He remembered how Old Lion had complained of the monotony of life in the cage, and Old Lion had grown old and weak in doing nothing. Spot, Ocelot and Timber had never become reconciled to their captivity, but paced their cages day and night longing to escape.
Buster drew a great sigh, and glanced out of the window. He saw green trees, smiling fields and tinkling brook. Ah, how he loved those! No, he could not leave them forever. He started for the outside door as if to leave the house.
“Don’t let him out, Nell,” the little girl’s father said. “The men and dogs are out there. Do you think you can get him down the cellar for the night?”
“Yes, papa, he’ll come with me,” was the answer. “Won’t you, Buster?”
Buster nodded, and followed her. He had no wish to go outside and fall in the hands of his pursuers. So he meekly followed the little girl down the stairs to the cellar where he was safe from all his enemies. It was a wide, roomy cellar, and Buster felt quite content there, but the thought that the men might call for him on the morrow to take him away to the Zoo spoilt his happiness.
When the little girl left him, he had made up his mind. Before morning he would break out of the cellar and escape. There had come into his mind a vision of the woods where he had been born, and a great desire to find his way back. Could he do it? In the next story you will hear how he set out on his long journey, and what happened to him.
STORY XVI
Buster Returns to the North Woods
Buster spent the rest of the day in the cellar of the house where the little girl lived, sleeping part of the time and playing with his little friend whenever she had the time to come down. There were many things in the cellar that smelt good—jams and jellies stored away in a closet, potatoes, apples and cabbages in bins, and boxes full of dry groceries—but Buster did not touch any of these. He ate what the little girl fed him, and nothing else.