Fluffy

“ He jumped down into the yard, and rushed up to his mother and Aunt Tabby. Fluffy followed him.
"Momma! momma!" he mewed. "Oh, Aunt Tabby! I'll never run away again. Oh, I'm so glad to be home!"
He and his mother and Aunt Tabby rubbed noses, and the cats kissed Jazbury, cat fashion, and mewed aloud with joy.
"And little Fluffy, too!" cried Mother Bunch. "Oh, how glad your mother will be to have you home again. She's so unhappy about you."
None of them noticed, at first, that Yowler had followed the other two kittens into the yard, and was now sitting over near the fence grinning at them. ”

“ She dived down under the seat of the buggy and got out a big brown bag, and held it out with the mouth open ready for the kittens to be dropped into it.
A moment later and Fluffy and Jazbury found themselves in the bag, with the mouth of it tied tight, so that they could not possibly get out. The bag, with them in it, was laid in the back part of the buggy, and then the rumbling and thudding began again as the buggy drove on. The kittens were jolted and shaken about.
"Oh, Jazbury!" mewed Fluffy. "What do you s'pose they're going to do with us?"
"I don't know. We'll have to try to get out." ”

“ No fair walking so slowly," said Jazbury.
"Yes, it is fair, too. And don't you mew at me."
Fluffy reached the post safely, and then tried to turn. But that was not such an easy matter. He lost his balance. His tail waved wildly. His claws clutched the fence. He teetered back and forth, and then, with a loud mew, he half jumped, half fell, down on the flower bed below.
Jazbury laughed and laughed, the way kittens do. You wouldn't have known he was laughing. You couldn't have heard it, but a cat or kitten could. It hurt Fluffy's feelings to be laughed at. ”

“ CHAPTER VII. WEDDING BELLS.
"To begin with, girls, this is Fluffy's idea, not mine! Of course none of you ever saw our Hildegarde, so I didn't suppose you would care particularly; but when I was telling the Fluffy last night, she said it was selfish and all kinds of things to keep it to ourselves, and that you must all hear about it; so if you don't find it interesting, pull out the Fluffy's feathers, not mine.
"Hildegarde Grahame—she is Hildegarde Merryweather now, but I cannot realise it yet—has been a very dear friend of ours for several years. We think there is no one like her in the world ”

“ How all the mice laughed, and the merry Winds with them! all, that is, except my little Fluff, who looked sad, and was still thinking of Vashti Ann. "Fluffy," I said, "I must see you smile again. Shall I sing you a song that I heard to-day?" "Yes, if you please, Mr. Moonman!" said Fluff meekly. "It is a funny little song," I said. "I heard an Irish mother singing it to her baby. She was sitting by the door of her cottage with the baby in her lap, and she was paring potatoes, and all the parings fell into the baby's face, but he did not seem to mind it at all, so I suppose it was all right." ”

“ T. says, if that's so, she'd better have her own, own room done in some other colour, but Fluffy says, No, she likes pinky-bluey shades, only he must remember, when he's inclined to be hard on her, that the pinky-blueys are to blame and not herself.
Then there's old Lady Humguffin, easily the most miserly old dear who ever wore a transformation (she even has a taxi-meter thing in her own motors and anyone driving with her is expected to pay what it registers!) ”

“ To this plan the others agreed.
"Suppose we meet some dogs?" said Fluffy.
"If you do, you'll just have to do the best you can. Run up an alley, or climb a fence or something. Now come on! We'll go as far as the edge of the lot together."
The three little kittens stole away through the weeds, and when they came to the edge of the lot Jazbury and Fluffy stopped. They watched Yowler cross to the other side of the street and turn a corner. Then, after a moment or so, Fluffy followed, then Jazbury. ”

“ But their coats are not so well kept as Fluffy's is now. I suppose you haven't time to comb them?" she questioned of Mr. Dottin.
"They're Angoras," he remarked. "No, missie, I haven't time to comb them. Have you a fancy for rabbits?"
"I love them," the little girl declared. "Not to eat, I don't mean that, but as pets, you know. I've a sweet little white rabbit called Fluffy, and it's exactly like those of yours."
"What we want to know is whether you sold a young Angora rabbit to a boy called Tim Shuttleworth," broke in Bob, coming abruptly to the real business of their visit. ”

