WHAT THE CAT AND HEN DID
“they were so busy making mud-pies
that they did not see ‘mrs. tomkins.’”
Four little children were playing in their garden one day. There were Mollie and Jamie and Betty and Teddy.
They were so busy making mud-pies that they did not see “Mrs. Tomkins,” the old cat, when she came and mewed, and mewed, and put up her paw, and touched Mollie and Jamie and Betty and Teddy—first one and then the other, as much as to say, “Do come, some of you, and help me! Do come, please!”
By and by the children’s mama came out of the house and saw how queerly the cat was acting, and said: “Children, Mrs. Tomkins is trying to get you to go with her and see if her babies are all right.”
So the children left their play, and said: “Come, Mrs. Tomkins, we will go with you now.”
The old cat gave a thankful “m-i-e-o-u,” and started down the walk leading to the barn. Every now and then she looked back to see if the children were really coming. When she got to the stable, she ran and jumped up on the manger, and looked down into it, and gave a quick, sharp “m-i-e-o-u,” as if to say, “What do you think of that?” And the children looked in and saw a hen sitting upon the old cat’s kittens and trying to keep them all covered up! When the cat tried to go near them, the hen would peck at her and drive her away. How the children laughed! Mollie said: “Did you ever see anything so funny! I am going to ask Mama to write a funny story about it,—how our old hen ’dopted the kittens.”
The hen had been sitting upon some eggs in a nest near where the cat had set up housekeeping, and when the cat went out, the hen came over and took the cat’s little family under her wings, just as if they had been so many chick-a-biddies. And when the cat went home again, the hen wouldn’t let her come near the kittens. Mollie took the hen off, and Mrs. Tomkins was happy.