his sisters.

"Well, I done let yo' hold her for a minute," said Jeff, and he gave
the China Cat into the hands of the little black girl. But as this girl
had been eating bread and sugar, she got the poor China Cat stickier
than ever.

"Lemme hold her now, Jeff!" pleaded another black tot.

"Nope, I ain't held her long 'nuff!" declared the first.

"Heah! Gib her to me!" ordered the second.

"No! No! Jeff said I could hab her!" cried the first.

One tried to take the China Cat away from the other, and in the scramble
a chair was upset and the toy nearly fell to the floor.

"This is the most dreadful place I was ever in!" thought the China Cat,
who, of course, could do nothing to save herself. "If they let me fall I
shall be broken, all dirty and soiled as I am."

But Jeff was not going to let that happen.

"Heah! Gib me back mah cat, whut I done got at de fire!" he said, and he
grabbed it from his sister's hand.

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" wailed the little black girl.

"Heah! Hush yo' noise now!" called Jeff's mother. "Set up to de table
an' hab yo' brekfus'! Stop playin'!"

"Dear me, they call that _playing_!" thought the China Cat. "I wonder
what they would do in a game of _tag_? Oh, what is ever to become of
me?"

Jeff took the toy and set it on a shelf in the kitchen, and then he sat
down to his breakfast. Every once in a while he would look up at the
China Cat.

"I's glad I done got yo'," Jeff would murmur. "Yo' suah am a fine toy!"

After breakfast he took the China Cat down off the shelf and let his
sisters look at her. But no sooner did one of the little colored girls
have the cat in her hands than she darted out of the basement.

"Now I's got her, an' I's gwine t' hab some fun!" cried Arabella.
Arabella was the name of this one of Jeff's sisters. "I's gwine to hab
fun wid dis cat!"

Up the stairs and out into the street she ran, holding the China Cat in
such a tight grip that, had the toy been a real pussy, she would have
been choked.

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