THE TALES IN THIS BOOK
| PAGE | ||
| The Great Small Cat | [3] | |
| The tale of the black "stray," whose mother-love and home-love steeled her to repeatedly brave the waters of the dark, swift-flowing river, and how this "bunch hard to beat" overcame the cold heart of the "widow lady" of the ranch. | ||
| Thursday | [27] | |
| The orphan foundling, fed from a spoon; her coquettish tyranny over her friend and playmate, a magnificent Irish setter; and the story of her tragic end when answering the home-call. | ||
| A Mine, a Miner, and a Cat | [43] | |
| The story of the loyal comradeship of the miner and the cat, and of how Puss proved to be the cleverer prospector of the two and discovered the bonanza mine. | ||
| Aïda and Saadi | [61] | |
| Twin blue-blooded aristocrats, whose temperamental pranks and mischievous adventures caused startling surprises and frequent shocks; their marauding, murderous transgressions and how they were finally cured. | ||
| Marooned | [77] | |
| The story of the intense hatred of the shanghaied cat; his dignified aloofness; his "tabasco temper" over the pranks of the sailors; and his final survival of the wreck, from which, after braving the ocean waves, he reached the shore and gained his freedom amid the mystery of the wild. | ||
| Maida | [99] | |
| The strange but true story of the Maltese mother-cat who adopted a brood of white rats, and the record of her disciplinary methods in raising and controlling her alien foster-children. | ||
| A Memory | [109] | |
| The tale of Jiminy Christmas, a tramp cat, whose wild and vagabond nature caused him to yield, intermittently, to the call of the open, and to leave, unceremoniously, his protected home of plenty and comfort; his last pathetic return. | ||
THE PICTURES IN THIS BOOK
| Jiminy Christmas: His First Appearance | [Frontispiece] | |
| He was probably a graceless vagabond, born in the gutter, with no pretensions to breeding or even good looks. | ||
| FACING PAGE | ||
| The Great Small Cat | [8] | |
| Although the small stray was minus all signs of pedigree, she held her head high and was accorded the respect and good treatment due a lady. | ||
| Thursday | [34] | |
| As she never attained the full stature of an ordinary cat, she always looked but half-grown, but was the very perfection of dainty symmetry, her coat a solid black, almost blue in its depths. | ||
| The Cat | [52] | |
| Handsome, shining and saucy, the kitten had grown into the most splendid bigness of his race: all muscle and nerve, unusually broad of chest and looking as if bred to the mountain fastness and able to endure all sorts of pioneer hardships. | ||
| Aïda and Saadi | [72] | |
| "Oh, lady! You do not suspect us of having seen any of your birds this morning?" | ||
| Marooned | [84] | |
| Neither disappointment nor ugly temper had broken his fierce sense of injury or his indomitable spirit. | ||
| Maida | [102] | |
| In long-suffering patience Maida would stretch herself in a streak of sunshine and survey the riotously incorrigible mites, indulging in their favorite pastime of playing tag all over her body. | ||
| Jiminy Christmas, the Free Spirit | [120] | |
| Born free, he kept his own wanton will free from enslavement to the end, living his own life in honor and honesty in an out-doors all his own. | ||
THE GREAT SMALL CAT
