Once upon a sunny afternoon, two curious kittens named Lola and Leo peered outside from their warm and cozy home. With their tails held high and eyes sparkling with excitement, they watched the butterflies dance and the Robins hop along the pathway. They were tired of playing with their toys and napping in the sunlight. “Oh Leo, let’s go outside and see the world! Just for a little while!” purred Lola.
With a nod of agreement, Leo replied, “Yes, let’s go! I wonder where the birds fly to when they leave our garden”. And so, without a moment’s hesitation, the two kittens dashed out into the backyard and leaped into the great wide world outside.
They tumbled through the flowerbeds, chased after fuzzy bumblebees, and climbed trees to get a better view of their garden. It seemed the world was just as beautiful outside as it was looking from the window! However, their excitement made them forget the time, and before they realized it, they found themselves at the edge of a thick dark forest.
“Oh dear, oh dear!” exclaimed Lola. “I don’t remember crossing a forest to come to our garden. Surely it wasn’t there when we started this morning!”
“I don’t remember either,” replied Leo, looking this way and that. “But I am certain that if we go back the way we came, we shall soon be at home.”
So they trudged along trying to retrace their steps, but when they came to the tree that they had climbed to see their home from, it looked the other side to that to which they came, and after running on and on, they lay down in a small clearing in the wood.
Some time passed and then they heard, coming from a distance, the sound of patter-patter-patter of feet. “Someone is coming,” said Lola.
“Yes,” replied Leo. “Someone is coming. Shall we run away?”
“Better not,” answered Lola. “Better wait and see who it is before we run away. If we run away perhaps it could be someone who could help us find our way home.”
Hardly were the words out of their mouth when a large dog came into the clearing and stood upon the other side of it. Lola and Leo remained quite still until the dog spoke.
“Ah, kittens,” said he. “What makes you here?”
“We’ve lost our way,” answered both the kittens together.
“Got so interested in playing about our own house,” said Lola, “that we hurried away further than we meant, and now we don’t know how to get back.”
“I would come with you to show you the way,” said the dog, “but unfortunately I am just going on my own business. However, if you will accept my advice, you will soon be able to find your way home again. Go on in that direction”: and he pointed his paw towards the place where the sun had just disappeared. “That would take you to the garden where you were playing this afternoon. From there you will not have far to go.”
Both the kittens thanked the dog very much, but before they had gone many steps, they turned round and called out, “Could not you come the way with us? It’s so very dull when we am alone.
“I should like to do so very much,” answered the dog, “but really I can’t stop. However, if you still are afraid to go on alone here is my friend, the cat, just coming. Listen to her, even if the advice I have given you does not please you so much.”
Then the dog disappeared into the trees; and a minute or two afterwards a large grey cat came into the clearing and placed herself on the top of the box-tree that stood in the middle of it. Now the box was all in flower, and its tiny flowers were followed by tiny green berries, hanging in bunches, and looking very pretty.
“You wanted to ask me something, kittens, did you not?” said the cat to Lola and Leo.
“We really did,” answered the kittens. “Well, what is it? Or shall I guess?” added she in a lazy way.
“Thank you, but it is no use trying to guess,” replied Lola. “Our friend the dog told us we were going in the right direction to find our home, but we wanted to know whether, when we got to our garden, we were far from our house, and if you would come with us and show us the way.”
“I haven’t time this evening,” said the cat, “but tomorrow, if you think that you can wait here till she comes, my friend the hen will kindly guide you, for I am sure she would be delighted to take all the trouble for you that is in her power. You live, I know, in the straw barn, and it is close to the poultry house. It will be no trouble to her to come out a little way with you. And meanwhile, I expect some of your friends from the house would like to keep you company, and you might see them knocking about the yard now.”
“Shall we not sit here till some of them come to us?” said Leo to his sister.
But Lola was tired and felt afraid of being left alone in the woods.
“I should like to climb a tree and look about,” said she, but for Leo, who was frightened at the sounds that came to him from deep down in the woods, the trees were all too high for him, and it would not do at all for him to get lost as well as his sister.
“No, I had rather not,” said he. “No. Let us go on at once.”
So they returned into the direction that the dog had pointed out to them. For some time it was so thick with trees that they saw little else than wood about them; and then they came quite suddenly into the garden that belonged to the house where they lived.
“Oh, how like a garden this looks!” said Lola looking up and down and round.
“Yes,” answered Leo. “But which is the way to the straw barn? I forget.”
“It is all so strange; I cannot remember,” said Lola.
“And which is our house?” asked Leo.
Then who should come into the garden but Henry, the gardener’s man! With one spring, both the kittens were up against him.
“Why, what’s the matter with you two little innocents?” asked Henry.
“We are lost,” answered both the kittens together.
Then Henry, without saying any more, took both the kittens in his arms and carried them to the straw barn close to the poultry house, where of course they found their mother and all the other kittens, but all the all the strange cats, ticks, and other creatures who lived in the house, in the garden, and in the woods came to hear about their adventures, and to congratulate the kittens upon their safe return.