Once upon a time, in a cozy cottage with a little garden of roses and daisies, lived a dear little girl named Ann. She had a pet black kitten called Kitty which she loved so much that she used to say her prayers for it every night.
“Oh, God bless father and mother, and uncle James, and Aunt Maria, and baby, and please to bless the dear little Kitty. Amen,” she said one night.
Now the dear little Kitty was walking about the room and did not hear her. So, the very next day, when every one was busy in the garden, Kitty slipped out of the window and left the little girl behind. She walked about and about. She climbed over the narrow gate and ran down the street of the little village. She walked and walked till she came to a busy town, and then sat down to rest herself very creaky and tired.
Now just across the way from where she sat was a butcher’s shop. Over the door was a sign with a cow painted on it and a butcher man in a white apron standing beside, and in the middle of the open window was a huge piece of meat hanging all oozing with blood. Presently a little dog came sniffing along and looked in at the window and licked his lips.
“Ah,” said the butcher-man, listening to the dog, “you think I’m going to give you something,” he said. “Well, here, take this away.”
And he flung a bone covered with meat just at the dog’s head, and the dog jumped and caught it in the air and trotted off.
“Don’t eat it all at once, Pompey,” cried the butcher, and turned away to the scales that stood in the middle of the shop.
“I wish I had a nice piece of meat,” said Kitty, looking in. “Dear me, how curiously the man is looking about his scales.”
And what do you think? The butcher did not know that just behind him there was the large iron scale and purring Kitty lying right in the bottom of it.
“He must think he is very light this morning,” Kitty said. “Oh, do see what a lovely piece of meat is gone from that dish. Why, he is finding fault with a very nice little rabbit.”
“Meow,” said Kitty.
The butcher looked up and stared at Kitty, but did not see her; not he.
“What can that noise be?” he said.
“It is only that same dog, I think,” said he to his assistant. “Make haste, William, and throw out the scraps before he comes back again.”
William opened the scullery door and went outside the shop with a bag of bones in one hand, and a pail of dirty water in the other. “I wish I was a butcher’s boy,” grumbled he to himself. “I should like to see how it feels to throw dirty water over every one you meet, and have people tell you always how dirty you are.”
And as he said this, he threw the pail of water over the dirty stones outside, where the grease was, and the blood was, and where a fine puddle lay already. Down ran the water, down ran Kitty after the water, that went splashing and tumbling about in front of her, and poor Kitty came tumbling and splashing about after it till her head was as wet as her heels. When the water had run away, and all the dirt was washed away too, Kitty climbed up the gate and gave herself two or three tumbles and wriggles till she was fairly dry again. It was very nicely done indeed, and if she had not so disliked the whole adventure, she would have thought about it.
Then she walked on a little, and by and by came to a butcher’s cart that stood at the door of a shop. It was dark green, and the wheels were bright red. Presently came a green parrot hopping out of the window and perching himself on the box of the cart.
“Do you know the way to the town of Chester?” cried the parrot.
“No, I don’t,” said Kitty.
“Do you know the way to the town of Chester?” asked he again.
“No, I don’t,” said Kitty.
“What a silly little girl, besides being a black cat too,” said the parrot.
Just then the butcher came up with a piece of rope in his hand.
“Green Jack,” said he, “you won’t stay up if you go on talking so, then you’ll have to go after that dog, who by this time is doubtless hidden under some kitchen window, chewing the bone I threw to him, and eating his dinner.”
The parrot hopped back into the shop, and the butcher began to harness the horse. Kitty jumped off the cart and walked on.
Then she came to the village of Great Barford, where a fish cart was standing at the inn door.
“Meow,” cried Kitty, because she wanted to make acquaintance with the man and the horse and would as willingly have eaten a fish as a meat bone.
“What do you want, you nasty little beggar?” said the man.
“That to be sure is very true,” Kitty thought.
“You can just go along, or I’ll chase you,” said he.
Now this was very unkind, for Kitty was really not a nasty little beggar. “However,” said she, “never mind,” and off she went.
Over the river Course she went, round the orchard and over the hill, till she came and sat down at the hedge that led up to Mrs. Donkey’s house.
“Go away, go away,” cried Mrs. Donkey, poking her black head now out of her doorway, now in again, just as it happened to suit her.
A little farther on sat a funny kind of creature with a long neck and long legs, and a sharp pointed head. She was wild—a creature out in America.
“So you are lost,” said she.
“Meow,” said Kitty, gazing up at her with astonishment. “And what are you? And what is your name?”
“My name is Giraffe,” said she. “I am lost myself. I was hurried and hustled so about and was nowhere settled at last, that I thought I must turn back and come home again, though I am just the same as before. But where do you come from and where are you going to?”
“I come from our house in the little village of near Cambridge, which you will not know, and I am going home, as you see. I’ll pass your house, if you please, I touch bonnets with you, though it be only for the very first time.”
As she said this, she shook her mane of crumpled hair, and turned round and stretched her neck, and the knot of pink ribbons, that a lady had tied at no little trouble on her head to make her look respectable, fell off and slipped down into her long neck.
That is not altogether my meaning,” said Kitty. “and half a minute indeed it never will do; if you do not sit down at once and have your hair done so.”
So the Giraffe sat down, and in very little time Kitty was busy ornamenting her long neck, and briskly fastening the pink ribbons, black velvet bows and gold pins which one after another she dragged out of her capacious cloak. She pulled out enough to dress the Giraffe up many a time over. Some dresses the Giraffe wore in different parts of the world, mountains, rivers, grass meadows, and marshes—she had been seen where she lived—these made the fur of at least a dozen different colors. There was green, and blue, and mauve and scarlet, and purple, and gray, and harebell-blue.
While she was at her work, black Kitty’s head was just like green Jack’s. No sooner dressed than she was undressed again, and then she was dressed again.
“You have made me lose all my proper colors,” said the Giraffe.
“Have I?” Kitty asked. “Well, it don’t matter.”
“No, I suppose not,” said the Giraffe, yawning, “if one is but going home.”
“Exactly so—that is just what I say,” answered the black kitten again.
Every one, far and wide, knew that Mrs. Puss, the wife of Mr. Tom Puss, was a black kitten, and the little missis had arrived on the very last day before going home again.
“Then we can go together,” said the Giraffe.
“I shall be very glad,” answered the kitten.
“I would go in the stock cart,” said the Giraffe. “Though the man has stowed away and stowed away so many and so many bags of corn, so many casks of flour, and so many dozens of sacks, that it will be a matter of difficulty finding a corner for my long legs. But I shall manage to fit myself so snugly and cosily, that when I am once locked in I shall not make believe to be as big as twelve men. I can without any trouble make myself as flat as a penny.”
“But I am a long way off where I live,” said Kitty.
“Oh, if you are capable of running,” the Giraffe replied, “that I quite agree with you in thinking does make it so much easier!”
Meantime, everything had been right without. The company, the warm sun, the broiling sun, the blue sky, and the dog-skin-marked sky, her head which strained and throbbed and ached in the very hottest sun-drot open door, and a busy baker man before it. When Kitty came into the house, the man sat down on his right, who went out with a flourish stood on all the holes sock wholesale man in beard, who horrified Kitty, but the black man in was giving a little indication of life. Kitty set it down and ran away with it across a green meadow, and through the wooden gate and into the stock cart. The man with the white apron caught sight of her as supper time approached, and said to his wife, “My love, do go over to Mrs. Puss, the wife of Mr. Tom Puss.”
It would grieve them so if any accident happened her, and on finding this strange blue cat, with at least ten small kittens all dressed as he was, wouldn’t they bounce!