Pussy and Doggy Tales

"I don't believe a word of it," said Dolly.

"No? Well, I'm sure it's as good a story as you could expect in answer to such a silly question."

"But you were always – "

"Oh, well!" said the kitten, showing its claws, "if you know more about it than I do, of course there's no more to be said. Perhaps you could tell me why your hair is brown?"

"I was born so, I believe," said Dolly gently.

The kitten put its nose in the air.

"You've got no imagination," it said.

"But, Kitty, really and truly, without pretending, you were born white, you know."

"If you know all about it, why did you ask me? At any rate, you can't expect me to remember whether I was born white or not. I was too young to notice such things."

"Now you are in fun," said poor Dolly, bewildered.

The kitten bristled with indignation.

"What! you really don't believe me? I'll never speak to you again," it said. And it never has.

The Selfish Pussy

"YES," said the tortoiseshell cat to the grey one, as she thoughtfully washed her left ear, "I have lived in a great many families. You see, it's not every trade that deserves to have a cat about the place. My first master was a shoemaker, and I lived with him happily enough, until one morning in winter, when I found the wicked man sewing strips of – let me whisper —cat's fur on a pair of lady's slippers!

"I mewed as I saw it, and he, thinking I wanted milk, put down his work to get me some, for he was fond enough of me. I drank the milk, and then I ran away. I could not live with such a man.

"My next home was in a garret, with a half-starved musician who made violins. A violin is a musical instrument that miauls when you touch it just as we cats do, and it was amusing to live with a man who could make things with voices like my own. He was very poor, and often had not enough to eat, but he always got me my cat's-meat; and when there was no fire on, he nursed me to keep me warm. But one day I learned, from the talk of one of his friends (a man as lean as himself) who came to see him, that the strings of the violins were taken from the bodies of dead cats. No wonder the voices were like my brothers' voices, since they were stolen from my brothers' bodies. He might take my own voice some day.

"So next day, after the cat's-meat man had called, I walked quietly out, and never saw that bad violin-maker again.

"I was picked up in the street by a child, who took me home to her mother's house. They were rich folk; they had curtains, and cushions, and couches, and they did very little but nurse me, or sometimes, not wishing to hurt his feelings, the Italian greyhound. But they liked me best, of course. They were a noble family; and I should have been living with them still, but one year, when they went to the seaside, they forgot to provide for my board and lodging, and I had to go into trade again.

"'Milk ahoy! milk ahoy!' I heard that well-known music as I sat lonely on the doorstep of the deserted mansion in the Square. The milkman looked lonely too; so I thought it would be only kind to go home with him. I did. He was a very well-meaning man, but his tastes were low. He took skim milk in his tea, and gave me the same. Of course, after that, I could not stay another hour under his roof.

"I tried two or three other houses, and I could have been happy with a very nice butcher who kept a corner shop, but he kept a dog also, a dog that no cat in her senses would live in the same street with; so I came away – rather hurriedly, I remember – and the dog saw me off. Now I live with a worker in silver, and I have cream every day; and when he makes a cream-jug, and I remember what will be put in it some day, I lick my lips, and think what a happy cat I am to live with such a good man. Where do you live?"

"With a poor widow, in an attic. I never have enough to eat." And, indeed, the grey cat was thin.

"Why do you stay with her?"

"Because I love her," said the grey cat.

"Love!" replied the tortoiseshell cat. "Nonsense! I never heard of such a thing."

"Poor puss!" said the parrot in the window. The grey cat thought it was speaking to the tortoiseshell, and the tortoiseshell was certain it meant the grey. Which do you think it meant?

Meddlesome Pussy

I WAS separated from my mother at a very early age, and sent out into the world alone, long before I had had time to learn to say "please" and "thank you," and to shut the door after me, and little things like that. One of the things I had not learned to understand was the difference between milk in a saucer on the floor, and milk in a jug on the table. Other cats tell me there is a difference, but I can't see it. The difference is not in the taste of the milk – that is precisely the same.

