Donny really

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 preferred that. Though it was farther to go, it belonged to the government, and he felt he had a right to use it. Once when the lighthouse keeper seemed a little doubtful Donny produced his license. It said: ''State of New York, Dog License Number 184525. Fee $2.25. Town of North Hempstead, County of Nassau. Dog's Name,'' DONNY. Breed, ENGLISH SHEEP. Donny asserted that this proved him to be a tax-paying citizen, with a right to enjoy government property. The lighthouse keeper was so surprised at Donny's firmness that he let them go through and down to the beach.

But perhaps best of all were the picnics to the little Boat Club at Glen Cove. Because there, in case of a storm, you had the clubhouse to take shelter in. You were, so to speak, on your own ground and couldn't be turned off; and there was the catboat Platitude.

Hops and Malta, unlike most kittens, were very fond of the water. Even Fourchette, though she did not care much for sailing, admitted that a catboat was the most suitable kind of craft. A platitude simply means something flat and shallow, and she was. She had a centreboard, and was almost as broad as long. Donny used to say

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 that she had submarine blood in her, for in a strong breeze she had a tendency to push her nose down into the water as if she was going right under. But on calm days, when there was a gentle breeze, Fourchette sat in a rocking chair on the verandah of the clubhouse while Donny and the kittens drifted about in the boat. Hops and Malta wore their little green bathing suits and they had old tire tubes, blown up with air, twisted round their waists in case of accident. If they were becalmed the kittens put their fishing lines overboard and hoped for a bite. They rarely caught anything, but they always hoped, and peered eagerly over the stern to watch their painted floats. Donny, who was not much interested in fish, smoked his pipe and watched the sky and looked quite like an old hairy sailor. Sometimes, if the wind failed altogether, he got out the oar and paddled the boat back to the dock. Then the kittens were always excited by the long spinning twirls of silver bubbles made by the blade of the oar in the still water. Fourchette always felt quietly relieved when they got safely back to the dock. In her own thoughts she was doubtful about water and once remarked that there was too much of it about Long Island. Donny said

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 that was nonsense; that when you had an island you had to have enough water to go all the way round.

Wherever they went on a picnic, they always began by going to the same place—to Mr. Liverwurst's delicatessen store in Mineola. That was not his real name, but they called him so because Fourchette was extremely fond of his liverwurst sandwiches and said that all his meats were very reliable. She and the kittens sat in the car while Donny went into the shop to buy the lunch. No one was allowed to go in with him, so the food would always be a surprise. Donny tried to make it different each time, but he always got some liverwurst sandwiches (with rye bread, and no mustard). Among the things he enjoyed were sweet pickles, cheese cake, pork and bologna sandwiches, sardines, crackers, peanut butter, ginger ale, cream soda, stuffed olives, potato chips, chocolate, cream cheese, salted almonds, strawberry jam, and plain cake. Milk chocolate with cream cheese spread on it was an invention of his own which he liked enormously. Sometimes the night after a picnic, Donny growled a little in his sleep.

Mr. Liverwurst was a nice little German who

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 had run this delicatessen store for a long time. All summer, every fine day, he was busy slicing sandwiches and making up bags of lunch for people who were going on picnics. On Saturdays and Sundays he must have cut hundreds of sandwiches. But he never had a chance to go on a holiday himself. Indeed he hardly knew just what a picnic was. He thought about this a great deal, until he got quite savage. If you think of a thing for a long time and do nothing about it you get yourself in a rather queer state. So it was with Mr. Liverwurst.

One fine day Donny came in grinning cheerfully and saying as usual, "What a grand day for a picnic." He began giving his regular order for liverwurst sandwiches and all the rest of it. Mr. Liverwurst flushed red and began playing with his long sharp knife. Donny did not notice, he was busy looking in the glass case to decide what kind of cheese to take. He always found it a bit difficult to talk while ordering the lunch, because the sight of all the meats filled his mouth with wetness. But he swallowed several times, and then said firmly, "And please don't put any mustard on the sandwiches."

This was more than Mr. Liverwurst could

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 stand. Because he enjoyed putting mustard on the sandwiches, it was the only thing that made cutting sandwiches any fun for him. He lost his temper entirely. He thought of reaching over and spreading mustard on Donny's large moist black nose.

"I'll mustard you," he shouted. And then he suddenly ran round from behind the counter and threatened Donny very fiercely with the knife.

"See here!" he said. "Today you're going to stay here and run the store and cut up sandwiches. I'm going on a picnic instead."

Donny was greatly surprised, but Mr. Liverwurst's knife looked so dangerous he did not argue about it. Besides, all the different things in the glass case smelled delicious and he had often thought what fun it must be to weigh things on the scales and put pickles and potato salad in the little cardboard trays. So he agreed, on condition that Mr. Liverwurst would supply the lunch free. Mr. Liverwurst, sorry to have lost his temper, agreed to that. They explained politely to Fourchette the change of plan. Donny put on Mr. Liverwurst's white apron, and after making sure that the delicatessen man understood how to

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 drive Dame Quickly, he waved them good-bye. Off they went along the Jericho Pike.

Mr. Liverwurst was in excellent spirits at first. This was his only holiday in ten years, he said, and he was anxious to learn what happened on picnics. But little by little things became difficult. Mr. Liverwurst, after all these years of delicatessen, smelt so strongly of meat and sausage and smoked fish that the kittens became riotous. Even Fourchette had to lean far over to the other end of the seat to control herself, and kept bursting into purrs of excitement. The kittens were leaning over from the back seat and smelling Mr. Liverwurst's coat collar, which made him nervous. When Hops, growing wild, jumped on his shoulder and began nibbling his ear the car almost crashed into a tree. As they went through Sea Cliff the traffic policeman reproached the delicatessen man severely for careless driving. But it was not really Mr. Liverwust's fault, for by this time all three cats were almost sitting in his lap, and pricking their claws into his knees with playful good humour.

The kittens were so hungry that when they got to the club they had to have lunch at once.

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 It was eaten on the beach, so as not to disturb other members who were sitting quietly on the porch. Even so there was some scandal caused in the club by the way Fourchette and the kittens snuggled all over Mr. Liverwurst as he sat on the sand. There were complaints made to the Membership Committee.

