My Mistress.
“My mistress seemed to love me more than ever. ‘I have only you, now, Black Velvet,’ she would say. Then she would hug me and hug me. She let me do what I pleased. I had thick cream. When she was sewing I jumped on her shoulder and played in her hair, and I went to sleep in her hat, if I wanted to, and in her work-basket. When she went out to walk she used to take me with her and wrap me up in her apron, and talk to me. But when I grew to be a cat she made me a blanket of my own. It was a good one. It was my own blanket. She loved me a great deal.
“I said at the beginning of my story that it is a wonderful story. You will say that this is true when you hear what happened to me next.
I Felt Safe.
“One day the river grew very big and spread up to the houses, yes, up over the windows of the houses, and broke the houses in pieces. I was sleeping in a rocking chair and the water wet me and waked me from sleep and I sprang up on top the rocking chair back, and the water swashed and there was a great noise and the rocking chair went sailing off and many other things went, and the chair began to go down deeper and then I jumped off on to a bucket. Something hit that a knock and I had only time to catch hold of a box; a small one. There was just room to get all my paws on and I had to stick my back up high. I expected every moment to be drowned. I little thought I should live to tell the story. But a piece of board was knocked against me. I sprang upon that. Then came a chair. I sprang upon that. Then came something else; some thing wonderful, but I said at the beginning that this is a wonderful story. This next thing was a baby’s crib with the baby in it! The curtains were open and the baby was looking out. I jumped from the chair to the cradle and lay down on the baby. I was glad enough to get that resting place. I felt safe with the baby. Somebody would come to get the baby. The baby put out its hands and took hold of me.
“I don’t know what became of that poor baby. The crib tipped over. I heard a man speak, and perhaps he went and got the baby. I was lucky enough to jump on to a firkin, and on this I floated down, down, down, down, I don’t know where, but I cried, cried, cried, oh how I cried!
“I bumped against something hard, something very big. I scrambled up. Men were on it, and a woman, and a girl, and boys. They clapped and shouted and laughed. Oh what a noise! Don’t people know that loud noises make our ears ache? Don’t they know that our ears are made to hear very little faint mouse-taps, butterfly-wing noises, and we can’t bear loud noises? No, they don’t know. But I must go on with my story.
I Used to Get Into the Place Where the Girl Slept.