CHAPTER VII
BUTTON'S DAY WITH BELLA
ellie took Button up in her arms and started over to see her best friend, Kittie Mead. Kittie owned a beautiful white Angora cat named Bella, who always wore a tiny gold bell tied around her neck with a blue ribbon.
When Nellie was within calling distance of Kittie's house, she began to call, "Oh, Kittie, bring your doll carriage here quick! Hurry, hurry, for this cat is getting heavy!"
Nellie had carried Button in her arms most of the way, as she was afraid that he would run away if she trusted him to follow her. Now Button was no lightweight, you must remember, and the farther she carried him, the heavier he became and the more he slipped through her arms. So when she called to Kittie most of Button's long body was dangling around her legs, while she still held on to his neck in such a manner that the poor cat was nearly strangled.
"Oh, Kittie, don't you hear me? Come, come, come! I can't carry this cat another minute!"
Luckily for Button, Kittie happened to be playing in the front yard with her doll and had just put Annabella, her favorite doll, to sleep in the doll carriage. So when she heard Nellie calling her, she jerked the sleeping Annabella out of the carriage so quickly it nearly disjointed her and tossed her on the grass while she started on a dead run down the garden path to meet the calling Nellie.
When Kittie came up, Nellie let go of Button and he dropped to the ground and lay like dead for a few minutes. Indeed, the poor cat was almost choked to death. Before he could recover and jump up and shake himself together enough to run away, Nellie had picked him up again and plumped him down in the doll carriage and the two girls began to talk as they wheeled the carriage toward the house. Nellie was relating to Kittie all that had happened since she saw her last, including the coming to her house of the goat, dog and cat, while Kittie talked so fast Nellie could not answer one question before she had asked two or three more. But neither of them noticed as all they wished was to talk, not to listen, anyway.
Button found the soft pillow in the doll carriage very comfortable and the motion made him sleepy, so he curled himself up a little tighter and went sound asleep. Had he known what they were planning to do, he never would have risked that, but would have jumped out and ran away. For these two little girls were planning to dress him up in doll clothes and play baby with him! Now that was one thing the dignified, independent Button could not stand. He had been used to play baby when a young cat, and he hated it. He had also made a vow that the very next person who tried to dress him up in doll clothes or any other clothes would be scratched for their pains.
All the way up the garden path the two girls discussed how they would dress him as well as what they would put on Bella. Button had been so sound asleep he had not heard a word. When the children left him asleep in the carriage to go after the clothes, he awoke and looking around spied a beautiful big cat with gray eyes looking down at him from the limb of a tree directly over his head.
"How do you do, Miss Beauty?" meowed Button when he had both eyes open and his thoughts collected enough to speak.
"I am pretty well. How are you, Mr. Impertinence?" Bella meowed back, for as you have guessed, this beautiful cat was none other than Kittie's pet, the belle of all the cats in that neighborhood, Miss Bella Angora Mead, to give you her full name.
"Come down and rest on this soft cushion beside me where we can talk without my having to crane my neck to look at you," Button invited.
"No, I can't. You better come up here unless you want to be tortured by being buttoned into a pink gingham doll dress and having a bonnet tied on your head. I heard the girls talking over what they were going to do to you and me, so I ran up here where they could not get at me. They will never think to look up here but will hunt all over the barn and wood piles for us, and perhaps even go down cellar, but look up a tree they never will."
"If that is what is about to happen, I surely will join you, as I object to being dressed up and having my fur turned the wrong way and having my ribs crushed by being buttoned into a tight dress."
"Well, if you are coming, hurry along for I hear them in the hall now and in another minute it will be too late for you to get up in the tree without them seeing you."
Button had barely climbed up in the tree and nicely settled beside Bella when the girls came running out of the house with their arms full of doll clothes. They went straight to the doll carriage, expecting of course to find Button asleep there.
"Oh!" exclaimed Nellie when she reached the carriage and found no Button. "He has run away!"
