Ain’t got no garbage pails,
Ain’t got no fishes’ tails;
Poor little Kitty-in-the-Street
Ain’t got no thing to eat!
I think it is quite a sad little verse, don’t you?
One day when Mouser was prowling about looking for his dinner a man with a net on the end of a pole came along and slipped the net over him and took him off in a wagon to a place where there were lots and lots of cats who had no homes, like Mouser. The next day a lady came looking for a cat who would catch mice and a man whose place it was to find homes for the cats said:
“Got just what you want, Lady. Here’s a fine big fellow that’s a regular mouser.”
So the lady liked his looks and carried him to her home in a basket and named him Mouser. Before that he had had another name, but he didn’t remember what it was. He stayed with the lady for a long time and then she, too, went away to live in a place where cats were not allowed and so she brought Mouser to the animal dealer’s, and here he was looking for a new home. I told him I didn’t think I would like having so many homes, but he said you got used to it in time and that almost anything was better than no home at all and being just a “Kitty-in-the-Street!”
Then there was Prince. Prince was a funny, good-natured dog who lived in a big cage across the aisle. He wasn’t any regular kind of dog, but a little of every kind. He had a long brown coat and a shaggy tail and a pointed nose and very yellow eyes. One of his ears stood up straight and the other fell over just as if it was tired. But he was a real nice, jolly fellow, and had the finest, deepest bark I ever heard. He was just about my age and had been born in the country. One day he came with his master to the city to sell a load of vegetables at the market and another dog quarrelled with him and they had an awful fight and the other dog bit him so that he had to run away. And when he stopped running he was quite lost! He hunted around and at last he found the market again, but his master had gone. So he stayed there for a long time and the marketman gave him pieces of meat and he got along very nicely. He thought that some day his master would come back again. And perhaps he did, but Prince wasn’t there because one day a boy tied a piece of rope about his neck and took him to the animal dealer’s and sold him for fifty cents.
He was quite happy and contented, though, and I liked him very much. And I hope that he and Mouser each found a nice home. There was a little white and tan dog whose name was Peaches—which is a funny name for a dog, isn’t it?—and he lived in a cage next to Prince for awhile. He was sold while I was there and taken away by a big man with a gruff voice to hunt rats in a stable. Peaches was not a very gentlemanly dog, but he was full of fun and we all liked him a lot. One of the funny things he did was to stand on his front legs, with his hind legs in the air, and walk around the cage. And while he did it he would say: