THE PERSIAN KITTENS AND THEIR FRIENDS
CHAPTER I
TOMPKINS AND MINETTE
I want to tell you about two little Persian kittens called Tompkins and Minette. They were the prettiest you have ever seen with their long fluffy fur, their small ears and little impudent stumpy noses. They looked such innocent darlings, you felt you must kiss them, but like most kittens, they dearly loved a little fun, and as for mischief—well, you shall hear all about them.
Their mother was a very handsome Persian cat Salome, with a proud walk and very dignified ways. She had four kittens, but two had been given away and, to tell the truth, Tompkins and Minette were not altogether sorry. Four kittens and a big fluffy mother take up a lot of room in a basket, and theirs seemed getting to be a tighter fit every day.
“We shan’t be quite so crowded now,” remarked Minette with a yawn after the others had gone away.
“And we shall have all the more to eat,” said Tompkins.
“Our mother will love us more, too,” purred Minette.
“The only bother is: she’ll have more time to wash our faces,” said Tompkins. So when Mary, their tender-hearted little mistress pitied them saying, “Poor darlings! how they will miss the others!” Tompkins and Minette were saying in cat language, “Not a bit of it.”
Besides, two kittens are quite enough for a game, especially such rascals as Tompkins and Minette.
The two kittens arched their backs.
Tompkins loved anything in the shape of a ball, and as there was a good deal of knitting going on in the house there were several balls in sight. The grown-ups, however, were careful with theirs; they knew kittens, but Mary, who was only eight and had just begun to knit, seemed the most hopeful, and it was her ball the kittens watched. Her wool was thick, and the scarf she was making never seemed to get beyond the third row, so there was always a nice fat ball of it.
“It does look nice and soft,” said Minette looking at it.
“And wouldn’t it roll finely,” said Tompkins.
One day Mary tried to knit, but her hands got so sticky that the stitches kept dropping off the needles. She got very hot and cross. “Bother, bother, bother!” she cried at last and flung the knitting down and rushed off into the garden.
The ball of wool was still on the table, but as the knitting was on the floor you may guess it didn’t take those kittens long to pull it down. It bounced off the table and came rolling towards them. It really looked almost like some live animal coming at them, and the two kittens arched their backs and looked quite fierce. When it stopped Tompkins said to Minette, “What a silly to be frightened of a ball of wool,” and Minette answered, “You were frightened, I was only pretending.” But this argument didn’t last long for there was the lovely fluffy ball on the ground waiting to be played with. Tompkins snatched it first and patted it round a chair. Then Minette tried to bite it, and when it rolled away they were like boys after a football, and it was sent all over the room and twisted round each leg of the table.
You see, all cats love pretending even when they are quite babies, so Tompkins and Minette pretended to be grown-up cats chasing a mouse until that bold Tompkins suggested, “It’s really too big for a mouse, let’s call it a rat.” And they grew quite fierce as they hunted it, giving savage miaous and growls just like big cats. But after a little the rat seemed to shrink into a mouse and the mouse into nothing at all for the wool had all come unwound.
It never does to give way to temper, does it? and when Mary returned she was to find it out. She came back and brought her mother to help her with the knitting, and pick up all her stitches for her. They found two tired little kittens with sweet faces and big innocent eyes, and the wool in a perfectly hopeless tangle all over the room.
“What did Mary’s mother say?” you ask. I am afraid she laughed. I know she didn’t blame the kittens, and Mary had to get her wool out of a tangle and wind it up herself. Not for very long though, because when her mother thought she had suffered enough for her temper and carelessness she helped her and they soon got it finished. Mary gave the kittens a good scolding, calling them “nasty, mean mischievous little things.”
CHAPTER II
TWO THIEVES
I am afraid Tompkins was rather inclined to be greedy. He used to watch his mother Salome having her afternoon saucer of milk and he just longed to have some too. It looked so nice and creamy and he was so tired of his own food. He used to watch her lapping it and wish somehow he could get it instead.
Two little heads very busy with the saucer.
One day the milk was put down as usual, but Salome didn’t hurry to go to it. The fact was she had come in from the garden, and as she sat on the window-seat, she discovered her paws were rather damp and dirty. She was a fussy and particular cat who thought a great deal of appearance, and she was very busy licking her paws soft and velvety again before having her tea. Now was Tompkins’ chance. He watched his mother very carefully and then stole quietly up to the saucer. But Minette had seen him and she didn’t mean to be left behind, so soon there were two little heads very busy with the saucer. They lapped so quietly that no one noticed them, and it was not till their mother had finished her wash and jumped down to have her milk that she saw what had happened. And by then the milk was nearly all gone.
