“ Just as she was becoming quite reckless, almost prancing, with feet stepping at least half an inch from the floor, there suddenly yawned directly in front of the astounded kitten the six-inch chasm of the drinking dish! She toppled; her tail gave a single wild twirl; and she splashed heels over head into two inches of water!
Mrs. Tabby, who had been anxiously watching the unsteady promenade sprang to the basin at once and leaning down tried to pull Calico out by the nape of the neck. ”

“ Down at my feet on the red tiles in front of a roaring great fire sit a great black cat and a soft white Angora pussy. They are named Ebony and Snowball and are as different in nature as they are in colour, but are devoted friends for all that. Possibly because of it! for where Snowball is timid, Ebony will bravely lead the way; while if Ebony is cross, Snowball will purr and coax and cuddle until he gradually grows peaceful and pleasant again. ”

“ 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Dot cautiously extended a pink paw toward the beetle; it came steadily on, and the paw was hastily withdrawn.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. ”

“ The best of them will never come out far enough from the holes for
Gracious Cattails! What was that?
It is! There are his whiskers, now an eye—ear—Ah-h-h! Now he's coming! Yes, right over to this very table—I must keep still. Now down so: close behind the cheese. It's a good thing I'm not a big cat.
Well, I never! That was a close squeak—I got that tail under just in time! Pretty poor memory, I call it, to forget one's own tail. If that mouse had seen—
What! There's another, and half way over here. The first one must be close by the table leg, though I can't see him. ”

“ Bernard dog's drinking dish which was set down into the barn floor, very near the wall, and kept filled with water. One of the grooms had arranged it one idle afternoon, more for his own amusement than for any real need so to place it.
"Mr-r-r-owh!" trilled Mother cat warningly as Frisker wobbled over toward her greatest dread, that dreadful water! "Do stay near me, kittens; then you won't tumble in and get drowned."
"Miew!" answered the three kittens, in three different keys. "Don't worry about us: we're all right!" ”

“ But how about your early birds? Hello! Your moon's whiskers say that it's after five o'clock, and that's not early for birds. Now that I think of it, I don't believe they get up till later—at least in December. ”

“ Here I have been waiting for the last two hours behind this horrid-smelling cheese, and no sign of a mouse yet. And it's just the time for them, too.
I wonder why housekeepers expect us cats to keep the house free from mice when they're away for the summer. No self-respecting cat can eat mice morning, noon and night ”

“ A Night On.
"I've a very great longing for a sweet juicy robin; what do you say to catching one or two, you old moon-gazer?"
Whitey gave Mr. Twinkletoes Black a playful chuck under the chin, skipped gleefully across the moonlit roof and back, and sat down sociably by him, before that leisurely pussy turned his head to look scornfully at the youthful—I almost said "speaker," but as all of their conversation is in cat language perhaps "mewer" would be more exact. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I never saw an early bird myself, but I suppose there are such things. I prefer a morning nap after these nights on. Haven't much use for early birds, usually." (To hear Whitey talk one would have thought he spent every night singing to the moon—this was his first!) ”