Page:The fireside sphinx.djvu/275

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THE CAT TO-DAY
245

self to the shrubbery path. It only remains to be told that he first baked the bread, and this veracious chronicle will be complete.

Still more astounding is another story related of a New England cat named June, who hid her four kittens in a hole under the garret floor. After the first week she ceased going to the garret, and the family, fearing the kittens were dead, felt some not unnatural annoyance at the thought of the trouble it would be to disinter them. The matter was discussed in the presence of June, who lay on the sofa, apparently asleep; and her mistress observed with asperity,—"I would give ten dollars this minute if those kittens were out from under the floor." Immediately the cat jumped down and left the room, the door being shut after her. In a few minutes she was heard mewing in the hall; and, when the door was opened, there on the floor lay three of the dead kittens. Her mistress—who tells the tale in the "Spectator"—said, "Well done, June. Go now and fetch the other one;" whereupon she made a fourth trip, and returned with the last little corpse, laying it alongside of its brothers. It is to be hoped the ten dollars were promptly paid; but one fears that a cat of such cupidity would be capable of killing her innocent offspring for the sake of the promised reward.

"I am extremely distrustful of interesting or