The Book of the Cat | Page 6

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on, and the paw was hastily withdrawn.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.
Now the kittens are almost full-grown cats, and the ground is covered
with snow. Dot dislikes the snowflakes, but he prefers them to beetles,
and the beetles are gone! But even yet he does not quite forget his baby
terror.
One evening shortly before Christmas Mistress Dorothy went in to
where her pets sat basking in the warmth of the kitchen stove, carrying
with her their usual supply of warm milk. The cats were on their feet at
once, while the girl mischievously held the milk just beyond their reach.

Mewing softly beneath their breath they were surely trying to say
"please!" just as politely as they could.
Still the milk was withheld, and they grew restless; they shifted from
one foot to another working their claws madly in and out; they purred
sonorously and walked rapidly around one another. They rubbed sides
so vigorously as almost to knock each other over but never forgot to
keep an anxious eye toward the coveted supper.
Dorothy at last relented--as they knew she would!--and, stopping to set
the dish down, a sprig of holly dropped from her belt, just as Dot,
turning, gave a particularly ecstatic hump to his back.
Suddenly his tail bushed out like a bolster, his eyes fairly bulged, and
he jumped clean off the floor. In front of him was the holly which a
quick puff of air through the open door had blown scratching unevenly
over the floor directly at poor Dot.
"Sft-sft-ft-sft! Beetle!" spat the terrified pussy. He was far too scared to
run--fairly stiff with fright, for this unknown thing might--it
might--anything!
Laughing so heartily that she was almost helpless, Dorothy snatched up
the offending branch and again placed it at her waist. Then Dot saw his
mistake, and as his mistress seated herself he sprang upon her lap and
commenced to play with the bright berries--very brave he was, since he
understood!
Dorothy let him pretend he had been playing before; but she really
knew that he hadn't been--just as well as you and I know.
THE BOOK
OF THE
CAT

[Illustration]

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