MacCall.

"Looker dem fedders! looker dem fedders!" gasped Uncle Rufus. "She done
got dem all stuck on her fo' sho'!"

"Oh, oh!" squealed Tess and Dot, in chorus, and clinging together as
Petal dashed past them.

Just at this moment Agnes opened the door and saw what appeared to be an
animated feather-boa dashing about the kitchen, with the bulk of the
family in pursuit.

"What for goodness' sake is the matter?" gasped Agnes.

Popocatepetl saw the open door and she went through it as though she had
been shot out of a gun, leaving a trail of feathers in her wake and
splotches of molasses all over the kitchen floor.

CHAPTER X

THE ICE STORM

The four girls followed Popocatepetl out of the house in a hurry. Their
shrill voices aroused Neale O'Neil where he was spading up a piece of
Mr. Con Murphy's garden for a planting of winter spinach. He came over
the fence in a hurry and ran up the long yard.

"What's the matter? What's the matter?" he shouted.

The chorus of explanation was so confused that Neale might never have
learned the difficulty to this very moment, had he not looked up into
the bare branches of the Keifer pear tree and seen an object clinging
close to a top limb.

"For pity's sake!" he gasped. "What is that?"

"It's Petal," shrilled Dot. "An' she's felled into the merlasses and got
herself all feathers."

At that her sisters burst out laughing. It was too bad the little cat
was so frightened, but it _was_ too comical for anything!

"You don't call that a cat?" demanded Neale, when he could control his
own risibilities.

"Of course it's a cat," said Tess, rather warmly. "You know Ruthie's
Popocatepetl, Neale--you know you do."

"But a thing with feathers, roosting in a tree, must be some kind of a
fowl--yes?" asked Neale, with gravity.

"It's a cat-bird," announced Agnes.

The younger girls could not see any fun in the situation. Poor Petal,
clinging to the high branch of the tree, and faintly mewing, touched
their hearts, so Neale went up like a professional acrobat and after
some difficulty brought the frightened cat down.

"She'll have to be plucked just like a chicken," declared Ruth. "Did you
_ever_ see such a mess in all your life?"

Neale held the cat so she could not scratch, and Agnes and Ruth
"plucked" her and wiped off the molasses as best they could. But it was
several days before Popocatepetl was herself again.

By this time, too, Neale O'Neil's green halo was