They could scarcely be touched by any one else without mewing; but when Annie seized one by the head and the other by the tail, and rubbed them violently together, they did not make a sound.

I suppose that a baby's grasp is really soft, even if it seems ferocious, and so it gives less pain than one would think.

At any rate, the little animals had the best of it very soon; for they entirely outstripped Annie in learning to walk, and they could soon scramble away beyond her reach, while she sat in a sort of dumb despair, unable to comprehend why anything so much smaller than herself should be so much nimbler.

Meanwhile, the kittens would sit up and look at her with the most provoking indifference, just out of arm's length, until some of us would take pity on the young lady, and toss her furry playthings back to her again.

"Little baby," she learned to call them; and these were the very first words she spoke.
Baby had evidently a natural turn for war, further cultivated by an intimate knowledge of drills and parades.