What did their mother do?
I know what she ought to have done. Scolded them well and given them a little scratch, but cats are very funny and not a bit like people or dogs. Salome just pretended she didn’t care a bit. She made out she wasn’t thirsty and never mewed for any more milk. She jumped on to the window seat again and stared out of the window, and the naughty little kittens thought themselves very clever indeed.
CHAPTER III
MINETTE FINDS THE KITCHEN
One day Minette smelt a nice fishy smell. It tempted her out of the room, down a passage and round a corner till she arrived at the kitchen. Here she came face to face with a strange cat. The cook was just making fish cakes, and Tibby the kitchen cat was asking for some with loud miaous. Minette was very alarmed at first, she thought this strange cat might scratch her, but Tibby was much too busy to take any notice of a little kitten and kept miaouing and staring up at the fish. Minette thought she would rather like to try a little, it certainly smelt very tempting. At last a scrap fell on the floor. Of course Minette rushed at it. But, oh, dear! how she wished she hadn’t! There was such a noise; Tibby flew at her with a nasty spiteful swear, growled at her, snatched the fish away and ate it up herself. Poor Minette felt so hurt and surprised, it wasn’t a bit how her dignified mother would have behaved.
Tibby was much too busy to take any notice of a little kitten.
The cook was not at all nice either, for instead of pitying Minette and giving her a tit-bit of fish as Mary would have done, she said, “Get out of my way,” and shooed her out of the kitchen.
It was a very subdued and sad little kitten that trotted back round the corner and along the passage, and to tell the truth, Minette was not at all sorry to get back to her own cosy little basket and home where no one was unkind to her.
Still though not very successful, this had been an adventure and Minette pretended to Tompkins she had had a perfectly lovely time.
“This is a dull old room,” she told him, “the kitchen is much finer. It is beautifully warm for there is a great big fire, and there are heaps of saucers and plates, and such delicious smells.”
“Did you get anything to eat?” asked Tompkins.
“Well, just a taste of fish,” Minette replied, enjoying the envious look on Tompkins’ face.
“Did you see any one there?” he asked next.
“Yes, a very grand cat, so beautiful and sleek, she was very kind to me and asked me to come again.” (Oh, Minette! what terrible stories!)
Poor Tompkins was so jealous he could have cried, and when Minette sat purring in the basket with such a superior look on her face, he felt he could have scratched her.
“Never mind,” he told himself, “it will be my turn next.”
CHAPTER IV
THE KITCHEN KITTENS
His chance came that same afternoon. Minette, tired out with her exciting adventure and with all the stories she had told about it, was having a sound sleep, no one was about and the door was open. Tompkins crept through it and down the passage. He was making for the kitchen but on the way he heard a strange noise. It came from a little room next to the kitchen and it made his little heart beat and his tail swell out to twice its size. This curious sound was just the kind of noise that kittens make when they are in the middle of a furious game. Tompkins listened outside the door. “Oh,” he thought, “if I could only get in and join them! what fun it would be, and what an adventure to tell Minette!” and he gave a little plaintive miaou just near the crack of the door. There was a silence for a second, then he heard scratchings inside and a voice called out in cat language, “You push hard and we’ll pull, the door isn’t fastened.” So Tompkins squeezed hard against the door, and at last there was a crack just big enough for him to creep through.
Inside Tompkins saw, to his delight, three small kittens. They were about his own age too, and had got hold of the waste-paper basket with which they were having a splendid game. Next to a ball, I believe, kittens love nice rustling paper, and they were tearing and rumpling these to their hearts’ content.
They had got hold of the waste-paper basket.
Tompkins was a little shy at first, but he soon felt at home with the strange kittens and tore the paper as fiercely as the others. The basket, too, seemed made to be played with. They pretended it was a cage, and one of the kittens got inside and growled so fiercely like a wild beast that Tompkins was almost afraid. At last, when it was upside down and the papers scattered all over the room the kittens began to think they would like a little rest.
They all stared at each other for a bit till Tompkins thought it was time some one made a little conversation.
“What are your names?” he asked.
The kittens looked rather confused and didn’t know what to answer, for somehow no one had thought of christening them. However, they were not going to let a stranger know this, so the prettiest said, “I am generally called ‘Pussy,’ and this”—here she pointed to the kitten next to her—“is ‘Pet.’ Her real name is Perfect-Pet, but we call her Pet for short.”
