Mistress rubbed the kitty’s coat dry with a towel, and smoothed it all out with a coarse comb. Then she fixed her a nice warm bed in a little basket, and in a short time she dozed off into a nap. As I sat looking at the little stranger I was reminded of the time when I was taken into this dear home in just about as sorry a plight, and I made up my mind to give her a better welcome than I had received from Budge and Toddy.
Her nap over, the little kitty looked as plump and bright as anything, and mistress named her “Beauty.” She was a talkative little creature, and before the day was over had told me her whole history. Said she, “My home is in a grocery store, where I have been living with my mother and three other kittens in a barrel. This morning our master gave me to a boy to take home to his sister. But he squeezed me so hard, I scratched him, and then he threw me out on the wet grass and walked away.”
“How cruel,” said I, “but don’t think that all boys are like him, for I know some that are just as kind as anybody.”
“Then I tried to go back and find my mother,” said Beauty, “and I went up to the door of a place that looked like my home, but as I stood there crying, a man came out and picked me up very harshly, and threw me out onto the sidewalk. It seemed as if all the world were against me, and I tried to crawl away to a place where no one would find me, when a boy came along who picked me up very tenderly, and it was he who brought me here.”
I told Beauty of my own experience as a homeless cat and bade her be thankful that she had fallen into such good hands.
During the evening we played together by the beautiful moonlight, but all at once I missed her, and when mistress called us in for the night I was the only one to respond. I have no doubt that Beauty went to look for her mother.
After Budge and Toddy left, mistress tied a pretty colored ribbon around my neck, with the street and number, 127 Poplar Avenue, plainly written on it in black ink. She had also tied one around Beauty’s neck, and for this reason she expected that Beauty would be returned. But we looked for her in vain.
One evening when mistress and Guy were talking about Beauty, mistress said: “I presume she has found a home; I only hope it is a good one.”
“I don’t think it is,” said Guy. “Anybody that would steal a cat would not treat her well after he got her.” And I think he was right, for it was just as bad as stealing, to keep a cat that had the street and number written on his necktie. How foolish Beauty was to leave such a good home.
Not many days after Beauty’s departure, a little girl brought us a light colored tiger kitty, which she said she had found in front of a vacant house, cold and hungry, and she brought her to us because she thought it was our little Beauty.