And I thought, too, when each youthful mother had conned
    Her startling and touching narration,
  Of the dolls of which I in my childhood was fond,
  How with Dora and Arabelle they’d correspond,
  And how far dolls and children to-day are beyond
    Those we had in the last generation!

A TALE OF MANY TAILS.

By Katharine B. Foot.

Carry stood in the door-way with her dolly on one arm and her kitten hanging over the other.  Kitty didn’t look comfortable, but she bore up bravely, only once in a while giving a plaintive mew.  Carry gazed into the bright white sunshine.

“It’s melting hot,” she said.  “I guess, grandma, I’ll take my doll and Friskarina out to the wash-house and have a party.”

“Well,” said grandma, looking over her spectacles, “I’ve no objection; only there’s a black cloud coming up, and you may get caught out there in a thunder storm.”

“If I do, can Jake come for me with an umbrella, and can I take off my shoes and stockings and come home barefoot?”

“Yes; I don’t believe it would hurt you.”

“Then I’ll go;” and Carry picked up a box with a little tea-set in it, and started off, saying:  “Do you believe it’ll rain cats and dogs and pitchforks, grandma?  That’s what Jake says.”

“No, my dear.  You’d better ask him if he ever saw such a rain.”

“So I will,” and away went Carry through the sunshine.  And she said to herself:  “Wouldn’t it be funny if it did rain so?  I guess grandma wouldn’t like it much if cats rained down, ’cause she says five cats are too many now.”

The tea-party on an old chair without a back wasn’t much of an affair, after all; for, although the doll—­Miss Rose de Lorme—­was propped up against a starch-box more than half a dozen times, she would keep on sliding feet first until she came down flat on her back and thumped her head.  The kitten went to sleep in the corner just as Carry put her down.

“Oh, dear!” sighed the little girl.  “It’s so lonely with cats and dolls and things that can’t talk!” And then she sat down in a corner by the old wash-boiler, where she could see out of the open door, and took Kitty into her lap.

The great fluffy clouds banked up higher and higher, and from being white and dazzling they began to grow black at the edges; and the black masses rolled up and up, until the sun was all hidden and the sky was dark.  Then came the rain, gently at first, in drops far apart, but soon it fell faster and faster, and the little leaves on the currant-bushes jumped up and down and seemed to enjoy the shower-bath.  To Carry’s great delight, little streams began to creep over the path, now in separate little trickles, and presently with sudden little darts into one another, as they came to uneven places in the walk.  She watched it all with great wide eyes, and felt quiet and cool just to smell the damp earth.