“‘What ails you?’ asked a brother trout.
‘What’s wrong?’ inquired a minnow.
‘Alas! We’re all invited out,’
He shivered, ‘to a dinner!’
“They cried, ‘Why, that’s a jolly plan!
Who asked us out to dine?’
‘Oh!’ sobbed the trout, ‘a fisherman,
He just dropped me a line!’”
When the poem was finished, the parrot cried, “Hear! Hear!” and clapped his wings excitedly, and a little raccoon laughed so loud that he had to be sent away in disgrace.
“Now, Ann,” said J. M., “give us a poem about your cat.”
“Not a wild cat, I hope,” put in the parrot hastily. “That kind of a cat has such bad manners—far, far worse than the raccoon’s—that it is not allowed round here at all. If it’s a polite kind of a cat, go on, Miss; not otherwise.”
Little Ann was very red in the face. “But I can’t go on,” she said. She intended to say also, “There’s nothing to go on with,” but just as she said “There’s,” a little nickel clock called five very clearly, and she remarked, instead:—
“There’s the snow-white cat, the pearl-gray cat,
The brindle and the brown,
The cat with stripes around himself,
The cat striped up and down,
The plaid cat and the buff cat,
The tan, the tortoise-shell,
The bluish sort, the reddish sort—
More tints than I can tell.
But the finest of the whole fine lot
(There’s no disputing that)
Is the jet-black chap with one white spot—
And that’s our kind of cat.
“The tiny cat is cunning,
The long, lean cat is fleet,
The nimble one is made for fun,
The fluff-ball one is sweet,
The Persian pussy’s splendid,
The Maltese kitty, too,
But the special kind I have in mind
Is best of all the crew.
He’s not too quick and frisky,
Nor is he slow and fat;
He’s soft and warm and fits my arm,
And he’s our kind of cat!”