"Not as much as I used to, Puss. Now you must go to bed. It's getting late and pretty soon Dad and Aunt Maria will be coming upstairs. Good-night." With another gentle squeeze of her hand he was gone. CHAPTER II TABITHA CHOOSES A NEW NAME The day was done. The crimson sunset glow still hung over the whole world, touching the brown, parched hills with a rainbow of colors and reflecting itself in the cloudbank massed high in the eastern sky. Tom, hurrying home through the fields from his last errands at the store, was whistling softly and enjoying the beauty of the early evening, wondering all the while why the little sister was not running to meet him, and half expecting to see her jump out at him from behind some clump of bushes. But Tabitha was nowhere in sight. "Poor Puss! Wonder if she has been punished again today. Wish I could keep her with me all the time. She wouldn't get into so much mischief." He anxiously scanned the house as he approached it for some glimpse of lively Tabitha, but was disappointed. Suddenly from overhead came a soft bird trill, followed by a suppressed snicker. He looked up quickly, and there in the branches of the wide-spreading sycamore tree by the corner of the house was a flutter of white which, upon closer inspection, proved to be Tabitha's nightgown, and Tabitha was inside it! "Tab--" "Sh!" came the instant command. "Eat supper and come up to my room. I've got something to show you." Tom obediently followed her instructions, and some minutes later his head appeared at the window, and he demanded, "Puss, are you still working for that licking?" "Nope," she answered serenely. "We don't have to talk in whispers now, for Dad has gone up the road and I heard him tell Aunt Maria he wouldn't be home until late." "What does this mean? What are you doing out in that tree, and why are you in your nightgown? It's getting damp and you will catch cold sitting out there like that."