Mr. Liverwurst did not eat much lunch. So much of his life was spent among food that he was glad not to think about it for a while. The heat on the beach bothered him, for in his shop in Mineola, among ice-boxes and electric fans, it was always cool. Also three active cats climbing up his back and rubbing against his fragrant trousers made him feel hotter still. But Fourchette and the kittens ate enormously. Then Fourchette, growing a little ashamed of the way she had behaved, became very stern with Hops and Malta. They were soon in tears. They had to be consoled by the story of the Paper Bag Tree that is always told at picnics. It is a story about a family that always left a mess behind them after a picnic. They scattered bread crusts and bits of paper and banana skins and empty bottles in the woods. Then one morning they

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 woke up and found that a Paper Bag Tree had grown in their yard. A Paper Bag Tree is a great untidy straggly bush that has little paper bags blossoming on every branch. From a distance it looks picturesque, but when you get near you find that in each of the paper bags is an empty peanut shell, scraps of silver foil, orange peel, and the top of a ginger ale bottle. When you see a Paper Bag Tree growing in anyone's yard you know that those people are not at all congenial.

After lunch it was high tide. Hops and Malta insisted on going out in the boat. Fourchette, uncertain of Mr. Liverwurst's ability as a sailor, thought it best to go with them. Mr. Liverwurst put on Donny's bathing suit, in which he looked so odd that Fourchette feared the smarter members of the club were laughing at them. After some confusion they got into the club dinghy and rowed out to the Platitude's mooring. Fourchette had a feeling of coming disaster, but now it was too late to turn back. They got the sail up at last, but very untidily. They had started off and thought that all was well, but then they heard shouts from the dock. They were towing the club dinghy with them, instead of returning it to the

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 pier as they were supposed to. Mr. Liverwurst tried to sail back, but they had forgotten to put down the centreboard and the Platitude went mostly sideways. Also he did not really know how to make a landing, which always needs some skill. He banged into the swimming-float on the windward side, almost hitting some of the bathers. The boat was jammed there by the breeze. Trying to push off, the wind got into the wrong side of the sail, the boom swung over and knocked both him and Fourchette into the water. The kittens, wild with excitement, swarmed up the mast and would not come down. They clung to the gaff, yowling. Fourchette was politely pulled out by the Commodore of the club himself, which was a great honour; but her pretty foulard dress was spoiled, and she was in a horrible temper.

They drove back in a very peevish state. Fourchette was extremely angry with Donny when they got to Mineola. Donny answered her crossly, for slicing meat all day had made him rather fierce too. And the adventure cured poor Mr. Liverwurst of any desire to go on picnics. If you go into his store and say anything about picnics he will laugh heartily and say he is happier at home with his carving knife.

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 Fourchette laughed too, but not till she got home and the kittens were safely in bed. To this day her eyes grow a little wild when she thinks of the smell of Mr. Liverwurst's coat.

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HERE was once a kitten called Pushkin, who was always full of schemes. He was so busy trying to plan things beforehand that you would have said he was not a kitten at all, only a very small cat. He tried to arrange everything so it would happen comfortably and nicely for himself. If a game of croquet was to be played, he managed always to be first at the box where the mallets were kept, so he could get the one with the pink stripe.

If the family were going down to the post office to get the mail, he took care to sit nearest the door of the car, so he could be the one to hop out and open the letter-box. The box was opened by twirling little knobs, like a tiny safe. It was

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 fun to turn them to the right positions and hear them click, then swing back the glass door and take out the letters. Sometimes in the box was a yellow card that said. Then he purred, because this often meant a surprise, a present of some sort from a grandmother or an aunt. He stood on tiptoe below the window and mewed gaily until Mrs. Breen came to see who it was. She could only see his ears and the pink tip of his nose, so she lifted the railing and looked out.

"Oh, hullo Pushkin," she said, "I thought I recognized your mew. Is everybody well at your house? Yes, there's a package. Please jump up here on the shelf and sign for it."

The other kittens would have enjoyed doing all this too, but somehow it was always Pushkin who had planned it beforehand and was the first one out of the car. It was like that with almost everything that happened. Pushkin had thought out what was coming and had made his own plans. I am not saying this is a bad thing. Perhaps it is wise. But I think he carried it too far. Sometimes he almost believed he was the only kitten in the world. He never thought that there had been millions of kittens before,

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 and would still be millions of kittens hereafter.

In his usual habit of studying what was going on and deciding how it could be arranged to his own advantage, Pushkin had noticed a can of herrings on top of the ice-box. That meant there would be herrings for breakfast tomorrow, and all afternoon he had that on his mind. One can of herrings is not very much among several hungry cats, and those who got down to table first would probably get the fattest share. So the question was, how to plan things so that he would be there a little ahead of the others.

There was one thing they were very strict about in that family, and that was the cleaning of teeth. In the bathroom each kitten had its own mug and toothbrush, and so that they could not forget, their father had drawn a picture of a very healthy-looking cat brushing its teeth. This picture was on the wall, and below it was written

Sometimes, when their father and mother went to the bathroom to clean their own teeth, they

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 would even feel the kittens' brushes to make sure they had been used. If the brushes did not feel damp, the kittens were sent upstairs again right away, to do the job properly.

Pushkin's idea, which he did not mention to anyone, was that if he cleaned his teeth specially well that night he could go without brushing them in the morning. Then he would get down to breakfast a little before the others and have first go at the herring. So when he went to bed he gave his mouth an extra good scrub. On the bathroom shelf there was a tube different from the usual toothpaste. Always full of ideas about things, Pushkin decided that this must be some specially good toothpaste reserved for his parents. So he used it liberally. It did not taste quite like the paste he was accustomed to, but it made his teeth very white and he went to bed quite contented. He snuggled down under the covers, purred to himself a little while, and then he was asleep. He rested soundly and dreamed about fish.

Now it was morning, one of those bright mornings when everything feels perfect and your legs are full of running. Rhododendrons were in flower under the dining-room windows, the trees

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 were chirruping with bird-song, and all round the house was the beautiful smell of cooked herrings and a noise of purrs. The father and the mother cat sat at the ends of the table, and already the other kittens were guzzling their share, but there was no sign of Pushkin. Then a queer moaning sound was heard on the stairs, and he rushed into the room. He was a sight. His eyes were wild, and green, his fur stood on end, his tail was puffed up with fright. He could not seem to speak, only utter a dreadful yowling. He rushed madly round and round the table until they thought he must have a fit. For that does happen to kittens sometimes, when they first discover how very exciting it is to be alive.

