together, Aunt Miranda, Aunt Jane and I that I don't like to
write in my book for fear they will ask me to read out loud my
secret thoughts.

I have just read over the first part of my Thought Book and I
have outgrown it all, just exactly as I have outgrown my last
year's drab cashmere.

It is very queer how anybody can change so fast in a few months,
but I remember that Emma Jane's cat had kittens the day my book
was bought at Watson's store. Mrs. Perkins kept the prettiest
white one, Abijah Flagg drowning all the others.

It seems strange to me that cats will go on having kittens when
they know what becomes of them! We were very sad about it, but
Mrs. Perkins said it was the way of the world and how things had
to be.

I cannot help being glad that they do not do the same with
children, or John and Jenny Mira Mark and me would all have had
stones tied to our necks and been dropped into the deepest part
of Sunny Brook, for Hannah and Fanny are the only truly handsome
ones in the family.

Mrs. Perkins says I dress up well, but never being dressed up it
does not matter much. At least they didn't wait to dress up the
kittens to see how they would improve, before drowning them, but
decided right away.

Emma Jane's kitten that was born the same day this book was is