It is not so easy to get the milk out of a jug, and I should have thought some credit would attach to a cat who performed so clever a feat. The world, my dear, thinks otherwise. This difference of opinion has, through life, been a fruitful source of sorrow to me. I cannot tell you how much I have suffered for it. The first occasion I remember was a beautiful day in June, when the sun shone, and all the world looked fair. I was destined to remember that day.

The fishmonger (talk of statues to heroes! I would raise one to that noble man!) – the fishmonger, I say, brought his usual little present to me. I let the cook take it and prepare it for my eating. I am always generous enough to permit the family to be served first – and then I have my dinner quietly at the back door.

Well, he had brought the salmon, and I followed the cook in, to see that it wasn't put where those dogs could get it; and then, the dining-room door being opened, I walked in. The breakfast things were lying littered about, and on the tea-tray was a jug.

Of course, I walked across the table, and looked into the jug; there was milk in it.

It was a sensible, wide-mouthed jug, and I should have been quite able to make a comfortable breakfast, if some clumsy, careless servant hadn't rushed into the room, crying "Shoo! scat!"

This startled me, of course. I am very sensitive. I started, the jug went over, and the milk ran on to the cloth, and down on the new carpet. You will hardly believe it, but that servant, to conceal her own carelessness, beat me with a feather brush, and threw me out of the back door; and cook, who was always a heartless person, though stout, gave me no dinner. Ah! if my fishmonger had only known that I never tasted his beautiful present, after all!

But though I admired him so much, I could not talk to him. I never, from a kitten, could speak any foreign language fluently. So he never knew.

My next misadventure was on an afternoon when the family expected company, and the best china was set out. Why "best"? Why should a saucer, all blue and gold and red, with a crown on the back, be better than a white one with mauve blobs on it? I never could see. Milk tastes equally well from both.

I went into the drawing-room before the guests arrived – just to be sure that everything was as I could wish – and, seeing the tea set out, I got on the table, as usual, to see whether there was anything in the saucers. There was not, but in the best milk-jug there was – CREAM!

The neck of the best milk-jug was narrow. I could not get my head in, so I turned it over with my paw. It fell with a crash, and I paused a moment – these little shocks always upset me. All was still – I began to lap. Oh! that cream! I shall never forget it!

Then came a rush, and the fatal cry of "Shoo! scat!" – always presaging disaster. I saw the door open, and, by an instinct I cannot explain, I leaped from the table. In my hurry, my foot caught in the handle of the silver tray. We fell together – neither the tray nor I was hurt – but the best china!!!

I picked myself up, and looked about me. The family had come in. I read in their faces that their servant's unlucky interruption of my meal had destroyed what was dearer to them than life – than my life, at any rate. I fled. I went out homeless and hopeless into the golden afternoon.

I live now with a Saint – a maiden lady, who takes condensed milk in her own tea, and buys me two-pennyworth of cream night and morning.

And cat's meat, too!

And the glorious fishmonger still leaves his offerings at my door.

Nine Lives

"MOTHER," said the yellow kitten, "is it true that we cats have nine lives?"

"Quite, my dear," the brindled cat replied. She was a very handsome cat, and in very comfortable circumstances. She sat on a warm Turkey carpet, and wore a blue satin ribbon round her neck. "I am in the ninth life myself," she said.

"Have you lived all your lives here?"

"Oh dear, no!"

"Were you here," the white kitten asked, in a sleepy voice, "when the Turkey carpet was born? Rover says it is only a few months old."

"No," said the mother, "I was not. Indeed, it was partly the softness of that carpet that made me come and live here."

"Where did you live before?" the black kitten said.

A dreamy look came into the brindled cat's eyes.

"In many strange places," she answered slowly; adding more briskly, "and if you will be good kittens, I will tell you all about them. Goldie! come down from that stool, and sit down like a good kitten. Sweep! leave off sharpening your claws on the furniture; that always ends in trouble and punishment. Snowball! you're asleep again! Oh, well; if you'd rather sleep than hear a story – "

Snowball shook herself awake, and the others sat down close to their mother with their tails arranged neatly beside them, and waited for the story.

"I was born," said the brindled cat, "in a barn."

