“Well,” said Mrs. Polly, “I should have done so long ago if our friends here hadn’t taken up so much time in disputing. Now, little gray kitten, tell us all you know about yourself,—where you were born, and how it happens that you are left alone in this big world to take care of yourself.”
“I can’t remember very much about myself,” began the little gray kitten in a plaintive voice, “but I know we were always poor. My mother worked very hard to support us, for the woman who kept us was very mean and never gave us anything to eat. I have heard my mother say she was the meanest woman she ever knew. She said she had heard her say that she kept a cat to get rid of the rats and mice, and that she expected her to earn her own living.”
“Well,” interrupted the barn-cat, “that is all very well for a single cat; but when a cat has a young family it comes pretty hard to keep them supplied with food. I never let my children eat mice; it doesn’t agree with them,—gives ’em the stomach-ache and makes ’em fitty.”
“It’s no harm to give ’em a mouse to play with,” said the house-cat; “I often do mine.”
“When you catch one, which isn’t often,” said the barn-cat in an undertone.
“What was that you said?” asked the house-cat sharply; “be kind enough to say it a little louder.”
“Oh, come, come,” put in the canary, “do let the gray kitten go on with her story. You were telling us that your mother had to catch all the food for you.”
“Yes,” continued the little gray kitten, “so she did. She often brought us mice, and sometimes a bird,—birds agreed best with us, she said.”
“Dear me!” exclaimed the canary with a shudder, “what a very bloodthirsty cat your mother must have been!”
“Excuse me, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” said the little gray kitten, so politely that Mrs. Polly said to herself with a little nod of satisfaction,—