Mouser Cats Story | Page 8

"Which is the tooth?" the dentist said; "Dear, dear! You must have
suffered-- You've not a sound tooth in your head, Not one that's
whole!"
He pulled them out; it took some while, And then that toothsome
crocodile Had not quite such a pleasing smile Whene'er he smole.
"How do you suppose Mr. Crocodile felt when he was hungry, and
wanted to eat something?" your Aunt Amy asked.

THE DISSATISFIED CAT.

"Most likely much the same as did old Mrs. Pussy Cat up on the next
farm."
"How was that?" your Aunt Amy asked.
"Well, you see, she was partly black and partly white, and not being a
very neat cat, the white hair got dirty so often that she believed it would
be a great thing if it was all black. So she got the idea into her head that
if she should shave off the white hair, it would be the color she wanted
when it grew out again.
"Well, now what do you suppose that poor foolish thing did? Why she
went to the barber's, and had him shave all the white hair off of her
body. She actually frightened the ducks and the geese when she came
home, she looked so queer; but you couldn't have made her believe it.
She thought she was a perfect beauty, and when she came over to this
farm that evening, Mr. Thomas Cat said to her:
"'Why you are a perfect sight, that's what you are, with those tufts of
black hair all over you!'
"'That's all the style,' Mrs. Pussy Cat said, and I think she really
believed that she was as handsome as any cat you could find.
"Well, things went along all right while the weather was warm, but in
the course of ten days we had a heavy frost, and dear me, dear me, how
cold it grew all of a sudden! Poor Mrs. Pussy Cat was almost frozen to
death the first night of the cold snap, when she tried to stay with the
rest of us to a concert, and went home moaning:
"'Oh, give me back my hair! Give me back my hair!'
[Illustration: Mrs. Pussy Cat in Style.]
"Of course that couldn't be done, because she had to wait for it to grow
again; but Mrs. Man on the next farm wrapped her up in an old shawl,
and she had to stay in a basket until her hair grew, else she'd have
frozen to death, for we had a terrible hard winter that season. When the
hair did come out it was uneven, of course, and she was the worst
looking cat you ever saw.
"Mr. Man was shaving the first morning Mrs. Pussy Cat came out of
the basket, and he hadn't seen her since she had been to the barber's.
[Illustration: Mr. Man is Disturbed.]
"She jumped up on a chair by the side of him, thinking he would stroke
her fur as he always used to do, when the poor man got one glimpse of
her, and it nearly scared him into hysterics. I suppose he thought it was

a ghost, or something like that, for she looked bad enough to be almost
anything.
"He gave a yell, and jumped in the air. That scared Mrs. Pussy Cat, and
she screamed as she leaped out of the chair. Then Mr. Man went after
her with that big razor in his hand.
"I don't know how far he chased her; but Mr. Towser said that Mrs.
Pussy Cat ran more than five miles before she stopped, and when she
sneaked back home that night, I'm thinking she felt a good deal as Mr.
Crow did when he tried to make folks believe peacock feathers were
growing in his tail."

MR. CROW'S DECEIT.
"I have heard a great many stories which Mr. Crow has told; but never
one about him," your Aunt Amy interrupted. "If he tried to deceive the
other birds, I surely would like to know about it."
"Well, he did," Mrs. Mouser Cat said emphatically, sitting bolt upright;
"but of course he doesn't like to have the story told, so I had rather you
wouldn't let him know I mentioned it.
"I don't know how he happened to get it into his head to do such a thing,
for, as a rule, he spends the most of his time over in the big tree telling
stories or making poetry; but he grew foolish once, and whenever
anybody came where he was, he said he had strange growing feathers,
and the doctor believed he was turning into a peacock.
"Of course that made a good deal of excitement around here, among all
of us, for it would be a strange thing for a crow to change in