E. Nesbit.
Our Black Cat.
ONCE upon a time there were three little kittens who set out to seek their fortunes. The first kitten found a big barn. “Ah,” he said, “this is a good enough fortune for me.” And he stayed there, and the rats and the mice who lived in the barn were very much annoyed. And the second kitten walked in at the dairy door, and the dairymaid said: “You pretty tabby thing, you shall stay with me.”
“That’s good enough fortune,” said the kitten, and he lives on cream to this day, and he is so fat that he is quite round.
But our black cat (who was the third kitten) was more adventurous. He was running after a young sparrow, and not looking where he was going, so he fell plump into a well, and there would certainly have been an end of him, but that a good-sized Fairy, who lived in that well, and happened to want a cat, pulled him out of the water, and helped him to scramble up on to a ledge in the well-side.
