“Das old cat sho’ done feel ter home now,” said the black man, chuckling. “She done got inter dat basket wid dem kittens an’ dey is havin’ a reg’lar love feast wid each odder, dey is so glad ter be united once mo’. Mebbe dat ol’ speckled cat kin clean out de mice.” Of course, Uncle Rufus was not really a “black” man, save that he was of pure African blood. He was a brown man—a rich, chocolate color. But his daughter, Petunia Blossom, when she came to get the wash-clothes, certainly proved to be as black—and almost as shiny—as the kitchen range! “How come she is so dreful _brack_, I sho’ dunno,” groaned Uncle Rufus. “Her mudder was a well-favored brown lady—not a mite darker dan me—an’ as I ’member my pappy an’ mammy, ’way back dere befo’ de wah, wasn’t none o’ dese common _brack_ negras—no, Ma’am! “But Pechunia, she done harked back to some ol’ antsister” (he meant “ancestor”) “wot must ha’ been marked mighty permiscuous wid de tarbrush. Does jes’ look lak’ yo’ could rub de soot off Pechunia wid yo’ finger!” Petunia was enormously fat, too, but she was a pretty colored woman, without Uncle Rufus’ broad, flat features. And she had a great number of bright and cunning pickaninnies. “How many I got in to-tal, Missie?” she repeated Ruth’s question. “Lor’ bress yo’! Sometimes I scurce remember dem all. Dere’s two merried an’ moved out o’ town. Den dere’s two mo’ wokin’; das four, ain’t it? Den de good Lor’ sen’ me twins twicet—das mak’ eight, ef my ’rithmetickle am cor-rect. An’ dere’s Alfredia, an’ Jackson, and Burne-Jones Whis’ler Blossom (he done been named by Mis’ Holcomb, de artis’ lady, wot I wok fo’) an’ de baby, an’ Louisa Annette, an’ an’—— Bress de Lor’, Missie, I ’spect das ’bout all.” Ruth had lost count and could only laugh over the names foistered upon the helpless brown babies. Uncle Rufus “snorted” over the catalog of his daughter’s progeny. “Huh! dem names don’t mean nuthin’, an’ so I tell her,” he grunted. “But yo’ cyan’t put sense in de head ob a flighty negra-woman—no, Ma’am! She called dem by sech _circusy_ names ’cause dey _sounds_ pretty. Sound an’ no sense! Huh!” Just now, however, the Corner House girls were more deeply interested in the names of the four kittens, and in keeping them straight (for three were marked almost exactly alike), than they were in the names which had been forced upon the helpless family of Petunia Blossom. Having already had one lesson in lapping milk from a saucer, the kittens were made to go through the training again after dinner, under the ministrations of Tess and Dot. Sandy-face, who seemed to have become fairly contented by this time, sat by and watched her offspring coughing and sputtering over the warm milk and finally, deciding that they had had enough, came and drank it all up herself. Dot was rather inclined to think that this was “piggish” on Sandy’s part.