“And what is your name?” Tompkins asked the third kitten. He, however, pretended not to hear and busied himself running after his own tail, which he caught so unexpectedly that it made him sit down with a bump.
“I can tell you his name,” cried Pussy; “he has been called ‘Ugly,’ and I think it rather suits him, don’t you?”
Tompkins was too polite to say how heartily he agreed for it would have been hard to find a plainer kitten.
“It was cook who called me that,” said Ugly quite cheerfully; “she said I looked scraggy as if I wanted feeding up, so I hope she’ll see it’s done.”
CHAPTER V
A SURPRISING CONVERSATION
“Who’s your mother?” Pet asked Tompkins.
“She is Salome, a beautiful gray Persian,” and as Tompkins answered he noticed the three kittens looked rather merry.
“Do you mean that stuck-up silly old fluff-pot?” said Ugly. “We often watch her stalking about the garden, giving herself airs.”
“And looking just as if she wore petticoats,” Pussy joined in.
“What a dull mother to have!” remarked Pet. “Not much fun to be got out of her, I should think.”
Tompkins was thunderstruck. He had never been used to hearing his dignified mother spoken of like this, and thought the kittens were very rude. “My mother is very beautiful and very valuable,” he said indignantly; “besides, she is a nice warm fluffy mother to go to sleep with.”
“Maybe,” said Ugly, “but we shouldn’t care to change with you. Our mother Tibby is the right sort. She never forgets us and isn’t above stealing a little now and then, and if it’s too big for her she lets us help eat it.”
“And look what a sportsman she is!” said Pussy. “You should see her after a mouse. And once, she told us she almost caught a rat.”
“I should like to see your old fluff-pot of a mother running after a mouse,” laughed Ugly. “I am sure she would be much too ladylike to catch it.”
“Why, she would have to pick up her petticoats,” said Pet, and then they all three roared with laughter.
What bad manners they had, thought Tompkins and he felt furious with them. He wouldn’t play with them any more, and with his head up and his tail fluffed out he walked away, looking very like his mother when she was offended.
But Pussy, who was a kind hearted kitten and didn’t like to see him hurt, ran after him and said, “Please, don’t go, we were only in fun. Come back and tell us more about your mother, I’m sure she has her points, and anyhow I don’t expect she boxes your ears like Jane does ours.”
Tompkins was surprised. “Does she really?” he asked, for he had never heard of such a thing.
“Indeed, she does, with her claws out, too, sometimes,” said Pet.
“Yes, she nearly spoilt my beauty,” said Ugly with a grin; “she gave me a horrid scratch over the eye.”
As the kittens had given up teasing and seemed rather nice again, Tompkins settled down and told them how nice and sweet-tempered his mother was and that she was so admired that people always wanted to photograph her. “In fact,” he said, being just a little inclined to show off, “she got so used to the camera that she once tried to take a photograph herself and got my sister Minette to sit for her.”
“Whatever is a camera?” the kittens asked astounded.
“I am afraid I can’t very well explain just now,” replied Tompkins who didn’t know himself, “as it’s time I said ‘Good-by,’” and he trotted off home.
Tried to take a photograph.
A perfect bunch of bad temper.
CHAPTER VI
THE RETURN VISIT
When Tompkins got back, however, Salome was looking anything but beautiful. In fact she was looking as ugly and disagreeable a cat as you can imagine. You see, she wanted brushing very badly and she simply hated it. As soon as she saw her own special brush and comb being brought out, she would hump herself up with her ears back, and look a perfect bunch of bad temper. This time she was worse than usual, for her long fur had got tangled, and as the comb pulled, she turned round and spat at it.
Tompkins and Minette looked on tremblingly; they had never seen their mother in such a rage. Tompkins was glad the kitchen kittens couldn’t see the mother he had boasted about; how they would have jeered.
When all was over, Salome flounced back into the basket and curled herself up to forget her annoyances in sleep, and her children took care not to disturb her. They whispered together and Tompkins told Minette all about the kitchen kittens. Minette was so excited she forgot to be jealous and kept interrupting with: “Oh, can’t I see them too?” and “What fun we might all have together! Couldn’t we ask them to come here?”
“Wait till we are quite alone,” whispered Tompkins, “and then we will invite them properly to tea.”
“How lovely!” said Minette, but she couldn’t help wondering where the tea was to come from.
The very next day the chance came, for the door was left open, no one was about, and actually there was a tea tray on the table.
