Six years rolled smoothly like the first,
From every evil free,
And many a kitten had she nurs’d
The prettiest that could be.
A most unusual sound one night
Was heard, and Tib thereby
Was roused at once from slumbers light,
To hear a baby cry!
No sound like this had met her ears
Within that ancient dome
In all the many quiet years
That this had been her home.
Straight up the stairway did she spring,
And there beheld the elf,—
A cunning, little, helpless thing,
No bigger than herself.
Tib loved the baby from that day,
And oft would rub her head
Against him in a friendly way,
Or sit beside his bed.
When puss was old, the baby Tom
Had grown a stately boy,
And since her feeble days had come,
He would his time employ
In nursing the poor, feeble cat,
With bread and milk to feed,
Or give her meat, both lean and fat,
According to her need.