"What is a barn?" asked the black kitten.

"A barn is like a house, but there is only one room, and no carpets, only straw."

"I should like that," said the yellow kitten, who often played among the straw in the big box which brought groceries from the Stores.

"I liked it well enough when I was your age," said the mother indulgently, "but a barn is not at all a genteel place to be born in. My mother had had a little unpleasantness with the family she lived with, and, of course, she was too proud to stay on after that. And so she left them, and went to live in the barn. It wasn't at all the sort of life she had been accustomed to."

"What was the unpleasantness?" Sweep asked.

"Well, it was about some cream which the woman of the house wanted for her tea. She should have said so. Of course, my mother would not have taken it if she had had any idea that any one else wanted it. She was always most unselfish."

"What is tea?"

"A kind of brown milk – very nasty indeed, and very bad for you. Well, I lived with my brothers and sisters very happily for some months, for I was too young to know how vulgar it was to live in a barn and play with straw."

"What is vulgar, mother?"

"Dear, dear; how you do ask questions," said the brindled cat, beginning to look worried. "Vulgar is being like everybody else."

"But does everybody else live in a barn?"

"No; nobody does who is respectable. Vulgar really means – not like respectable cats."

"Oh!" said the black kitten and the yellow, trying to look as if they understood. But the white one did not say anything, because it had gone to sleep again.

"Well," the mother went on, "after a while they took me to live in the farm-house. And I should have liked it well enough, only they had a low habit of locking up the dairy and the pantry. Well, it would be tiresome to go into the whole story; however, I soon finished my life at the farm-house and went to live in the stable. It was very pleasant there. Horses are excellent company. That was my third life. My fourth was at the miller's. He came one day to buy some corn; he saw me, and admired me – as, indeed, every one has always done. He and the farmer were disputing about the price of the corn, and at last the miller said —

"'Look' here; you shall have your price if you'll throw me that cat into the bargain.'"

The kittens all shuddered. "What is a bargain? Is it like a pond? And were you thrown in?"

"I was thrown in, I believe. But a bargain is not like a pond; though I heard the two men talk of 'wetting' the bargain. But I suppose they did not do it, for I arrived at the mill quite dry. That was a very pleasant life – full of mice!"

"Who was full of mice?" asked the white kitten, waking up for a moment.

"I was," said the mother sharply; "and I should have stayed in the mill for ever, but the miller had another cat sent him by his sister.

"However, he gave me away to a man who worked a barge up and down the river. I suppose he thought he should like to see me again sometimes as the barge passed by.

"Life in a barge is very exciting. There are such lots of rats, some of them as big as you kittens. I got quite clever at catching them, though sometimes they made a very good fight for it. I used to have plenty of milk, and I slept with the bargee in his warm little bunk, and of nights I sat and toasted myself in front of his fire in the small, cosy cabin. He was very fond of me, and used to talk to me a great deal. It is so lonely on a barge that you are glad of a little conversation. He was very kind to me, and I was very grieved when he married a lady who didn't like cats, and who chased me out of the barge with a barge-pole."

"What is a barge-pole?" the yellow kitten asked lazily.

"The only leg a barge has. I ran away into the woods, and there I lived on birds and rabbits."

"What are rabbits?"

"Something like cats with long ears; very wholesome and nutritious. And I should have liked my sixth life very much, but for the keeper. No, don't interrupt to ask what a keeper is. He is a man who, when he meets a cat or a rabbit, points a gun at it, and says 'Bang!' so loud that you die of fright."

"How horrible!" said all the kittens.

"I was looking out for my seventh life, and also for the gamekeeper, and was sitting by the river with both eyes and both ears open, when a little girl came by – a nice little girl in a checked pinafore.

"She stopped when she saw me, and called – 'Pussy! pussy!' So I went very slowly to her, and rubbed myself against her legs. Then she picked me up and carried me home in the checked pinafore. My seventh life was spent in a clean little cottage with this little girl and her mother. She was very fond of me, and I was as fond of her as a cat can be of a human being. Of course, we are never so unreasonably fond of them as they are of us."