But there was something so desperate in Pushkin's behaviour that they knew it was serious. His mother sprang from her chair and rushed after him. Three times she chased him round the table, until the other kittens were tempted to join the wild pursuit. But the herrings were too good, and they stayed where they were. His mother seized him at last and looked at him.

"Good gracious!" she exclaimed. "His teeth are clenched tight together! He can't open his

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 mouth, he must have lock jaw. Telephone for Dr. Jessup!"

But his father, examining closely, saw a kind of hard white glue that was sticking Pushkin's teeth together. The scheming kitten had cleaned his teeth with a tube of very strong cement that had been left in the bathroom when his father mended a broken soap-dish. They got his mouth open presently, with hot water and a screwdriver, but by that time the other kittens had finished the herrings. They tried not to purr while they ate, but they could not help it. Pushkin, his sharp teeth stuck fast, sat watching them and his eyes were full of angry tears.

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IKE all small boys, Christopher was a great student of the advertisements in magazines. Especially the advertisements that offered souvenirs, premiums, free samples of anything. All sorts of queer surprises turned up in the crowded letter-box at the post office—little packages of biscuits and breakfast foods and toothpaste, badges and buttons of every kind, catalogues, First Aid outfits, instruction booklets on How To Play the Harmonica or How To Carve a Bullfrog From a Cake of Soap.

Although Christopher's allowance was only fifteen cents a week, Mr. Mistletoe observed enviously that his son always seemed to have plenty of ready cash. Occasionally, however, Christopher had a sudden impulse to put it all into a toy

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 bank from which it could not be got out. Then Mr. Mistletoe had to make an advance to pay for the box of crayons or ice cream cone that seemed very urgent just at that moment.

But one of the advertisements that caught Christopher's fancy resulted in a real story. It was an advertisement about a birdhouse made of "Lincoln logs." It was a charming idea: a little birdhouse made of rough strips of wood with the bark still on, so that it looked like a tiny log cabin—in fact, it was planned to look like the famous log cabin where Abraham Lincoln was born. Christopher sent along the money and the birdhouse arrived. It came in pieces, with instructions, and he and Mr. Mistletoe enjoyed fitting it together. It was put up in a tall tree in the back lot.

The houses that people live in have a great influence on their thoughts and behaviour. The blackbird who came to live in that cabin was 'evidently a queer fellow by nature, but when he settled there he became the talk of the neighbourhood. I think he imagined that because he lived in that log cabin he was a kind of Abe Lincoln among birds. Certainly he looked the part, for he was unusually tall and shambling, with long

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 shanky legs and rusty black plumage. It was even said that when he went out searching for worms he wore a little plug hat and carried an umbrella and an old-fashioned satchel. He put up a scrap of shingle on his cabin that said LAW OFFICE, and earned a modest living by settling disputes among the birds. Birds have a great many problems, for they are quick-tempered and their life is complicated. Building a nest, for instance, involves the question of who owns the material of which the nest is built; and then some other bird may lay claim to a special location on a convenient branch. Because your parents nested in a certain crotch have you a right to nest there too the following year? Then also, these problems of bird life mostly concern the mother birds, and ladies are always sensitive about property.

Sometimes a lively scolding and chattering would be heard in the green apartments of the trees. A feather or two would come floating down. Then there was a flutter and angry birds came flying to the log cabin. They perched on a limb and screamed their quarrel to the lawyer while he appeared at his door and listened patiently. He tried to get them to talk one at a time; he

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 never decided anything without calling in witnesses and hearing both sides. He gave judgement in some very important cases which became famous in those days. There was the case Fourchette vs. Catbird. Fourchette brought suit against Catbird because Fourchette had been shut up in the cellar for mewing under Mr. Mistletoe's window while he was working. But it was not Fourchette at all, it was the catbird. Fourchette said that Catbird had done this out of deliberate malice, on purpose to get her into trouble, Another interesting case was that of Chickens vs. Pigeons. Mr. Hopkins's hens wanted to restrain the pigeons from coming inside the henyard to pick up grain that was scattered there for the chickens. The pigeons maintained that some of that grain had been intended for them, but had been carried inside the netting by a strong wind. Lawyer Blackbird was able to show, by referring to the Weather Bureau, that there had been no wind at all that day. The chickens won their case.

So Blackbird became quite well known among birds interested in the law. More than once birds from the Mineola Courthouse flew over to the Roslyn Estates to consult him.

But his own clients were not always grateful.

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 Sometimes, when the dispute was settled, they forgot to pay him his fee. In spite of his helpful services he was rather the joke of the community. It is true he was queer, and birds are great gossips, painfully quick to criticize anything unusual. As you have noticed, birds are almost always well dressed, neat and trim in their appearance, and Lawyer Blackbird's awkward figure seemed to them absurd. They made rather cruel fun of him. When he went strolling thoughtfully about in the cool early morning, looking for his breakfast, a mischievous thrush would dart down in front of him and snatch up a worm or insect right from under his beak. They played practical jokes on him, stealing the caterpillars that his clients laid by his front door in payment of his services. They whistled mockingly from the neighbouring trees when he was studying, and screamed with laughter at his clumsy way of flying. Handsomer birds, such as cardinals, blue jays, orioles, sneered at his shabby black suit.

The younger set among the robins were most active in teasing him. Young robins are big lummoxy birds, full of high spirits, alert in their movements, proud of their smart tawny waist-

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 coasts, feeling themselves very important. They were greatly amused at the queer blackbird's innocent pleasure in his log cabin. "Yay, Lincoln!" they used to call mockingly when he came out of his little home for a breath of air. "Yay, Lincoln!" And other birds, birds of no importance, sparrows and young pullets and chattering jays, took up the impudent cry, "Yay, Lincoln!"

Of all birds, baby robins have the hardest time learning to fly. They cause their mothers much anxiety, for they are very fat and also very reckless. Before their wings are strong enough to carry their heavy bodies they often get themselves into positions of great danger. So it happened one day that while Mrs. Robin, who lives in the dogwood tree opposite the dining-room windows, had gone down to the drugstore, young Pudgy Robin, not yet properly able to take care of himself, flopped lumpily to the foot of the tree. It was very thrilling to be out on the open grass, and the first thing anyone knew he was hopping and exploring across the croquet ground. He was interested in the wire hoops, and tried to flutter up to perch on one, but fell off. He was as fat,

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 awkward and helpless as only a young robin can be.

