"Five times twenty-five Black Cats are one hundred and twenty-five
Black Cats," added the Wise Woman, with a chuckle.

[Illustration: SHE SANG IT BEAUTIFULLY.]

Then the Mayor and the Aldermen and the high-Soprano Singer fled
precipitately out the door and back to the city. One hundred and
twenty-five Black Cats had seemed to fill the Wise Woman's hut full,
and when they all spit and miauled together it was dreadful. The
visitors could not wait for her to multiply Black Cats any longer.

As winter wore on, and spring came, the condition of things grew more
intolerable. Physicians had been consulted, who advised that the
children should be allowed to follow their own bents, for fear of
injury to their constitutions. So the rich Aldermen's daughters were
actually out in the fields herding sheep, and their sons sweeping
chimneys or carrying newspapers; while the poor charwomen's and
coal-heavers' children spent their time like princesses and fairies.
Such a topsy-turvy state of society was shocking. Why, the Mayor's
little daughter was tending geese out in the meadow like any common
goose-girl! Her pretty elder sister, Violetta, felt very sad about it,
and used often to cast about in her mind for some way of relief.

When cherries were ripe in spring, Violetta thought she would ask the
Cherry-man about it. She thought the Cherry-man quite wise. He was a
very pretty young fellow, and he brought cherries to sell in
graceful little straw baskets lined with moss. So she stood in the
kitchen-door, one morning, and told him all about the great trouble
that had come upon the city. He listened in great astonishment; he had
never heard of it before. He lived several miles out in the country.