THE PERSIAN KITTENS AND THEIR FRIENDS
CHAPTER I
TOMPKINS AND MINETTE
I want to tell you about two little Persian kittens called Tompkins and Minette. They were the prettiest you have ever seen with their long fluffy fur, their small ears and little impudent stumpy noses. They looked such innocent darlings, you felt you must kiss them, but like most kittens, they dearly loved a little fun, and as for mischief—well, you shall hear all about them.
Their mother was a very handsome Persian cat Salome, with a proud walk and very dignified ways. She had four kittens, but two had been given away and, to tell the truth, Tompkins and Minette were not altogether sorry. Four kittens and a big fluffy mother take up a lot of room in a basket, and theirs seemed getting to be a tighter fit every day.
“We shan’t be quite so crowded now,” remarked Minette with a yawn after the others had gone away.
“And we shall have all the more to eat,” said Tompkins.
“Our mother will love us more, too,” purred Minette.
“The only bother is: she’ll have more time to wash our faces,” said Tompkins. So when Mary, their tender-hearted little mistress pitied them saying, “Poor darlings! how they will miss the others!” Tompkins and Minette were saying in cat language, “Not a bit of it.”
Besides, two kittens are quite enough for a game, especially such rascals as Tompkins and Minette.
The two kittens arched their backs.
Tompkins loved anything in the shape of a ball, and as there was a good deal of knitting going on in the house there were several balls in sight. The grown-ups, however, were careful with theirs; they knew kittens, but Mary, who was only eight and had just begun to knit, seemed the most hopeful, and it was her ball the kittens watched. Her wool was thick, and the scarf she was making never seemed to get beyond the third row, so there was always a nice fat ball of it.
“It does look nice and soft,” said Minette looking at it.
“And wouldn’t it roll finely,” said Tompkins.
One day Mary tried to knit, but her hands got so sticky that the stitches kept dropping off the needles. She got very hot and cross. “Bother, bother, bother!” she cried at last and flung the knitting down and rushed off into the garden.
The ball of wool was still on the table, but as the knitting was on the floor you may guess it didn’t take those kittens long to pull it down. It bounced off the table and came rolling towards them. It really looked almost like some live animal coming at them, and the two kittens arched their backs and looked quite fierce. When it stopped Tompkins said to Minette, “What a silly to be frightened of a ball of wool,” and Minette answered, “You were frightened, I was only pretending.” But this argument didn’t last long for there was the lovely fluffy ball on the ground waiting to be played with. Tompkins snatched it first and patted it round a chair. Then Minette tried to bite it, and when it rolled away they were like boys after a football, and it was sent all over the room and twisted round each leg of the table.
You see, all cats love pretending even when they are quite babies, so Tompkins and Minette pretended to be grown-up cats chasing a mouse until that bold Tompkins suggested, “It’s really too big for a mouse, let’s call it a rat.” And they grew quite fierce as they hunted it, giving savage miaous and growls just like big cats. But after a little the rat seemed to shrink into a mouse and the mouse into nothing at all for the wool had all come unwound.
It never does to give way to temper, does it? and when Mary returned she was to find it out. She came back and brought her mother to help her with the knitting, and pick up all her stitches for her. They found two tired little kittens with sweet faces and big innocent eyes, and the wool in a perfectly hopeless tangle all over the room.
“What did Mary’s mother say?” you ask. I am afraid she laughed. I know she didn’t blame the kittens, and Mary had to get her wool out of a tangle and wind it up herself. Not for very long though, because when her mother thought she had suffered enough for her temper and carelessness she helped her and they soon got it finished. Mary gave the kittens a good scolding, calling them “nasty, mean mischievous little things.”