The croquet court is a bad place for a young bird. Anything moving on that stretch of grass is in plain view to many watchful eyes. The cellar doors, slanting up from the ground, overlook it and are the favourite sunning place for cats. And there lay Taffy Topaz, the big yellow Persian. He noticed that hopping bundle of feathers. His eyes got wide and bright and dangerous. His tail switched nervously from side to side. He crouched so that his shoulder blades humped up, and watched intently. Then he began to crawl silently across the lawn. Suddenly it seemed as though the garden was very still. In all that quietness of yellow sunshine there was only Pudgy Robin, blundering bravely into a strange big world, and the creeping enemy behind him.

Then in the treetops the bird policemen began to scream. Little happens on the ground that the bird policemen don't see, though they can't do much about it. "Look out, look out!" they called wildly. But Pudgy was too young, too excited, too ignorant, even to know what they were

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 saying. Not far away was a blue croquet ball that had caught his eye. It would be a fine thing to hop on and look round. He fluttered and tumbled along.

The birds were all screaming in panic, but no one seemed to know what to do. The noise brought out Lawyer Blackbird, who came to the door of his log cabin. One look of his shrewd eyes showed him what was happening. He wasted no time in screaming. Straight as an arrow, on his long wings, he launched himself. He flew, like a flash, right past Taffy's nose. Taffy, whose attention had been all on the helpless robin, was startled and frightened. He glared round in wonder. Blackbird wheeled, flew back again, and hovered in air just above the cat. Taffy sprang for him, forgetting all about the robin. Fluttering in pretended distress, always just beyond the reach of those sharp claws, Blackbird led Taffy away toward the other side of the house. Two big robins, now the danger was past, came squawking and hustled Pudgy to his home tree. When Taffy Topaz saw how he had been tricked he crept back to the croquet ground, but it was empty. Lawyer Blackbird flew to the log cabin and went on with his study.

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 There is no heroism birds respect so much as the courage that outwits a cat. That day there was no whistling to bother Blackbird at his work. But there was a great deal of conversation in the big oak tree which is the birds' clubhouse. They knew now that Blackbird, though his ways might be queer, was worthy of his log cabin.

They made their plans secretly, so the next day the lawyer was completely surprised. He heard a whirr of wings outside the cabin, and thinking it might be a quarrel of some sort for him to settle, he came outside. There were all the robin policemen, saluting him, and a magnificent air parade. It had all been carefully thought out. First came a squadron of tanagers, all scarlet. Then Mr. Hopkins's white pigeons. Then the blue jays. Red, white, and blue, they flew brilliantly in formation, and wheeled and hovered in front of the tiny log cabin to do it honour. And then Mrs. Robin herself, with tears in her eyes, brought three feathers, one red, one white, one blue, and placed them, like a banner, on the birdhouse of Lincoln logs.

That was in the summer, but the birds do not forget. When the autumn came, the birds in the

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 Election Day parade carried a big sign which said:—

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ERE was once a man who was not clever at growing flowers. I don't know what it was about him that made it impossible for him to have a really nice garden. When other people's rhododendrons were full of big red blossoms, his own never got beyond sticky green spikes. His rose bushes had plenty of buds, but small unexplained insects ate most of them before the petals opened. He tried for years to grow sweet peas, but they did not seem happy. Instead of climbing up like proper sweet peas they lay flat on the ground and tangled themselves nervously together. Their little soft tendrils clutched miserably at each other like tiny hands.

For a while this man thought well of his irises, but dogs noticed them too. From all round the

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 neighbourhood dogs came and lay on them. Dogs love flowerbeds, especially when the earth has been freshly dug and raked. And a young iris, after having been slept on by a heavy dog, is never quite the same. Or perhaps the word would go round among the truck drivers that it would be interesting to drive their great flat wheels over the edge of one of his flowerbeds or grass-plots.

Sometimes, to have a little colour in his garden, he would go down to Mr. Steiger's greenhouse and bring home a lot of flowers already in blossom. Then he hunted for the trowel and the rake, which took some time. He had some very nice tools in his garage, but they were all wandering tools. They did not like to stay in one place. The trowel, when no one was looking, would slip off and lie under a tree somewhere in the back lot. It was a hide-and-seek trowel, and very clever. When he found the trowel (he never did find the rake, not that special little rake he was so fond of) it was getting dark, but he planted the flowers and watered them. For several days they seemed bright and gay, but gradually they dwindled. They got pale and meagre. He had to content himself mostly with pansies and marigolds, because these will flourish almost anywhere.

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 This behaviour on the part of his flowers rather troubled him. Sometimes he said to himself that it was because the soil was poor. Sometimes he believed it might be that the flowers were offended because he made mistakes about their names. I think myself it was simply because he was the kind of person to whom awkward things happen. You know, some people understand life so well that everything is always all right. Their clothes, their houses, their gardens, their fingernails, are always neat and well-attended. Their cars are shiny. Then there are other people to whom embarrassing things happen.

Whatever the reason, it was so. He was not clever at growing flowers. There were other things that grew round him plentifully. He was good at raising books, for instance. It was extraordinary. Every day or so a truck would drive up and leave books for him; he didn't even have to pay for them. It was all part of the magic. Books sprouted all round him. Also people who wanted to sell vacuum cleaners or real estate. And as for the telephone: if telephone calls had been flowers he would have had one of the finest gardens in the world.

But in his ragged garden he had done rather

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 well with his daffodils. He had planted the bulbs too deep, so they were always later than the neighbours' daffies, and every spring he had to scratch away the earth to help them through; but he enjoyed them all the more when they came. Under his dining-room windows, on the south side of the house, they grew and trembled in the breeze. He was so used to his flowers being less beautiful than other people's that he almost imagined there must be some mistake. He would go out to look at them, and say to himself "If they knew they were mine they wouldn't dare be so lovely."

It's hard to know what to do about daffodils. It is true that they are beautiful in a bowl in the dining room, and very likely people drink their milk and finish their spinach better when there are flowers on the table. Yet they are so graceful and perfect where they grow, especially if there aren't very many of them, it is difficult to decide whether to pick them. It is a hard problem, one of those problems that make life interesting.

That was the problem he was thinking about. There were ten daffodils under the dining-room windows. He had watched them growing and the buds fattening, and now they were all in flower.

