"What are you going to do?" asked Mrs. Cat, with a sly wink at Puss, Junior.
"Never mind, mother, dear. Please don't look." And they commenced to scrub their mittens. And when they had them all covered with lather they dipped them into the water and squeezed them until the soapsuds looked like a snow drift, and after that they all reached down and pulled out the stopper, and when the soapy water was all gone they filled the tub again with nice, clean water and washed the mittens all over again. But, oh, dear me! the water was so deep that the little gray kitten wet her little pink sleeve.
PIE FOR MRS. MOUSE
THE three little kittens washed their mittens
And hung them up to dry.
"Oh, mother dear, do you not hear
That we have washed our mittens?"
Sure enough, all the mittens were washed and neatly hung on the clothesline. But the clothesline was so high that Puss had been forced to climb a stepladder. The kittens had stood below, their little paws full of clothespins, and every time Puss needed a pin one of them had climbed up and handed it to him.
"Washed your mittens! Oh, you're good kittens.
But I smell a rat close by.
Hush! Hush! mee-ow, mee-ow.
We smell a rat close by,
Mee-ow, mee-ow, mee-ow!"
cried Mrs. Cat.
When Puss heard this he ran around the house. I guess he expected to find the "rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built." But Mrs. Cat had made a mistake, for there was no rat to be seen. Instead, there stood the little mouse who two or three stories ago had told the black kitty where to find their mittens.