Now they hear it in the distance—yes, that is old Whitefoot’s trot! And soon afterwards it rattles and bumps into the yard. All the cats’ tails rise straight in the air like trees; their legs grow quite stiff—the great event of the day is at hand.
The cart has barely stopped before they are up in it; they must immediately sniff the odour of the sweet, fresh milk.
The foreman of the dairy gives them a little in a bowl to share among them....
But the bowl is soon licked dry—and now they are on the lookout to get whatever they can.
The moment the dairyman puts aside an empty pail, a cat pops in like a flash, head first, and licks it clean to the last drop; they leap up and hang by their forepaws to the dripping milk-sieve; they do anything and everything to secure a taste of the delicious milk.
They all allow the foreman to lift them up by the tail; they only straddle their legs....
“Puss, puss!” cries the good fellow affectionately as he raises them; and adds to a wondering onlooker, “They know I won’t hurt them!”
Yes, so shamelessly did they soil themselves with milk, that afterwards they spent hours and hours washing each other clean and dry.
She felt now so utterly out of touch with all that,—that she could have been a party to such goings on! To permit herself to be lifted up by the tail—and then, actually, to wash another cat’s kitten!
She still went regularly to the farm, usually in the early morning or the late evening. But she never ventured out into the open yard, and was in general very shy of showing herself. She preferred to stand up in the hayloft and peep through the trap-door into the stall; but the moment she caught a glimpse of a “human” she vanished instantly.