"He can't have gone far," replied Kittie. "Let's look for him. Perhaps he saw Bella and is getting acquainted with her. I'll call her and see."
So the two little girls began to call, "Bella, Bella! Sweetheart, where are you? Come here! Bella, Bella! Kittie, kittie, kittie!" as they walked around the yard and then behind the house looking under every bush and shrub. And all this time the two cats sat and grinned at them and enjoyed their discomfort very much.
After looking for the cats everywhere, the girls came back to thee front of the house and sat down by the empty doll carriage, scolding and telling each other what they would do when they laid hands on those two cats again. Presently one of the little girls threw herself back on the grass, her head on her hands, too angry to talk more. Lo and behold! What did she see but those two cats she had been talking about sitting quietly side by side on a limb over her head looking down on her. Yes, and from the expression on their faces she knew they were laughing at her!
"Nellie, Nellie, look up in the tree over your head and see what you will see!"
"Oh, you naughty, miserable cats! Come right straight down out of that tree this minute!"
"Oh, yes, we will be right down when we get good and ready," meowed Button.
"We are very comfortable up here, so you two better play with your dolls as we intend to spend the rest of the day up here," meowed Bella.
"You miserable cats, you! If I had hold of you, I'd pull your tails, so I would!" called Nellie.
"Better wait until you do get hold of us before you tell what you will do to us," meowed back Button.
"Let us throw green apples up at them and make them come down," suggested Kittie.
"All right. Let's do!"
"They make me laugh," said Button. "Neither one of them could hit the side of a barn even if they aimed at it. To try to hit us up here is perfectly ridiculous."
"I bet they hit themselves," meowed Bella. "Here they come with their aprons full of apples."
The girls began to throw the apples up in the tree but they could not even throw high enough to hit the limb on which the cats sat. And presently an apple came down and hit Kittie on the head.
"There! Didn't I tell you they would hit themselves?" said Bella.
Just then Nellie let out a cry and the cats laughed so they nearly fell off the limb for Kittie in her endeavor to throw high enough had whirled half way around and as she turned the apple flew out of her hand before she was ready and it hit Nellie squarely in the back.
"Let's not try to hit them any more," proposed Nellie wisely.
"I know what we can do. We'll go to the orchard and get the long ladder they are using to pick the cherries, and we'll put it up against the tree and then climb up after them."
"All right. Let's do!" again agreed Nellie.
Away ran the girls to the orchard and in about ten minutes the cats saw them tugging away at a long ladder. At last they reached the tree and after many mishaps succeeded in standing it up against the trunk. But what was their disappointment to find that it only reached half way up the tall tree and came nowhere near the limb on which the cats sat.
"I have it!" cried Nellie. "Let's get the hose and turn it on them. That will bring them down in a jiffy!"
Off ran the girls once again, the hose was brought and adjusted and the water turned on. But another disappointment awaited them. The force was not sufficient to throw the water far enough to reach the cats.
"Drat those cats!" exclaimed Kittie. "I am getting so mad I just must lay hands on them or explode!"
"I guess you will have to blow up then, or fly up to reach them," said Nellie. "The saucy things! Just see how they sit there and purr with contentment! Yes, I know they are laughing at us all the time!"
"I have it!" called out Kittie. "Give me the hose. I'll carry it up the ladder as far as it will reach and then I know it will be long enough for the stream to hit them. Then, my dear cats, we will see who laughs last! Nellie, turn the water off until I climb up and when I give the word turn it on again."
Up the ladder climbed Kittie, and sure enough when Nellie turned the water on it sent a shower that hit Button and nearly knocked him off the limb, while it also drenched Bella to the skin. She ran along the limb and tried to climb higher, but when Kittie saw what she was going to do, she turned the stream full on her and made her climb down the tree instead of going up. Then she soused Button from the tip of his nose to the end of his tail, and chased him down the same way. But when he got halfway down, he jumped and ran for home while Bella ran toward the barn and hid under it. Thus ended Button's adventure, as he related it to Stubby and Billy.
