Then suddenly something distracted his thoughts from Uncle Jonathan. The long, feathery grass in the field moved with a motion distinct from that caused by the wind and rain. Johnny saw a tiger-striped back emerge, covering long leaps of terror. Johnny knew the creature for a cat afraid of Uncle Jonathan. Then he saw the grass move behind the first leaping, striped back, and he knew there were more cats afraid of Uncle Jonathan. There were even motions caused by unseen things, and he reasoned, “Kittens afraid of Uncle Jonathan.” Then Johnny reflected with a great glow of indignation that the Simmonses kept an outrageous number of half-starved cats and kittens, besides a quota of children popularly supposed to be none too well nourished, let alone properly clothed. Then it was that Johnny Trumbull's active, firm imagination slapped the past of old romance like a most thorough mustard poultice over the present. There could be no Lincoln Green, no following of brave outlaws (that is, in the strictest sense), no bows and arrows, no sojourning under greenwood trees and the rest, but something he could, and would, do and be. That rainy day when Johnny Trumbull was a good boy, and stayed in the house, and read a book, marked an epoch. That night when Johnny went into his aunt Janet's room she looked curiously at his face, which seemed a little strange to her. Johnny, since he had come into possession of his grandfather's watch, went every night, on his way to bed, to his aunt's room for the purpose of winding up that ancient timepiece, Janet having a firm impression that it might not be done properly unless under her supervision. Johnny stood before his aunt and wound up the watch with its ponderous key, and she watched him. “What have you been doing all day, John?” said she. “Stayed in the house and--read.” “What did you read, John?” “A book.” “Do you mean to be impertinent, John?” “No, ma'am,” replied Johnny, and with perfect truth. He had not the slightest idea of the title of the book. “What was the book?” “A poetry book.” “Where did you find it?” “In Uncle Jonathan's library.” “Poetry In Uncle Jonathan's library?” said Janet, in a mystified way. She had a general impression of Jonathan's library as of century-old preserves, altogether dried up and quite indistinguishable one from the other except by labels. Poetry she could not imagine as being there at all. Finally she thought of the early Victorians, and Spenser and Chaucer. The library might include them, but she had an idea that Spenser and Chaucer were not fit reading for a little boy. However, as she remembered Spenser and Chaucer, she doubted if Johnny could understand much of them. Probably he had gotten hold of an early Victorian, and she looked rather contemptuous. “I don't think much of a boy like you reading poetry,” said Janet. “Couldn't you find anything else to read?”