"Why not?" asked the yellow kitten, who was young and affectionate.

"Because they're only human beings, and we are Cats," returned the mother, turning her large, calm green eyes on Goldie, who said, "Oh!" and no more.

"Well, what happened then?" asked the black kitten, catching its mother's eye.

"Well, one day the little girl put me into a basket, and carried me out. I was always a fine figure of a cat, and I must have been a good weight to carry. Several times she opened the basket to kiss and stroke me. The last time she did it we were in a room where a sick girl lay on a bed.

"'I did not know what to bring you for your birthday,' said my little girl, 'so I've brought you my dear pussy.'

"The sick girl's eyes sparkled with delight. She took me in her arms and stroked me. And though I do not like sick people, I felt flattered and pleased. But I only stayed a very little time with her."

"Why?" asked all the kittens at once.

"Because – but no; that story's too sad for you children; I will tell it you when you're older."

"But that only makes eight lives," said Sweep, who had been counting on his claws, "and you said you had nine. Which was the ninth?"

"Why, this, you silly child," said the brindled pussy, sitting up, and beginning to wash the kitten's face very hard indeed. "And as it's my last life, I must be very careful of it. That's why I'm so particular about what I eat and drink, and why I make a point of sleeping so many hours a-day. But it's your first life, Snowball, and I can't have you wasting it all in sleep. Go and catch a mouse at once."

"Yes, mamma," said Snowball, and went to sleep again immediately.

"Ah!" said Mrs. Brindle, "I'll wash you next. That'll make you wake up, my dear."

"Snowball's always sleepy," said the yellow kitten, stretching itself. "But, mamma dear, she doesn't care for history, and yours was a very long tale."

"You can't have too much of a good thing," said the mother, looking down at her long brindled tail. "If it's a good tail, the longer it is the better."

Doggy Tales

Tinker

MY name is Stumps, and my mistress is rather a nice little girl; but she has her faults, like most people. I myself, as it happens, am wonderfully free from faults. Among my mistress's faults is what I may call a lack of dignity, joined to a desire to make other people undignified too.

You will hardly believe that, before I had belonged to her a month, she had made me learn to dance and to jump. I am a very respectable dachshund, of cobby build, and jumping is the very last exercise I should have taken to of my own accord. But when Miss Daisy said, "Now jump, Stumps; there's a darling!" and held out her little arms, I could not well refuse. For, after all, the child is my mistress.

I never could understand why the cat was not taught to dance. It seemed to me very hard that, when I was having those long, miserable lessons, the cat should be allowed to sit down doing nothing but smile at my misfortunes. Trap always said we ought to feel honoured by being taught, and the reason why Pussy wasn't asked to learn was because she was so dreadfully stupid, and had no brains for anything but the pleasures of the chase and the cares of a family; but I didn't think that could be the reason, because the doll was taught to dance, though she never learned, and I am sure she was stupid enough.

Another thing which Miss Daisy taught me to do was to beg; and the action fills me with shame and pain every time I perform it, and as the years go on I hate it more and more.

For a stout, middle-aged dog, the action is absurd and degrading. Yet, such is the force of habit, that I go through the performance now quite naturally whenever I want anything. Trap does it too, and says what does it matter? but then he has no judgment, and, besides, he's thin.

But one of the most thoughtless things my little mistress ever did was one day last summer when she was out without me. I chose to stay at home because it was very hot, and I knew that the roads would be dusty; and she was only going down to the village shop, where no one ever thinks of offering a dog anything to drink. If she had been going to the farm, I should, have gone with her, because the lady there shows proper attention to visitors, and always sets down a nice dish of milk for us dogs. Besides, I was a little unwell just then; the family had had duck for dinner, and I always feel a little faint after duck. All our family do. So I stayed at home. Well, Miss Daisy had gone out with only Trap and her hoop. I wish I had been there, for Trap is far too easy-going, and a hoop never gives any advice worth listening to. Trap told me all about it as well as he could. Trap can't tell a story very well, poor fellow!

