THE BOY AND THE CAT.
EE this small boy on the kitchen-table. How did he ever get up there with such little short legs? And what is he looking at?
He is looking out of the window. He sees a cat on the sill outside. It is an old strange cat.
The little boy is fond of kittens; but he does not like cats. He is not polite to the strange cat.
"What do you want here?" he says. "Why do you stare at me so? Do you want to eat me? I'm not a mouse. Go away!"
The cat answers with one word, "Mew!"
"What do you say?" asks the boy. "Are you cold? Do you want to come in? Do you want some milk?"
And all that the cat says is, "Mew!"
"Go away!" says the boy again. "My mother does not like strange cats. I do not like strange cats. If you are hungry, go and catch a rat. You can't come in here."
The cat does not budge an inch. But still she answers with a pitiful "Mew!"
Cats cannot talk; but they can think. This cat looks in at the window and sees the boy. This is what she thinks.
"That boy looks like a boy that I knew when I was a kitten. I was a pet then. Now I am a cat without any home. Nobody cares for me. I go from house to house; but nobody takes me in. I wonder if I can't make that little boy take pity on me. I will try.
"Ah! he treats me like everybody else. He tells me to go away. Pretty soon he will say, 'Scat!' and throw water on me. No: he will not do that. He is so much like the little boy who used to pet me when I was a kitten, that I will not run away from him. I will beg to be let in."
So the cat sat still and said, "Mew!"
And the cat did not make a mistake. The little boy did take pity on her at last. He toddled off to his mother as fast as his legs would carry him, and got a pan of milk, which he set on the floor.
His mother opened the window for him, and the strange cat came in. How eagerly she lapped up the milk! She was really a very nice cat. The little boy soon began to make a pet of her.
And the cat was happy, and the boy was happy; and I don't know which was the happier of the two.
UNCLE SAM.