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 Should he pick some for the table, or should he leave them there? While he was wondering about this, the problem was settled for him by someone else—as it so often is. He came home late one afternoon, and going round the house to see what everything looked like he was horrified. All but two of the daffodils had been picked. Not only that, two or three of their bright yellow heads, pulled off short from the stalks, lay fading on the ground. Evidently, in spite of all he had said, the children had been at work. He was greatly upset.

He almost rushed indoors to make an uproar, but he paused to consider what was best to do. In the bathroom upstairs he could hear Helen and Blythe cackling gaily as they took their bath; and he knew that Louise, who was a quick undresser, would be already in bed reading Sparrow the Tramp or some other favourite book. It seemed a pity to break in upon the cheerful bedtime with a scolding. Daffodils are important, but children are important too. He lit his pipe and walked round the house to think.

The next day was Saturday, and after breakfast he called the children into his den.

"It's a very queer thing," he said. "Perhaps it's some kind of magic; but I was looking at the

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 daffodils and there don't seem to be as many as there were."

Two of the children opened their mouths, and he knew pretty well what they were going to say. So he hurried to go on talking before anyone could say anything disagreeable about Someone Else Did It In Spite Of My Telling Her Not To.

"It appears to me," he said, "that around this house there is something dangerous that happens to daffodils. I don't know what it can be, but we will have to do our best. Here are pencils and crayons and some sheets of thick paper. I want you to draw some daffodils and colour them. We'll cut them out and put them in the ground just where the real ones were."

Helen and Blythe were too young to see in this anything more than a new game, and they were full of enthusiasm. Christopher and Louise looked at each other a bit queerly, and then started to say something that began with a But. Again he hastened to interrupt them.

"Come on," he said. "Let's see how nicely you can make them. Now we'll have a daffodil bed that we can all really enjoy."

They sat round the dining-room table, with a

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 real daffodil to copy, and for some time there was silence. Presently there was a tap at the big sliding door of the den, and their father arranged his face in an expression of deep thoughtfulness. They came in with their drawings. The paper daffodils were really very well done. It is true that Blythe's were a bit scrawly, and coloured red and blue, but it was not her fault if the older children had been using all the greens and yellows. Helen's were fat and bushy, Louise's tall and wavy. Christopher's were so lifelike that I think he must have been doing pictures of daffodils at school.

They were all cut out very carefully with scissors, and then the planting was done. The wandering trowel was found, and little holes were dug. The paper daffodils were set in a row at the front of the bed, in the best of the earth so they would flourish. They looked very well. Helen's were not quite so bright a yellow. Perhaps hers had grown in a poorer soil; or perhaps Christopher and Louise had kept the yellowest yellow crayon for themselves.

The moist earth was raked and smoothed around them and they fluttered in the fresh April air. Donny, suspecting a festival of some

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 sort, barked approval. They all stood to admire the display, and then the family went on about its affairs. There was something a little thoughtful about Louise's face as she went looking for a cat to hug.

It was rainy that Sunday: driving April rain and gale. For several days the garden was mostly mud, and there were other things to think about. Then, when dry weather returned, a sodden scrap of paper was found blowing about behind the house. It was part of a daffodil, blown clean off its paper stalk. As Christopher truly said when he revisited the place, now the daffodils were "not so realistic." Those that remained were faded and crumpled and smeared.

And then the paper daffodils were forgotten. Months later, raking under the rhododendrons, their father found a piece of one, and a queer little pain ran round in his mind. Donny, who was rooting and grubbing and snuffing not far away, asked him what was wrong.

"Well, Donny," he said, "it's awfully easy to tear up beautiful things, but very hard to put them back."

Donny only grunted.

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 "Yes," says Christopher, "but you haven't told quite all the story. As soon as the paper daffodils were planted, Donny went and lay on them just as though they were real."

Certainly it was the greatest compliment Donny could pay them.

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N THE world of toys, just as in real theatres, an actor's life is very uncertain. There are long intervals of unemployment, when the Junior. Theatre (made out of an old packing-case) stands idle in the workroom. The little marionettes lie in a box in the corner and grumble because they have nothing to do. Summer time, always difficult for actors, is specially hard for the Junior marionettes. The workroom in the garage gets very hot, and their faces, modelled out of paraffin, sometimes melt out of shape. Once, on a very sultry day, before a matinée, Cinderella had to be put in the ice

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 box to keep her in good condition for the performance. The other puppets, who had no such luck, were very jealous. Cinderella's older sisters kept complaining throughout the show that she smelt disgustingly of cheese. The Prince, who had been left out in the sun after rehearsals, had very bad luck. He was a handsome fellow, with bright blue painted eyes. But his nose drooped, his cheeks sagged, his chin slipped. The blue from one eye trickled down almost to his neck. It changed his whole career. When the theatre reopened in the autumn he could never again play parts as a Leading Juvenile. They tried to lift his face but it had fallen too far. He was given skirts and had to be a Wicked Fairy. This was great bitterness to him, and accounted for his success in this new character. The tragedy of his private life gave a fine savagery to his acting.

The marionettes, whose bodies and limbs are cut out of cardboard and cunningly jointed together with loops of string, get very bored in their periods of idleness. They lie all hunched up, just as they have been tumbled into the box, and have pins-and-needles feelings in their legs. But they do not lose heart, for they never know

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 when a spell of business will come. Theatre managers are always temperamental. Suddenly, perhaps on a rainy day, the theatre will be hoisted up onto the workbench for overhauling. The marionettes hear the thrilling click of the little rings on the wire as the curtains are pulled to and fro. Paints and cardboard are got out, there is the excellent smell of turpentine and linseed oil. New scenery is planned.

Is there anything more fun than painting scenery? I doubt it. A back-drop of a dark pine forest, with sunset colours burning between the tree-trunks, is a great favourite. Or a castle, with pointed turrets, outlined black on a mountain top against blue evening sky. These things don't even have to be very skilfully painted: when the theatre is set up in the dining room, and the little bed-lamp that serves as footlights is well adjusted, even crude scenery looks quite marvellous.

