But the light of Uncle Tim's eyes was his little daughter Kitty. Kitty
was not a beauty. No--her little nose turned right up, like a little
dogs; her hair was neither soft nor curly; and her little neck and arms
were almost as brown as the leather in her father's shop,--still,
everybody loved Kitty, because she had such a warm, good heart, and
because she was so kind to her honest old father.

Uncle Tim had no wife. She had been dead many years. I shouldn't wonder
if Uncle Tim didn't grieve any, for she was a very cross, quarrelsome,
disagreeable person, and made him very unhappy.

Little Kitty was his housekeeper now, although she was only seven years
old. She and her father lived in a room back of the shop, and Uncle Tim
did the cooking, while Kitty washed the dishes, made the bed, and
tidied up the small room with her own nimble little fingers. When she
had quite done, she would run into the shop, steal behind her father,
throw her chubby brown arms about his neck, and give him a kiss that
would make him sing like a lark for many an hour after.

While his fingers were busy at his lap-stone he was thinking--not of
the coarse boots and shoes he was making, but of little Kitty--how he
meant to send her to school--how he meant she should learn to read and
write, and know a great deal more than ever _he_ did, when he was
young--and how he meant to save up all his money in the old yarn
stocking, till he got enough to put in the bank for Kitty,--so that
when he died she needn't go drifting round the world, trying to earn
her bread and butter among cold, stony-hearted strangers.

Uncle Tim found some time to play, too. When it came sundown, he and
Kitty, and the old yellow dog Jowler, would start off on a stroll. It
was very funny to see little Kitty fasten down the windows with an old
nail, before she started, like some old housekeeper, and put the
tea-kettle in the left-hand corner of the fire-place, and take such a
careful look about to see if everything was right, before turning the
key. When they got out into the fields they both enjoyed the fresh air
as only industrious people can. Every breath they drew seemed a luxury;
and as to Uncle Tim, I don't know which was the younger, he or Kitty. I
am sure he went over fences and stone walls like a squirrel; and as to
Kitty, her merry laugh would ring through the woods till the little
birds would catch it up and echo it back again.

Then, when they reached home, they had