“ Chelifer has engaged Miss Fluffy in a conversation which soon occupies the attention of all the persons sitting at the upper end of the table—a conversation about flappers. Mrs. Cloudesley, Miss Carruthers and Mr. Brimstone agree that the modern girl is too laxly brought up. Miss Fluffy adheres in piercing tones to the opposite opinion. Mr. Brimstone makes some splendid jokes at the expense of co-education, and all concur in deploring cranks of every variety. ”

“ He turned on them so fiercely that they were frightened
"Well, Yowler, we didn't know it," said Fluffy.
"Oh, be quiet. I don't care, anyway. I'm tired of the woods. I know a farmhouse near here where they want another cat, and I'm going there to live. I met a cat that lives there, and he asked me to come."
"Oh, but Yowler! What's going to become of us? Can we come, too?" cried Jazbury.
"No, you can't. They only want one cat. If you tried to tag along they'd drive us all away." ”

“ The kittens slipped through a fence and into the deep grass of the meadow. Insects whined about them. A butterfly fluttered by, so close above them that when Jazbury leaped for it he almost caught it. He would have liked to chase some of the insects that flitted about, but Yowler told him to wait. "There are plenty of other things to catch," he said. "Bigger things that we can really eat."
"Isn't it fun, Fluffy?" cried Jazbury. ”

“ As they drove through the morning country, between hedges cool with dew and fragrant with opening flowers, she told him.
“After my father had kidnaped me” (so she knew that Hal was her father!) “my beautiful mother took me to America. Sometimes we traveled in Europe, but she was afraid to bring me to England so long as I was little. This summer’s the first time I’ve been back. She let me come with Fluffy. I’m going to be an actress—going to start next fall in New York, I expect, if my mother allows me. Fluffy’s promised to help. She’s a star. Janice Audrey’s her real name. ”

“ After that Yowler hunted by himself, and the other kittens by themselves. At first Jazbury found it very hard to catch anything. The birds and mice all got away from him. He would have had to go hungry or to content himself with grasshoppers and beetles if it had not been for Fluffy. But Fluffy was such a good little hunter that he always managed to catch enough to eat, and whatever he caught he always shared with Jazbury. He was a better hunter than Yowler, and after a while Yowler said maybe they'd all better hunt together and share whatever they might catch. ”

“ Even if we don't get home we can't be any more lost than we are now."
"But we will get there," declared Jazbury. "Come on! We might as well go right now."
"All right; I'm ready."
The two little kittens set out at once, and without any more talk about it. They trotted away through the green depths of the wood, and after a while the trees grew thinner, and then they came out of the wood upon a hot, sunny stretch of dusty road.
"We go this way," said Jazbury, and he set off down the road just as if he knew exactly where he was going.
"Are you sure this is the right way?" asked Fluffy. ”

“ Even when a mouse runs right by under your nose you can't catch it."
Jazbury began to mew. "Well, you don't have to box my ears, anyway. I couldn't help it."
"Yes, you could. That's what provokes me so. Fluffy's not half as quick and active as you, and look at the way he catches mice. I'm ashamed of you."
Mother Bunch's round furry face appeared at the door looking in at them. "What's the matter? Has Jazbury been doing anything?"
"No, he hasn't been doing it, that's the matter," and Aunt Tabby poured out the whole story, while Jazbury stood by looking both sullen and ashamed. ”

“ It must be lots of fun to be a perfectly Dark Horse like her. People would be so agreeably surprised that they’d appreciate you even more than you deserve.”
“Instead of wondering how in the world a commonplace girl like Georgia Ames ever got [117] to be so popular,” mimicked Fluffy, the tease.
“I say, Georgia,” demanded Straight, who liked college because it offered her the chance of knowing such a variety of people, and so of satisfying every mood, and developing every trait of her own complex character. “If you’ve got a cousin as clever as all that, why don’t you let us meet her? ”