“Hunt the Thimble.”
Tompkins went to the door and mewed; at least you would have thought he was only mewing but really he was calling, “Come, come, come,” and the little kitchen kittens, right the other end of the passage, heard him. They mewed back, telling him they wanted to come badly but their door was shut and they couldn’t get out. “Well, come as soon as you can,” he called back.
They didn’t have to wait long, for very soon the cook came in and out again in such a hurry that she forgot to shut the door. You may guess the kittens didn’t wait long, and they were out like lightning and racing down the passage. You would have laughed to see them come tumbling into the room where the Persians lived, a perfect bundle of mischief.
They weren’t a bit shy and Minette loved them; she thought they were such fun and so clever and bright. Ugly and Pussy soon started a game of “Hunt the Thimble,” and Minette thoroughly enjoyed it. First of all they found a work-basket, then they knocked it on the floor and made hay of its contents till they found that little shiny silver thing that is so good at rolling. They chased the thimble all over the room till it disappeared behind a solid bookcase, and I shouldn’t be surprised if it isn’t there still.
Minette had never had quite such an exciting time, and she wondered why Tompkins wasn’t enjoying it too. She looked round for him, but he seemed to have disappeared. At last she heard a little “miaou,” and there he was right up one of the curtains. Pet was up the other curtain and they kept calling to each other, “Look at me! I’m highest!” There was no doubt that Pet was beating him, for she was near the ceiling, but they were both digging in their little claws and pulling themselves up. After watching such daring sport as this, “Hunt the Thimble” seemed very tame, so the other three joined the mountaineers, and soon there were five kittens tearing and scratching at the curtains trying to climb.
CHAPTER VII
THE VISITORS’ TEA
When Ugly had got a good way up, he looked down and saw the tea tray. “I know a better game than this!” he cried and got down as quickly as he could. “All this exercise makes me thirsty, and I spy some milk.”
“Hurrah, for a feed!” cried Pussy and Pet, and they too struggled down. Pussy fell the last bit of the way, but it didn’t seem to hurt her and she was soon on the table with the others.
They were all a little disappointed, however, for the tray was not as good as it promised. All they could get at was the sugar, and kittens don’t care a bit for that. The milk seemed out of their reach for the jug it was in was so small that not even Ugly could get his lean head into it. Pet was feeling very sad, for she did so love milk, and there seemed no way of getting any. However, Pussy had a splendid idea: she pushed the jug over with her paw and out ran the milk on the tray and all the kittens had to do was to lap it up.
“And why didn’t Tompkins and Minette come and have some milk, too?” you ask, and I should like to be able to tell you it was because they were such superior, well-brought-up and honest little kittens that they scorned the idea of stealing, but I am afraid this wouldn’t be true. No, the reason the two little Persians didn’t come to share the milk with the kitchen kittens was because they were still up the curtains.
She pushed the jug over with her paw.
It was not very difficult for them to climb up, but coming down was quite another thing. When they looked down it frightened them and they were so afraid of falling that they didn’t like letting go to dig their claws in a fresh place lower down. So there they hung, crying pitifully, “Help, help, help,” which sounded like “Miaou, miaou, miaou.”
CHAPTER VIII
SALOME TO THE RESCUE
I don’t know what would have happened if no one had heard them, for the little kitchen kittens were very busy with the milk, and even if they had wanted to, they wouldn’t have known how to help. But a mother’s ears are sharp, and before they had mewed ten times Salome appeared at a trot, asking anxiously, “What have those tiresome children of mine done now?” She soon saw the danger they had got into. If they had been more of babies, she would have climbed up after them and brought them down in her mouth, but they were too big and heavy for that. All she could do was to sit at the bottom of the curtain and give them courage by mewing and telling them what to do. It was funny how quickly their confidence came back. Directly the kittens knew their own mother was there watching them and ready to help, they forgot to be afraid and in a few seconds they had scratched their way down the curtain and were safely on the ground.
Salome didn’t make a fuss or punish them for being so naughty and wild; all she did was to give their faces a lick and tell them not to do it again or they might hurt their claws or have a tumble.
The little kitchen cats looked on and they thought what a good mother Salome was, for not even their Jane could have been kinder. They had to own, too, that she was rather beautiful and so quiet and self-possessed. Besides, she behaved so well to them and instead of chasing them away because they were strangers, like Jane would have done, she took no notice of them at all. She did not even seem to mind when Pussy pretended to be her daughter and sat close up to her.
