The Republican journal., 1902-12-18
THE CAT WITH ONE IDEA.

the parlor.
She was just plain tramp tiger cat;
but of her three children she was
sure one was pure Maltese, the second
tortoise shell, and the third unmixed
Angora As with most mothers, it was
a struggle to keep children properly
licked and fed, the fubsy darlings; but,
then, they were pretty well able to
make both ends meet for themselves,
and spent most of the day trying to do
so. The real struggle came when, hav-
ing got their eyes wide open, the fubsy
darlings began to look about them, and
through crack in their barrel saw
apple blossoms out yonder in the sun
shine when the children romped in
through the wide barn doors.
Then there were Whisperings and
winnings.
Mother, can't you get me nliaowt of
this?" the first would cry.
'Mother, show miaow you hop up and
leap out that way" the second would
chime in.
"And miaow, and miaow," the third
would hasten to add.
Now, children, lie purrrrfectly still"
their mother would say. ''Purrrrhaps,
and her long pink tongue passed over
them, and her poor faded velvet paws
tried to hold them all in at once
'.purrrrhaps I'll brrrring you little
birrrrd" She purred, just as human
mother tries to be calm when her baby
is getting angry and excited.
But it wasn't any use. Day by day,
Tom, Dick and Harry-the Maltese, the
tortoise shell and the unmixed Angora,
reSpective]y-grew more discontinued
with the landscape at the bottom of the
barrel, and one or two trips taken
abroad in the hands of the children
from the house were very perniciouS.
Tom, Dick and Harry all perked up to
take notice, saw from Agatha's arm
that this great round world is very
white and large and full of things; and
they liked it very we'll, on the whole,
till they saw black, snuffiing monster
called dog, and then they tiuffed all up
and sounded like the kettle boiling over
on the stove, and wished themselves,
for once, where the little red ants ran
about the bottom of the barrel.
But now for the sad, sad part of this
sad story.
Once there were new people in the
house, and great Mr.. Horse stamped by
the barrel two times day to take them
riding very kindly in his carriage; and
they were very beautiful people, much
too beautiful and too afraid of spiders
to bend over black barrel in the barn.
And so for twenty minutes of one day
in all her life, on account OF her having
such beautiful children, Mrs. Cat was
allowed to rub her dingy fur against
the gilded legs of the tea-table in the
parlor, her tail erect, drilling with her
feet to the drumming of her purr,
while the beautiful people paid Tom
and Dick and Harry injudicious and
unreasonable compliments.
The dear little things! Do let me
hold them, Maude, a minute
Look at the tufts on this ones ears.
Which one is Harry? Such lovely kit
tens: and such a homely motherv'
And because they looked at her, and
because these were her children,
Mother Cats tail went up so straight
that it fairly pointed to her ears, and
she purred harder than ever; and her
yellow eyes grew bland and sweet as
lemon drops behind thick glass Win
dow.
Oh, it was wonderful! And, when,
that night housed again in the black
barrel, the little kittens cried themselves
asleep. the mother could almost have
wept with them when she thought of
the faint odor of molasseS in which she
was bringing up her children.
Thenceforth it became Mrs. Cats rul-
ing passion to get Tom, Dick and Har-
ry into the best society, as personitied
by the things in the parlOr and the
satin (Which they commonly were not
chairs.
There was one chair in particular
that generally was buttoned up to the
neck, as if it were going to have its
hair cut, in red and white striped calico.
Mrs. Cat did not know that it stood
that way pretty nearly-or ugly-nearly
all the time. Enough for her that
beneath the calico covering was the
softest, onliest blue plush cushion in all
this world of barrels and boxes, with
nails on their edges and thin and flea
filled straw. She had lain on that
cushion a little blissful minute when
the beautiful woman had invited her
and her children to afternoon tea.
They had not invited her, though, to
sit on the blue plush cushion; and they
had promptly shooed her off.
She began to talk about the one chair
and its cushion to her children, and they
stopped their tiptoed clawing and their
tiny yelps to listen.
And that night Tom, who was the
hurley-burliest of the three, managed,
for the first time in his life, to find his
way out where splintered stave left
small opening half way up the side of
the barrel. He could not possibly have
left his mother without awakening her
to throaty noise and presently claw
of remonstrance, but his mother was
not there. Tom thought he knew where
she had gone. Just so, your mother
went to make sure of your new house,
before you all moved in.
Tom tottered out at place cut in the
door for his mother, and crossed the
grass plot that lay between the barn
and the woodshed behind the kitchen,
stopping every now and then to try to
shake his paws clean of the cold, damp
dew. There was his mother only
little way ahead; so near, her long black
shadow in the moonlight almost touch
ed him. He hurried to come up with
her; but at the nearest cellar window
she dived in blackly, leaving him to
stand, crying weakly after, at the edge.
She evidently had not seen or heard
him.
Neither did Tom see nor hear mo-
ment later j.. when black and snuff
fling monster leaped from where he lay
snugly coiled in the bottom of the par
ticular chair Saizad Toms and Dicks