“ Cloudesley. “She wasn’t giggling. She was merely cachinnating.”
Everybody laughs uproariously, even Miss Carruthers, though she does not cease to carve. Mr. Brimstone remains perfectly grave. Behind his rimless pince-nez there is hardly so much as a twinkle. As for Miss Fluffy, she fairly collapses.
“What a horrible man!” she screams through her laughter, as soon as she has breath enough to be articulate. And picking up her bread, she makes as though she were going to throw it across the table in Mr. Brimstone’s face. ”

“ And I don’t know but they would all have tumbled in to see if they hadn’t felt something drop right on the ends of their noses. “What’s that?” said Fluffy.
“Cluck, cluck!” said Mother Biddy. “Every chicken of you come in, for it is going to rain, and you’ll get your feathers wet.”
So they ran as fast as they could, and in a few minutes the six little chickens were all cuddled under Mother Biddy’s wing, fast asleep. ”

“ Such berries, such lettuce, such water-cress, and the radishes!
"Too bad papa had to go so early," Bert remarked. "He just loves green stuff."
"So does Frisky," put in Freddie, and he wondered why everyone laughed.
After breakfast the lunch baskets were put up and while Bert and Harry, Nan and Aunt Sarah, went to invite the neighboring children, Flossie and Freddie were just busy jumping around the kitchen, where Dinah and Martha were making them laugh merrily with funny little stories.
Snoop and Fluffy had become good friends, and now lay close together on the kitchen hearth. ”

“ At the same time all the people on the right hand of the aisle began to smile. Fluff's little black face had presented itself at that end of the muff. Dear mamma hastened to close it up with her hand, and then all the people on the left hand of the aisle began to smile. Fluff's little black face had peered out at the other end. Then dear mamma, in desperation, put in both her hands, and then the imprisoned Fluff began to mew indeed. "How hard must that heart be," said the clergyman, going on with his subject, "who would ill use an innocent, helpless kitten!" ”

“ Poor darling little Fluff! and Philip, her true lover, who had remained constant to her for ten long years.
With a smile on her lips, and the old look of patience in her steady eyes, she turned her back to the window and prepared to listen to what the squire had to say.
"The fact is, Frances—" he began. "Sit down, my dear, sit down; I hate to have people standing, it fidgets me so. Oh! you want to be out with that young man; well, Fluff will amuse him—dear little thing, Fluff—most entertaining. Has a way of soothing a man's nerves, which few women possess. ”

“ An odd, weird sort of child, with a head running over with little dark curls, and large wondering eyes—not an ordinary child, and certainly not a pretty one, and looking, at the present moment, with her wrinkled eyebrows and huddled-up figure, like a little old witch in a fairy tale.
“I am that tired,” observed the child, apparently apostrophising the kettle, “that not all the monkeys in the Zoölogical Gardens could make me laugh; no, not if they had the old father baboon as their head. I wish I were a jaguar!”
“Why, Fluff?” exclaimed a pleasant voice from the rocking-chair. “Why, Fluff?” ”

“ Wilton went into the house, carrying little sleepy Downy in her arms. Fluff and Roger walked away hand in hand, and I tipped my glass so that I could follow.
"Have you many pets, Fluff?" asked Roger. [183]
"No!" replied Fluff. "We have only the three dogs, and José, the brown donkey, and the kitten that Brighteyes found in the tree. But then we have a great many dolls," she added, "and I suppose you have'nt any dolls, because you are a boy."
"Animals is better than dolls," said Roger. "Here is my lamb, under this tree. Isn't he lovely? ”

“ But the two little friends talked of many things as Fluff trotted along the narrow country road, hardly more than a lane, and sheltered by closely growing trees. Now and then the road came out into an open space, and there would be many violets growing close to the roadside. Then the girls sprang from the cart and gathered handfuls of the fragrant blossoms, while Fluff nibbled at the grass, or twisted his head to watch his young mistress. The wild honeysuckle was also in bloom along a sloping pasture, and Ruth was eager to gather it to take home to her mother. ”

“ A mere human hunter would have said that there was absolutely no difference between Fluff-Button and his sisters, but he would have been wrong. Fluff-Button was no more like them than all the children in a human family are like one another, but only another rabbit could have seen the difference. They all had the same white dab of a tail, and the same ever-twitching whiskers, and they all had to go through the same training. All knowledge in the woods is divided into two kinds: those things which you are born knowing, and those things which you find out for yourself. ”