“We were wrong,” said Pet to Tompkins later. “I think your mother is an old dear.” And although Tompkins thought it might have been expressed differently, he was glad to hear it.
CHAPTER IX
MISJUDGED KITTENS
“Miaou, miaou, miaou,” was heard in the distance.
“What an ugly, hoarse voice!” remarked Minette.
“Just like a croak,” said Tompkins. “I wonder who it can be.”
But the little kitchen kittens didn’t wonder, they knew it was their old mother, Tibby, who had missed her babies and was calling for them. They liked her ugly voice and they answered with little mews, and one by one they scuttled out of the room. Ugly was the last to go and he just lapped up a drop of milk on his way, for he never neglected an opportunity.
A few minutes after, the cook came in to find Mary’s mother, and of course, caught sight at once of the disgraceful looking tray. She was shocked to see it in such a state, with the sugar scattered about and a nasty sticky mess where the milk had been lapped up.
“Oh dear! Oh dear!” she cried, trying to tidy up, “whoever has done this?”
“Miaou, miaou,” said Tompkins, which meant “not us.”
Cook turned round and saw the kittens. “Well, of all the impudent little thieves!” she cried, “so you must go and steal the milk, must you? You little good-for-nothings!”
“No, really it wasn’t us,” mewed Minette.
But, of course, cook couldn’t understand cat language and she went on scolding. “You deserve a good whipping, that you do, and I’ve a great mind to give it you, greedy little things, when you get as much to eat as ever you can swallow.”
Pussy pretended to be her daughter.
“You may look like little angels, but you are nothing but little imps of mischief.”
Both kittens looked up at her with their sweetest expressions, trying to convince her how innocent they were.
“Oh, I know all about that,” cook went on, but already her scolding was getting more into a smiling one, “you may look little angels but you’re nothing but little imps of mischief.”
“Miaou, miaou,” said Minette in her sweetest voice, and Tompkins gave a plaintive little purr, for they were getting very sleepy after their exciting adventure. This was too much for cook; they both looked such darlings that before they could drop off to sleep she was down on her knees petting them and calling them her “saucy little poppets.”
CHAPTER X
SALOME GIVES A LECTURE
The kittens were the first to wake up the next morning. They couldn’t resist talking about the kitchen kittens, there was so much to say. Salome went on pretending to be asleep.
“They were such jolly playfellows,” Tompkins remarked.
“I wish we knew such exciting games,” sighed Minette, “ours will seem so tame now.”
“We’ll manage to see them again, somehow,” suggested Tompkins.
“They very nearly got us into trouble over the milk, though,” said Minette. Salome gave a big gape. “Be quiet and go to sleep,” she said and shut her eyes.
Sauntered grandly out of the room.
The kittens were silent for a short time, then they began again. “I shall try and climb the curtain again,” said Minette. “I shan’t,” said Tompkins, “I shall think of some quite new game.”
Salome woke up again. “What are you two chatterboxes talking about?” she asked.
“About the kitchen kittens, mother,” Minette replied.
“I don’t wish to be proud,” said Salome, “but really you mustn’t associate with people like that.”
“But, mother,” protested Tompkins, “the kitchen kittens are so clever.”
“In what way?” asked Salome. “I don’t see anything clever in stealing milk; it is just a common cat’s trick.”
Tompkins began to feel rather annoyed; the kitchen kittens were his friends and he admired them. He thought them so bright and clever, and Salome rather unfair. Then a naughty, mischievous idea came into his head, and looking very impudent, he asked his mother, “Do you know what they called you?”
“Oh, Tompkins!” begged Minette, “please don’t be such a tell-tale.”
“I shall,” said that naughty Tompkins; “I think mother ought to know.”
“You needn’t trouble,” remarked Salome haughtily, “it doesn’t interest me in the very least what those vulgar little kittens call me.”
“Still, you had better hear,” persisted Tompkins, and before Minette could stop him he said, “they called you a ridiculous old fluff-pot, there!”
Whatever did Salome say?
Nothing at all, and if you know anything of Persian cats you will guess what she did. She got up and had a good stretch, then she shook out each leg and sauntered grandly out of the room. It was as if she meant that what the kitchen kittens had called her was so unimportant that it was not worth thinking or saying anything about.
And what did the kittens do? Well, I believe Tompkins felt rather small and wished he hadn’t spoken. However, they were alone in the room now, so it was a good opportunity for planning fresh mischief, and I only wish I had more pages in this book that I might tell you all about it.