As the kittens grew older, Sally found it harder and harder to make them mind. One day she found her dear little Patty in a drawer in the kitchen, one that she had never got into before. Sally was terribly worried for fear some thoughtless person would shut the drawer with her child in it. She called and called to Patty to come out. She called until Elvira stamped her foot and said, ‘Be quiet, Sally.’ Then Sally stopped to think things out. ‘I see that the door into the passageway is open, Patty,’ she said. ‘Wouldn’t you like to come with me into the other part of the house?’ It had worked. Patty sprang out of the drawer and gayly followed her mother, for she had longed to go into the parlor again ever since the day that she and Eben had been taken there to show to some admiring ladies who were having afternoon tea with Miss Winifred. Patty and her mother went up a flight of stairs to the sewing-room door, which was open. There was no door open into the other part of the house. ‘Oh, is that all you’ve got to show me! I’ve seen this old room before,’ said Patty. ‘You’ve seen it before? When?’ ‘Uncle Peter showed it to us one day when you were in the parlor with Miss Harvey.’ ‘Uncle Peter! That tramp cat is no relation of yours. It is Oxford who is your uncle.’ ‘Uncle Peter said he wasn’t any relation,’ said Patty, ‘but we asked if we might call him that, for we like him a lot better. Uncle Oxford tries to make us mind, and it isn’t his business. He isn’t our mother.’ ‘I don’t want you playing around with Peter.’ ‘But, mother, he tells us such lots of exciting stories. He’s going to take Eben hunting as soon as we are big enough to be let out.’ Patty was halfway down the stairs as she spoke. Her mother followed her anxiously. What should she do to keep her child out of that drawer. To her intense relief, she saw that Elvira had closed it. It was a very cold day, and Eben was standing absorbed in the passageway to the outside door, watching Peter, who was fighting another cat. ‘Eben,’ she called in her shrill voice, ‘come in at once, you will take cold.’ ‘For pity sake, keep quiet, Sally,’ said Elvira, stamping her foot. Eben did not move. Then Patty went and touched her brother with her paw and tried to get him in out of the cold. Cat fights had no interest for her. He shook her off and remained rooted to the spot. ‘Oh, children, children,’ said Sally in despair. She went over to Miss Harvey, who had come in and was sitting by the table. She had been too busy with her kittens to pay any attention to Miss Harvey of late. Now she put her paws around her neck and her face up to be kissed. ‘Poor, dear Sally,’ said Miss Harvey, ‘it is quite a job to be a mother.’ ‘What’s the use of trying to make us mind, mother? It’s much more fun to do the things yourself.’ As he spoke, Eben began to chase after his sister’s tail, Patty chased after his, and finally Sally joined them, and the three had a mad race around the kitchen floor.