Since his fluffy kittenhood Dot has been afraid of beetles, grasshoppers, crickets and, in fact, any large insect. That is rather strange in a kitten, is it not? But he had one experience which I think excuses his timidity.
It was on a warm summer morning that he and his twin—no, let us say triplet—brother Dab (the three kittens were called Dot, Dab and Fluff, for they were too tiny to toddle around under heavier names, their mistress said) were lying sleepily in their favorite corner of the piazza. To make sure he was missing nothing that a kitten should not miss, Dot opened his drowsy eyes and looked around. Instantly the drowsy look vanished and was replaced by one of intense interest.
For lo! crawling toward their corner was a many-legged, shiny black thing with pinch-y, dangerous-looking horns! Dot did not altogether like its looks; but curiosity was strong, and, calling to Dab, he started for the intruder.
Keeping safely behind the more venturesome brother, Dab followed at a slow trot.
"See-e-e! It's alive!" mewed Dot excitedly. "Let's play with it."
"Mee-you try it first," squeaked Dab.
Dot cautiously extended a pink paw toward the beetle; it came steadily on, and the paw was hastily withdrawn. Meanwhile Dab, too, had lifted a paw to make a test of the small, awesome stranger, but thought better of it. How dare he venture when Dot would not?
As the kittens hesitated, a wasp that had been hovering near alighted on Dot's furry head and rested there for an instant. It would not have harmed him, had not the beetle become alarmed at a sudden spat from Dab, and blundered hurriedly away in another direction. This happened to be directly at Dot, for whose tottering courage the sudden charge was too much! He sprang to one side, in his turn startling the wasp which promptly stung him.
With a pained cry the little kitten dashed wildly from the verandah, and it was several days before he could be persuaded to go on it again—the beetle had been on the piazza!
As he had not seen or felt the wasp until it stung him, his kitten mind could only think that somehow the awful black thing had hurt him cruelly. No more piazzas with painful "black things" for him, thank you! Its name he heard afterward from his mistress.