CHAPTER VI
A TERRIBLE STORM
Jeff was not going to let his China Cat be taken from him in this
fashion. With a yell he darted up the basement steps and ran after his
sister.
"Come back heah! Bring back mah cat!" yelled the colored boy.
"No! No!" screamed his sister. "I done got her, an' she's mine now! She
suah is mine!"
Faster and faster the little colored girl raced down the street, but of
course she could not run as fast as Jeff, who soon caught up to her.
Reaching forth his hands, which were now dirtier than before, Jeff
caught hold of his sister's kinky hair.
"Ouch! Oh, yo' stop dat, Jeff!" she wailed.
"Gib me back mah white cat!" he demanded, and he took the toy roughly
from his sister. Arabella began to cry, and a man who was passing
stopped and looked at the colored children.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Oh, we's only playin'," answered Jeff. "She took mah cat, an' I wanted
it back."
"Hum!" mused the man. "That's a queer kind of play, I think. And if you
drop that cat on the sidewalk you won't be able to play with her, for
she'll be broken to pieces."
"What a dreadful thing! Oh, if that should happen!" thought the China
Cat, who heard all that was said.
"I ain't gwine to drop her," declared Jeff, as he turned away with the
China Cat in his dirty hands. With tears on her black cheeks, Arabella
followed her brother back to the tenement.
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