The Project Gutenberg EBook of How It Happened, by Kate Langley Bosher

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Title: How It Happened

Author: Kate Langley Bosher

Release Date: January 17, 2005 [EBook #14723]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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HOW IT HAPPENED

BY

KATE LANGLEY BOSHER

AUTHOR OF

THE MAN IN LONELY LAND,
MARY CARY, ETC

ILLUSTRATED

PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 1914

TO
MY FAITHFUL FRIEND
ARIADNE ELIZABETH VAUGHAN LATHAM

ILLUSTRATIONS

"WHICH DO YOU LIKE BEST, SARDINES WITH LEMON ON 'EM, OR TOASTED CHEESE
ON TOAST?"

"YOU WOULD NOT LET ME THANK YOU THIS MORNING. MAY I THANK YOU NOW
FOR--"

HOW IT HAPPENED

CHAPTER I

Head on the side and chin uptilted, she held it at arm's-length,
turning it now in one direction, now in another, then with
deliberation she laid it on the floor.

"I have wanted to do it ever since you were sent me; now I am going
to."

Hands on hips, she looked down on the high-crown, narrow-brim hat of
stiff gray felt which was at her feet, and nodded at it with firmness
and decision. "It's going to be my Christmas present to
myself--getting rid of you. Couldn't anything give me as much pleasure
as smashing you is going to give. Good-by--"

Raising her right foot, Carmencita held it poised for a half-moment
over the hated hat, then with long-restrained energy she brought it
down on the steeple-crown and crushed it into shapelessness. "I wish
she could see you now." Another vigorous punch was given, then with a
swift movement the battered bunch of dull grayness, with its yellow
bird and broken buckle of tarnished steel, was sent in the air, and as
it landed across the room the child laughed gaily, ran toward it, and
with the tip of her toes tossed it here and there. Sending it now up
to the ceiling, now toward the mantel, now kicking it over the table,
and now to the top of the window, she danced round and round the room,
laughing breathlessly. Presently she stooped, picked it up, stuck it
on her head, and, going to the stove, opened its top, and with a shake