And the Junior. Theatre is blessed with a Perfect Audience, an Audience that takes art seriously. The stage is set between the sliding doors of the dining room. A steamer rug hung above it conceals the manager and his assistant. It is a typical matinée because the audience is almost

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 entirely feminine. Louise, Helen, Blythe, Bonnie June, Marie, Jean, and Cissie—seven ladies. Johnny Snyder is the only gentleman. Christopher and Buzzy, of course, are behind the scenes. The audience sits on cushions on the floor. The small phonograph plays a nursery rhyme record as overture. The light clicks on, the curtains open. The play perhaps is The Three Bears. There is the favourite back-scene, the gloomy forest brightened with slices of sunset. Goldilocks, descending gracefully at the end of her string, teeters gaily toward the little cottage. Even Bonnie June, who is thirteen and getting so long-legged that she takes up a lot of room on the floor, is not yet too old to be thrilled.

So you can imagine what fun it is to be a marionette actor. To enjoy the attentive silence of the Perfect Audience, to feel the strong supporting threads that hold you up and guide your gestures, to hear the voice above you that says your lines, to know that through all the play everything has been planned for you beforehand and you need not worry. Your hands, your feet, your head, all have that comfortable sense of the string holding them up, telling them what to do. It is a fine feeling. No wonder the marionettes,

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 in their gossip about their art, give greatest credit of all to the String.

The chief topic of conversation among the marionettes, while the theatre lay idle that summer, was the love of Jack Beanstalk and the Pea Princess. That Jack should admire the Princess was natural enough: she was a beautiful creature. You remember her story. An old King and Queen sit in their castle late one stormy night and hear a knocking at the gate. All the servants have gone to bed, so the King goes downstairs himself and opens the big oak door. There, draggled in wind and rain and mud, is a lovely young lady, begging for shelter. The old King brings her in, and they dry her off by the fire and give her hot-milk toast. In the conversation she explains that she is really a Princess of high degree.

Naturally the old King and Queen are doubtful. What would a Princess be doing wandering about like that at night? So when the Queen goes to fix the guest-room bed she slips a dried pea under the mattress. In the morning they ask their visitor how she rested. Oh, wretchedly, wretchedly, she says; I could hardly sleep at

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 all. She explains that: there was something hard in the bed that bruised her black and blue. Then they know she was a real Princess: only a royal person could have a skin so tender.

So that was the Pea Princess. But Jack came from quite a different story. He was just a plain country boy, though brave and steady. He was the boy who climbed the bean-stalk and outwitted the giant. He was not handsome. He tried to pretend it was the warm weather that had lengthened his paraffin face into such a soft and melancholy expression. But it was not the warm weather, it was love.

Jack was too shy to tell the Pea Princess how he felt about her. Besides, he knew very well that they belonged in two entirely different stories, and there is nothing so difficult as getting out of your own story and into someone else's. But it would be silly to suppose that Sweet Pea (as he called her) was not aware of his condition. Even if she had not guessed it, some of the other puppets would have told her. As they all lay there, jumbled together in the box, she could feel his admiring eye always fixed upon her. This was not unpleasant, for young women enjoy being admired. But the truth is, she was so very un-

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 comfortable that she was thinking chiefly of her own troubles. A person so sensitive that even a pea under the mattress kept her awake, naturally suffered terribly in such crowded quarters.

Then one fine day some leading spirit among the marionettes suggested a new idea, that they should put on a play of their own. It had never occurred to them before that they might do this, but after all, why not? Quite a buzz of talk rose from the box as they argued about it. Some refused to believe that it could be done without the Manager to handle the strings. But they decided to try. Stiff from lying idle so long they clambered out of the box and stretched themselves.

The great difficulty was to get their strings untangled. Shuffling round in the box, the delicate threads had got all snarled together. This is quite likely to happen to marionettes unless they are put away very carefully. If the tangle is badly complicated they can never unravel it themselves. They have to wait for the Manager. There was a quarrelsome time while they all pulled and tweaked and twisted. They all had different ideas about what to do with their strings when they disentangled them. Some

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 wound them neatly around themselves, under their costumes, so they would not be in the way. Others carried them proudly, coiled at their waists, like cowboys with lassoes. Much excited they walked to and fro on the stage of the theatre, happy to see it again. The scene happened to be set for the first act of The Sleeping Beauty, so they agreed to give that play.

In the long time since the theatre had been used, some of the actors had been lost. Sleeping Beauty was nowhere to be found. The only person suitable to play that part was Sweet Pea. But then, as they sorted themselves out and began to get things in order, came a painful problem. The strings of Sweet Pea and Jack Beanstalk had got so knotted together that they could not be separated. Neither one could go anywhere without the other trailing after. It was very embarrassing. Cinderella's older sisters burst into jeering laughter, and several other puppets whispered unkindly among themselves.

The poor Princess was terribly unhappy. Here was her great chance to play a leading rile, apparently spoiled by this entanglement. She sat miserably on the edge of the stage while some of the older marionettes tried in vain to pick out

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 the knots with their cardboard fists. Jack, very ashamed, stood as far away as the tether of string would allow, and looked grim. In his heart he was very angry at the careless Manager who had allowed this humiliating thing to happen.

Then Sweet Pea, seeing how wretched he was, did a charming thing. She forgot her own disappointment. With tears still on her pretty little paraffin face she said bravely: "Never mind! Let someone else play Sleeping Beauty, Jack and I will watch. If I had to be tangled up with anyone, I'm glad it's him."

This was too much for Jack. There came to his aid the courage he had once shown in climbing the tall swaying bean-stalk. He seized a pair of scissors and with a quick snip he cut off his own strings. This was the most daring thing that any marionette can do. For all he knew, he might have fallen dead on the spot. The others gazed in horrified amazement. But, except for one sharp twinge of pain, he seemed all right.

Sweet Pea jumped up, radiant. She bundled together the trailing ends of string and hid them under her cape where they did not show. Now all was clear, and they went on with the play.

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 Jack was not in this performance: his costume as the simple bean-climber was not fine enough for the part of the young Prince who comes to wake Beauty from her trance. So he stood off at one side, behind the wings of cardboard scenery, watching. He was quite content not to be on the stage as long as he could watch Sweet Pea. Also he felt different from ever before. The other puppets had all looked at him strangely when he cut off his strings. It was as though they expected some mysterious doom to come upon him. Naturally this made him self-conscious. But inwardly he felt a happy certainty. He was trembling with a new lightness and freedom.

