Tabby's Travels

CHAPTER FIRST.

TABBY'S ESCAPE.

I SUPPOSE a pleasanter kitchen was hardly ever seen than the one in which my story commences. It was not one of those under-ground places, with little square windows close to the low ceiling, and on a level with the street, or shut in by a grim area-wall, in which so many girls spend all their working time, without being able to see so much as a square foot of sky, except by twisting their heads half off their shoulders. No, it was a high, light room, with two large windows, which let in so much light and air that the geraniums and verbenas on the window seats flourished as if they had been in a green-house; and looking out upon a square yard, small to be sure, but kept so nicely, and in summer so filled with flowers that it was a pleasure to look into it. There were no flowers or other growing things to be seen, however, at the time our story commences, for the ground was frozen hard, and covered with a light snow, which a cold wind was driving here and there, and twirling high up into the air, till the flakes caught the sunbeams and glittered like showers of diamonds.

It might be cold out of doors, but it was warm enough in the kitchen, where a good fire was burning in the stove, making the tea-kettle send out clouds of steam, and the cover of the boiler pop up and down as if there were something alive under it which wanted to get out. Dorothy the cook, and Anne the housemaid, had gone into the dining-room to family prayers, and three cats—that is to say, a cat and two kittens—were the only inmates of the kitchen.

The old cat was sitting up in Dorothy's patchwork cushioned chair, washing her face very demurely and sedately, at the same time keeping her eye on the kittens, that they might not get into any mischief, and be whipped by the cook when she came down stairs—an event which, I am sorry to say, had happened more than once. The two kittens, whose names were Tody and Tabby, were frolicking round the floor, chasing their own and each other's tails, and twisting round and over the rungs of the chairs, till any one might have thought they would certainly have broken their necks. Tody was black and white. His breast, paws, and the tips of his ears and tail were as white as snow, while all the rest of his body was jet black, and shone like satin. He was a very pretty kitten indeed, but not so pretty as Tabby, who was a true tortoise-shell. Her face and paws were also white, but the rest of her body was curiously mottled with yellow, black, and grey, disposed in spots and stripes, while her tail was regularly ringed with black and yellow down to the tip, which was white. She was a very beautiful kitten indeed, but not so neat as Tody, for her fore-paws were blackened, and there was a great black mark on the side of her face.

"Miaw!" said Tody presently. "Don't bite so hard, Tabby, you hurt me!"

"You always think you are killed, if any one touches you," said Tabby, pettishly. "You have bitten me a great deal harder than that many a time, and I did not mew at all. However, I am not going to play with you if you are going to quarrel all the time." And with these words, Tabby went and sat down by the fire in a very dignified manner.

Tody looked rather sorry, but he did not say anything. He got up in the chair, by the side of his mother, and began licking her face and head, now and then playfully biting her ears and pulling her tail.

"I should think mother could wash her own face without any of Tody's help," said Tabby, after watching them a few minutes discontentedly.

"I should think mother could govern her own kittens without any of Tabby's help," returned the old cat good-naturedly, straightening herself up in the chair, and rolling Tody over with her paw. "And, by the way, talking of washing, what makes your paws so black?"

"I don't know, I am sure," said Tabby, hastily sitting down, and folding her paws under her. "I must have got them dirty playing about the fire, I suppose."

The old cat jumped down from the chair, and going up to Tabby, pulled her paws from under her breast, looked at them, smelt them, and then said, in a tone of grave displeasure: "Tabby, you have been playing among the coals again!"

Tabby did not attempt to deny it. She hung down her head, and looked very much ashamed.

"You have been playing in the coal-box again, though you know I forbade you to go near it," pursued her mother, very seriously; "and worse than that, you have been running over the cook's baskets, and have left the marks of your black paws upon her clean napkins, which were folded and sprinkled, ready for ironing. I should not wonder if she should whip you, and make you go without your breakfast, and I should not blame her if she did.

"I really don't know what will become of you, Tabby, if you are such a naughty kitten. Only the day before yesterday you pulled the raw turkey off on the floor, and ate half of its neck. And last Sunday morning you jumped upon the breakfast table, and turned a cup of coffee all over the clean cloth. You will surely come to a bad end, my daughter, if you are so heedless and disobedient. Once I knew of a kitten who would persist in getting on the table and into the pantry, and one day the coachman tied her in a bag, with a stone round her neck, and threw her off the railway-bridge. The river was very high, and she was carried over the falls and drowned."

At the thought of his dear little sister going over the falls in a bag with a stone tied round her neck, Tody turned quite cold all over. He jumped down from the chair where he had been sitting, and came to his mother.