"They sometimes drown it, Buff," she said in a whisper, and turned away to hide her feelings.
Judge of my own next day when they came into the kitchen and took me up and put me into a basket. I knew all about drowning. These tales of horror are told at twilight time in all cat nurseries, and I knew that if three large stones were put into the basket with me, I might consider my fate sealed.
It was very uncomfortable in the basket. They carried me upside-down part of the way, and it was draughty and hard; but, so far, there were no stones. When they took off the lid of the basket, I found myself under the shade of a huge moving mountain, that seemed about to fall and crush me. It was an elephant.
I found that the people where my mother lived had given me to the cook, who had given me to her cousin, who was engaged to be married to a young man whose brother-in-law was the elephant's keeper, and so I found myself in the elephant's house.
There was no milk for me—no heads and tails of fish—no scraps of meat—no delicious unforeseen morsels of butter.
The elephant was very kind to me. He had once had a friend exactly like me, he explained, but had unfortunately walked upon him, and now I had come to fill the vacant place in his large heart.
I resolved at once that he should not walk upon me; but in order to insure this, I was compelled to enter upon a more active existence than I had ever known.
When I asked what I was expected to eat, he said—
"Mice, I suppose; or you can have some of my buns if you like. You might like them at first, but you will soon get tired of them."
But I couldn't eat buns. I was never, from a kitten, fond of such things. I got very hungry. Again and again the mice rushed through the straw, and I, heavily, helplessly, in my unpractised way, rushed after them. At first the elephant laughed heartily at my inexpertness; but when he saw how hungry and wretched I was, he said—