The Kitchen Cat, and other Tales | Page 5

said Nurse, "by the way you've slit your pocket open."
This went on till Ruth began to despair. "I'll try it one more evening,"
she said to herself, "and if it doesn't come then I shall give it up."
Once more, therefore, when she was ready to go downstairs, she took
the bun out of the dolls' house, where she kept it wrapped up in tissue
paper, and squeezed it into her pocket. Rather hopelessly, but still
keeping a careful look-out, she proceeded slowly on her way, when

behold, just as she reached the top of the last flight, a little cringing
grey figure crossed the hall below.
"It's come!" she exclaimed in an excited whisper. "It's come at last!"
But though it had come, it seemed now the cat's greatest desire to go,
for it was hurrying towards the kitchen stairs.
"Puss! Puss!" called out Ruth in an entreating voice as she hastily ran
down. "Stop a minute! Pretty puss!"
Startled at the noise and the patter of the quick little feet, the cat paused
in its flight and turned its scared yellow-green eyes upon Ruth.
She had now reached the bottom step, where she stood struggling to get
the Bath bun out of her small pocket, her face pink with the effort and
anxiety lest the cat should go before she succeeded.
"Pretty puss!" she repeated as she tugged at the parcel. "Don't go
away."
One more desperate wrench, which gashed open the corner of the
pocket, and the bun was out. The cat looked on with one paw raised,
ready to fly at the first sign of danger, as with trembling fingers Ruth
managed to break a piece off the horny surface. She held it out. The cat
came nearer, sniffed at it suspiciously, and then to her great joy took
the morsel, crouched down, and munched it up. "How good it must
taste," she thought, "after the mice and rats."
By degrees it was induced to make further advances, and before long to
come on to the step where Ruth sat, and make a hearty meal of the bun
which she crumbled up for it.
"I'm afraid it's dry," she said; "but I couldn't bring any milk, you know,
and you must get some water afterwards."
The cat seemed to understand, and replied by pushing its head against
her, and purred loudly. How thin it was! Ruth wondered as she looked

gravely at it whether it would soon be fatter if she fed it every day. She
became so interested in talking to it, and watching its behaviour, that
she nearly forgot she had to go into the dining-room, and jumped up
with a start.
"Good-night," she said. "If you'll come again I'll bring you something
else another day." She looked back as she turned the handle of the
heavy door. The cat was sitting primly upright on the step washing its
face after its meal. "I expect it doesn't feel so hungry now," thought
Ruth as she went into the room.
The acquaintance thus fairly begun was soon followed by other
meetings, and the cat was often in the hall when Ruth came downstairs,
though it did not appear every evening. The uncertainty of this was
most exciting, and "Will it be there to-night?" was her frequent thought
during the day. As time went on, and they grew to know each other
better, she began to find the kitchen cat a far superior companion to
either her dolls or the man in the picture. True, it could not answer her
any more than they did--in words, but it had a language of its own
which she understood perfectly. She knew when it was pleased, and
when it said "Thank you" for some delicacy she brought for it; its
yellow eyes beamed with sympathy and interest when she described the
delights of that beautiful life it would enjoy in the nursery; and when
she pitied it for the darkness of its present dwelling below, she knew it
understood by the way it rubbed against her and arched up its back.
There were many more pleasures in each day now that she had made
this acquaintance. Shopping became interesting, because she could look
forward to the cat's surprise and enjoyment when the parcel was opened
in the evening; everything that happened was treasured up to tell it
when they met, or, if it was not there, to write to it on the pink
note-paper; the very smartest sash belonging to her best doll was taken
to adorn the cat's thin neck; and the secrecy which surrounded all this
made it doubly delightful. Ruth had never been a greedy child, and if
Nurse Smith wondered sometimes that she now spent all her money on
cakes, she concluded that they must