Sweet Pea surpassed herself in this play. How beautiful she was! Some of the marionettes, unaccustomed to acting without any Manager to control them, were awkward and clumsy; they tripped over their strings, forgot their lines, caught their feet in the slits cut for the scenery. But Sweet Pea was perfect. There seemed unexpected grace and meaning in her proud easy ways. In the scene where she goes exploring in the old forbidden attic, and finds the spinning wheel, and pricks her finger, she was thrilling. Her acting was wonderful when she pretended to

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 feel the magic swoon coming upon her. While the Wicked Fairy cackled in triumph Sweet Pea tottered to the window and looked wildly out.

"Will no one save me?" she cried. "In all the sweetness of my youth, must I yield to this cruel spell? Wicked Fairy, you laugh too soon. I shall be saved!" And then she sank motionless on the couch.

Jack, watching from offstage, was deeply moved by this scene. He had watched her pale face, and it seemed there was more than just acting in her look. Also, he suddenly thought, if she had to sleep a hundred years it would surely be fatal. She, so gently bred that only one pea under a mattress could bruise her, how could she survive a whole century on that rickety old couch?

The other actors were already crowding into the wings for the end of the scene—the King and Queen, the fairies and maids of honour. But Jack strode through them, shoving aside the gailydressed puppet who was to be the rescuing Prince of the last act. He felt a strange sureness he had never known when there were strings to guide

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 him. Almost afraid that she had really gone into a hundred-year trance, he leaned over the Princess and touched her gently. She opened her eyes. To the horror of all the other marionettes, whose sense of artistic propriety was outraged, she sat up and held out her arms. They rang the curtain down at once, but it was too late. Already she was in his embrace.

They got out through the back of the theatre while the indignant puppets were still gaping. "Be careful of your strings," he said. "They're coming down."

"As if I cared!" she whispered to him. "Here, I'll show you." She seized the scissors.

Two little tangles of threads, all knotted together, lying by the stage door, were all they ever found of Jack and the Pea Princess. All sorts of rumours went round among the marionettes, and the old King and Queen, who had found her that wet night outside the castle gate, said they had always suspected she would come to no good. But it's my belief that you'll still find them, somewhere in the vegetable garden, keeping house very happily at the top of the tallest bean-pole.

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 "I never was much of an actor myself," Jack says, "but you should have seen my wife when she was on the stage. She might have had a great career . . ."

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UDGET, the teddy bear, had been left out in the rain; and you know how wet a large, fat, fleecy, stomachy bear can get. So he was pinned up on the clothes line to dry. The easiest way to fasten a teddy bear to a clothes line is to pin him by his ears. So there he hung, with the forked pegs tightly pinched on his two tender flaps of ear. He was surprisingly patient. His yellow glass eyes looked a bit wild, and his mouth, sewn in black wool, drooped in a mournful curve, and the palms of his muddy paws hung soggy, but for a long while he was silent. Then he could endure it no more, and the animals in the Grape Arbor Tea Room heard him utter a scream of bad temper.

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 "You make me sad! You make me terribly sad!" he yelled (it was a phrase he had caught from four-year-old Blythe). "I hope you'll all go to Bide-a-Wee! You sit there telling stories, and I'm pinned up by my ears and can't hear a word!"

The animals gazed in astonishment. They had been so busy enjoying their tea and talk it had never occurred to them that Budget might like to hear what was going on. They had never taken Budget very seriously, or regarded him as a real animal. Now they gathered under the clothes line and looked up in concern.

Budget, after suffering so long in silence, was in a fierce tantrum. He hung there trembling with rage. He had caught a cold from getting so wet, the kind of cold that is always referred to as "nasty," and that also added to his irritation. Now he kept shouting out all the rude words he could remember from listening to croquet games. He shouted very loud, too; louder than he realized, for with his ears pinned up he could not hear himself.

"Dumb-bells!" he screamed. "Big simps! Boobs! Poor fish! Haven't you any manners for other people's feelings? My gracious! You just

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 sit there and have a good time and never think about me. Roughnecks! You better go to Bide-a-Wee, bettn't you!"

They were all scandalized by this outburst. Donny and Fritz tried to jump up to reach his feet, but the line had been put high on purpose. It was the squirrels who saved the day. Two of them ran out on the rope, one from each end. With their clever little paws they unfastened the clothes-pins from his ears. He dropped onto Donny's broad back, and they carried him over to the grape arbor and propped him in a comfortable chair. A cup of hot cambric tea made him feel better, though his ears were still sore. It was agreed that as he had been so ill treated, a story should be told for his special benefit.

"What kind of story would you like?" asked Escargot, the wise snail who always acted as host at these meetings.

"A story in which children get the worst of it," he said peevishly. "I shall never forget their carelessness in leaving me out in the rain. I do think, after all I've done for them, they might be more thoughtful. Four children have used me to go to bed with, one after the other, all these years. Every night of my life, as soon as they're

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 comfortably asleep, I get crowded out of bed. I'm all bruises from falling on the floor. I hope they'll get punished some day. I hope—gosh, I hope they'll all grow up and marry people who kick in their sleep. Yes, tell me a story in which children get the worst of it."

The animals looked at each other in some embarrassment. They could think of a number of stories of that sort, but it is dangerous to repeat them. For they had all been carefully trained to idealize children, to say of them "they are just little animals." But they knew well enough that children are powerful and uncertain, and that no animal is as full of dangerous energy as a child.

The big gray squirrel who had unpinned Budget's left ear volunteered to tell the story. Squirrels are reckless, because they are so agile and live safely in trees. This one took up a comfortable position on top of the grape arbor, shifted the nuts out of his mouth, and looked sharply round to make sure that no outsiders could overhear.

This isn't really a Roslyn Fairy Tale, he said. It happened in the city. Nothing so scandalous

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 could happen out here. My cousin told it to me, he is one of the squirrels in Riverside Park.

There was once a very small boy called Philip who used to go walking in the park with his nurse. And like all proper boys, he always took along a bag of peanuts to feed the squirrels.

I think that in the beginning the trouble was more the nurse's fault than Philip's. Her father had been in the circus business and perhaps for that reason she had a strong passion for peanuts. As they walked along the streets on the way to Riverside Drive she could not resist eating them, and just to be fair she allowed Philip to have some too. The five-cent bag of peanuts, as every squirrel knows, does not hold nearly as many as it used to in the good old days; and sometimes by the time they got to the park there were hardly any nuts left for the squirrels.