It seems that, as Miss Daisy went across the village green, she saw a crowd of children running after a dog with – I hardly like to mention such a thing – a tin saucepan tied to his tail! The dog bolted into the empty dog-kennel by the blacksmith's shop, and stayed there, growling.

"Go away, bad children," said Miss Daisy; "how dare you treat a poor dear doggie so?"

The children wouldn't go away at first. "Very well," said Miss Daisy; "I shall tell Trap what I think of you all."

Then she whispered to Trap, and he began to growl so fiercely that the children dared not come nearer. Any one can growl. Presently the children got tired of listening to him, and went away. Then Miss Daisy coaxed the unpleasant, tin-tailed creature out of the kennel, and untied the string, and took off the pan. Then, if you'll believe a dog of my character (and of course you must), she carried that low dog home in her arms, and washed him, and set him down to eat out of the same plate as Trap and myself! Trap was friends with him directly – some people have no spirit – but I hope I know my duty to myself too well for that. I snarled at the base intruder till he was quite ashamed of himself. I knew from the first that he'd be taught jumping and begging, and things like that. I hate those things myself, but that's no reason why every low dog should be taught them. Miss Daisy called him Tinker, because he once carried a tin pan about with him, and she tried very hard to make me friendly to him; but I can choose my own friends, I hope.

Every one made a great fuss about one thing he did, but actually it was nothing but biting; and if biting isn't natural to a dog, I should like to know what is; and why people should be praised and petted, and have new collars, and everybody else's share of the bones, only for doing what is quite natural to them, I have never been able to comprehend. Besides, barking is as good as biting, any day, and I'm sure I barked enough, though it wasn't my business.

Miss Daisy had gone away to stay with her cousins in London, and she had taken Trap with her. Why she should have taken him instead of me is a matter on which I can offer no opinion. If my opinion had been asked, I should have said that I thought it more suitable for her to have a heavy middle-aged dog of good manners than a harum-scarum young stripling like Trap. Trap told me afterwards that he thought the reason he was taken was because Miss Daisy would have had more to pay for the dog-ticket of such a heavy dog as I am; but I can't believe that dogs are charged for by the weight, like butter. As I was saying, Miss Daisy took Trap with her, and also her father and mother; and Tinker and I were left to take care of the servants. We had a very agreeable time, though I confess that I missed Miss Daisy more than I would have believed possible. But there was more to eat in the kitchen than usual, and the servants often left things on the table when they went out to take in the milk or to chat with the gardeners; and if people leave things on tables, they have only themselves to thank for whatever happens.

There was a young man who wore a fur cap, and who used to call with fish; and I was more surprised than I care to own when I met him walking out with cook one Sunday afternoon, for I thought she had a soul above fish; yet when the servants began to ask this young man to tea in the kitchen, I thought, of course, it must be all right, but Tinker would do nothing but growl the whole time the young man was there; so that at last cook had to lock us up in the butler's pantry till the young man was gone. I had not growled, but I was locked in too. The world is full of injustice and ingratitude.

Now one night, when the servants went to bed, Tinker and I lay down in our baskets under the hall table as usual; but Tinker was dreadfully restless, which must have been only an accident, because he said himself he didn't know what was the matter with him; and he would not go to sleep, but kept walking up and down as if he were going to hide a bone and couldn't find a good place for it.

"Do lie down, for goodness' sake, Tinker," I said, "and go to sleep. Any one can see you have not been brought up in a house where regular hours are kept."

"I can't go to sleep; I don't know what's the matter with me," he said gloomily.

Well, I tried to go to sleep myself, and I think I must almost have dropped off, when I heard a scrape-scraping from the butler's pantry. I wasn't going to bark. It wasn't my business. I have often heard Miss Daisy's relations say that I was no house-dog. Still, I think Tinker ought to have barked then, but he didn't: only just pricked his ears and his tail; and he waited, and the scraping went on.

Then Tinker said to me – "Don't you make a noise, for your life; I am going to see what it is;" and he trotted softly into the butler's pantry. It was rather dark, but you know we dogs can see as well as cats in the dark, although they do make such a fuss about it, and declare that they are the only creatures who can.