In a little town where the sun always seemed to shine, there lived a pretty kitten named Lila. Lila was gentle and loving, with the fluffiest tail and the softest grey coat that you could ever wish to pat. Lila was still quite young, and still liked to take her afternoon nap under the bedclothes; when Lila woke, she stood and waved her paw as if to say, “Welcome back, little tail.”
One evening, just as she had finished playing with a bright red ball, a little bird came hopping about in front of her. Lila leapt to her feet at once, and said, “Oh, do be careful, little bird, and don’t knock my ball over,” for it was rolling about without anybody to keep it in order.
The little bird heeded Lila’s warning, and Lila stopped to play with it. So they played and played together until all of a sudden the bird flapped its wings and flew away. Then Lila, who had been so busy with her playing that she did not notice where she was, found herself standing all alone at the other end of the town and could not find her way back. At first she was not frightened. “Oh, dear,” she thought, “this is not my bed-room carpet. Where can I be?”
So she wandered on and on, and when she thought she was underneath her little bed again and sang a sweet little song to tell them to come and take her home, a big rough dog came up instead of her uncle and left foot with Uncle Tom; and when he came to the door to ask what it was, Lila thought that Uncle Tom also was at the door to bring her home.
Now it happened that it was her cousin Bounce—the big dog that the kitten always said was not very kitten-like in his manner—that had come to look for her; and of course when Bounce heard that the little bird had flown away, and that it was time for Lila to go home, he was glad. So then he and the big dog went with her to the little town, and you may be sure that Lila asked Bounce about her Father and Aunt Olga all the time that they were coming home together.