That, of course, was regrettable; but it could be forgiven. Any squirrel can understand other people too having a weakness for peanuts. What was really unfair was that Philip learned that the squirrels were easily fooled by empty

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 shells. It was quite easy to hold out the end of a shell in such a way that it looked like an unopened nut. The hopeful animals would come scampering and this mischievous boy would lure them on until they even climbed up his legs and clustered about his hands. Then they would discover it was only a trick. They would look at him reproachfully with their bright eyes, and he would shout with laughter at their disappointment.

If his nurse had been the right sort, she would soon have taught him not to do this sort of thing. She might have reminded Philip, my cousin said, that in Riverside Park there is the famous little memorial of the Amiable Child, which so many visitors to New York have seen. This very small tomb of a peaceful child, right next to the huge tomb of a very warlike man, General Grant, should have suggested to her that the Riverside children ought all to be Amiable. But she was sitting on a bench reading one of those small newspapers that are so popular in the park. My cousin used to wonder what there can be in those papers that is so nourishing? Evidently they have the same attraction for that peanuts have for squirrels. Anyhow, this

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 shabby behaviour of Philip's went on until all the squirrels knew him by sight. Then he could not hoax them any more. When they saw him holding out peanut shells and calling to them, they paid no attention.

All this did not matter much in summer, when peanuts are plentiful. In summer the city squirrels get probably more nuts than are good for them. That little groaning you sometimes hear in the trees along Riverside Drive at night comes from some young squirrels with stomach-ache, due to an excess of rich diet. But winter came, when peanuts mean much to the New York squirrels, For they have been so spoiled by having food scattered about for them, my cousin says, that they have lost their thrifty habit of storing up a supply for the barren season. And then, when Philip and his nurse still continued to eat most of the peanuts before they got to the park, and still amused themselves by offering the empty husks, it was determined to do something.

The boy and his companion did not notice, as they walked home one snowy dusk, that two watchful gray squirrels were following. Up the steep hill from the Drive, hiding now and then

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 behind the piles of snow along the curb, hurrying into doorways to avoid being seen, darting briskly across streets when the traffic was halted, these two trailed Philip and the nurse. In their handsome gray fur they looked like two small busy postmen delivering letters. In that December season the streets are full of all sorts of cheerful doings and even if the two squirrels were noticed they were merely supposed to be hurrying on Christmas errands. Their sharp little faces were full of purpose, and they followed the unsuspecting pair until they reached the big apartment house on West End Avenue where Philip lived. Even then their task was not finished. They ran up to the top of a tree in front of the building. Swaying about in the bare branches and arguing briskly together, they waited along time. They kept careful watch on all the windows of the apartment house. Then they saw Philip's face appear at one of those windows. He saw them too, and was pleased, for he thought that here were two squirrels who had not yet been fooled. He threw down some empty peanut shells that had remained in his overcoat pocket. The squirrels disregarded this

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 unmannerly gesture, and hurried back to the park.

A few days later it was Christmas Eve. It seemed to Philip that an afternoon had never gone so slowly. Along Broadway the shops were bright with toys and pretty things; as he walked with his nurse he wondered impatiently what surprises he was going to get the next day. He had heard the papery rustle of wrappings in his mother's room, the constant buzz of the doorbell as mysterious bundles were delivered at the apartment. He had no brothers and sisters, so he had no one's pleasure to consider but his own. The nurse kept him out late so that he would be sleepy, and then after a light supper he was put to bed. When he was sound asleep his father and mother began setting up the Tree.

Meanwhile, down in Riverside Park, a remarkable thing was happening. From every corner of the grounds squirrels were assembling at the appointed meeting place—the little rocky hill near 84th Street which is where they hold their parliament. It was an extraordinary gathering. The biggest, strongest, most active squir-

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 rels had been chosen. There must have been nearly a hundred of them, they covered the outcrop of rock and all chattered together. On any other evening such a crowd would have been noticed, but on Christmas Eve everyone was busy with his own concerns. Windows hung with wreaths shone in the tall cliffs of building along the Drive, the busses were full of people carrying parcels wrapped in red ribbon, the sky was clear and dark and frosty, all the gaiety of that ten© der evening sparkled in the air.

The two squirrels who knew the way acted as leaders. At their command all conversation ceased; with well-drilled swiftness the furry regiment set off in column of twos. Their plumy tails flirted with nervous excitement as they advanced, in short quick scampers, along the wall that bounds the Drive. The policeman at the crossing was startled when they approached, but he knew that on Christmas Eve you must not be surprised at anything. He saluted them, and held up the busses while they crossed in an orderly rush. They ran swiftly up to West End Avenue. There, in front of the apartment house, they paused in a long line while the leaders pointed out Philip's window. It was open, as

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 healthy bedroom windows ought to be at night. There was a sharp squeak of command, and the army of squirrels charged upon the tall building.

No one but squirrels could have done it! My cousin, who was one of them, says it was a thrilling sight. Some scuttled up the trees and sprang from there onto window sills; others scaled straight up the front of the wall. They darted in quick zigzags up the face of the cliff, their strong toes took advantage of every little ornament and roughness in the stone. The sills were slippery and required careful going, but these were the picked athletes of all the Riverside squirrels, and they were lean and agile with winter hunger. Before you could have guessed what was happening the whole pack had swarmed up to the twelfth floor and entered through Philip's window.

There lay the Unamiable Child, fast asleep; and there in the next room was the beautiful Christmas Tree. Parents and nurse had trimmed it well and gone to bed exhausted. From every fragrant bough hung tinsel ornaments, peppermint canes, cornucopias, coloured bulbs, popcorn strings, shining trinkets. It is sad to have to tell it, but the angry squirrels made short

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 work of that Tree. The Star at the top they did not touch, for squirrels respect the Christmas Star as much as anyone; and the glass and tinsel decorations didn't interest them; but everything else they raided to their hearts' content. They stripped the tree of everything eatable, they hung the popcom strings out of the window to make a rope by which they could get down again. Imagine their pleasure when they found a large box of peanut brittle underneath the tree. Among so many sharp teeth it did not last long. They did not care much for the sweet part, but they carefully ate out every peanut imbedded in the candy and left the box a mass of sticky crumbs.

They worked quietly and fast. If anyone heard the rustle of their movements he would have thought it only the secret wrapping of packages. They did not bother the presents piled beside the Tree, for they did not want to spoil Philip's Christmas altogether, merely to give him a hint. Then each squirrel hooked a tiny peppermint cane around his neck. They gave a satisfied look at the devastated tree, then they were out of the window and ran nimbly down the long chains of pink and white popcorn.

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