Bidelia, like the gay young thing that she was, brought only neck-ribbons for her children, and some worsted balls with which they—and she, too, if she would own it—loved to play. But Madam Laura, like an older and wiser mother, brought catnip roots, as well as some dried catnip to start on, in case the kittens were ill. She also had a little bottle of castor-oil, because she knew how good that was for kittens when they overate themselves.
Kiku-san carried his crocheted shawl. It was one that had been dyed red, and which Lois kept in a rocking-chair for Kiku’s daytime naps. Kiku wore it now around his shoulders, and wondered doubtfully if he could get another crocheted shawl in Pussy-Cat Town when this one was worn out.
They walked and they walked for what seemed a long, long distance even to the cats. As to the kittens, they had long ceased frisking, and crawled along slowly, mewing pathetically, and taking hold of Bidelia’s tail to help themselves as they went.
“Little Dolly Varden fell asleep.”
Tommy Traddles looked around and saw how tired they were. “If some of you gentlemen in the back there, who have no food or beds to carry, would lay your forepaws on one another’s shoulders, and take turns in letting the children sit on them, you would be able to get the poor little kitlets over the ground, saving them suffering, and not hurting yourselves,” he said.
The stranger cats were glad to do this, though they would never have been wise enough to have invented this way of carrying the babies. Little Dolly Varden fell asleep the instant she was put up on the paws of a big black cat and a black and white one, who offered to carry her. “She was that done out,” said the black and white cat. He had a kind heart, but his English was not very good, because he had learned it in the streets.
It was about twenty minutes past ten when the cat pilgrims reached a lovely spot. It was a clearing in a wood, almost an acre wide. It stood right on the bank of a tiny stream, which Bidelia called a river, but which was really rather a small and quiet brook. All around this cleared spot were beautiful woods, and only a grass-grown road ran through it, such as is made by broad wagon wheels when men go to cut down trees in the woods.
“This is the very place for us,” declared Ban-Ban, looking around him with great content.
“It isn’t far from the town,” objected the black cat, who was helping carry Dolly Varden. His name was ’Clipsy, short for Eclipse. He had not always been poor; he was born in a very nice home, where he had been given his name, but he had got lost when he was very young, and had had a hard time ever since. He was a gentleman always, though; the cat leaders all saw that he was the best of all the stranger cats who had joined them.