Little Folks (December 1884) Part 15

[Ill.u.s.tration: "HE HAD A PAPER IN HIS HAND" (_p. 361_).]

VI.

Now, all this time a cat was lying comfortably upon a chair in the house that was running away.

The chair was covered with red velvet, and there was a bright fire in the room, that sparkled and glowed and made all the furniture in it shine.

The cat looked up and then she purred, saying--

"Till there is a place Where gamekeepers are not, My house shall not stay In any spot."

And the house with the cat in it went on and on, until it came to a far-off place where there were no houses and no gamekeepers, and no fear of traps. Then it stopped with such a jerk that the front door flew open, and a woolly dog, with a red morocco collar and very stiff legs, came in, crying out--

"She is coming, she is coming, She will like a cup of tea.

She must be quite hot with running, She is coming after me."

"Who is _she_?" asked the cat.

Then said the dog--

"Little Nan, she ate the porridge, And she grew quite tall, But when she has reached your cottage She will be quite small."

"Why?" asked the cat.

"Because the effect of the porridge only lasts whilst she is running."

"Oh!" responded the cat.

Upon which Nan herself came running in, and she was no larger than when her mother was kneeling beside her in the garden.

"O my dear, dearest, darling, little p.u.s.s.y-cat! I have found you again, and we will live together always, and you will let me play with you. I am so glad to see you again."

The cat purred and rubbed her head against Nan, as much as to say "Yes."

And the woolly dog barked for joy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'THERE ARE TWO GIRLS RUNNING,' SAID ULICK" (_p. 363_).]

So Nan had won the race.

Nan looked out of the window and nodded to Ulick, who was panting in the distance. She also held up the cat for him to see.

There was no longer any need for Ulick to run, for everything round him was shouting--

"Nan has won the race!"

Yes, he knew that she had, and he wept bitterly and went home again.

Perhaps if he had also eaten the porridge he might have outstripped Nan.

No one ever saw the house again, though once it returned to the spot upon which it had stood near Ulick's home. It did not stay long there, only just long enough for Nan's mother to pack up her clothes and join her little girl, who was too small to live by herself.

Then the front door shut quite tightly, and the house fled away faster than ever, and never stopped until it had reached a beautiful island far, far away in the middle of the sea. There it paused, for no gamekeepers, or traps, or cruel boys were to be found there. And in the house on the beautiful island Nan and her mother, and the cat, and the toy dog lived peacefully and happily for ever and ever.

JULIA G.o.dDARD.

ETHEL'S PINK PLANT;

AND WHAT HAPPENED TO IT.

Ethel was always trying to write poetry, but it was so hard to find rhymes. When the cat killed the big pink begonia, she did manage to find a rhyme; and she thought the epitaph looked beautiful printed in violet ink on a piece of paper--

"Here my poor begonia lies.

Drop a tear and wipe your eyes."

These were the only verses Ethel ever made. Perhaps we are beginning near the end of the story. You may want to know what the big pink begonia was, and how the cat killed it.

The beginning of this sad story was a red ribbon bow with a kitten behind it: the bow was so big and the cat was so little, that the ribbon looked much more important than the kitten that wore it. Ethel called the kitten Kafoozalum: Tom talked of the bow with the cat behind it; to which Ethel retorted: "The ribbon becomes her very much, Tom.

Boys have no taste."

Early in the summer--about the time that the kitten was a weak little squeaker in a basket of straw with the cat of the house next door--Ethel was given a plant as a present. There had never before been a begonia in her mother's greenhouse; and Ethel knew very little about it, except that any rough treatment would kill it. The begonia grew very fast. It became a tall plant, with beautiful large reddish-veined leaves, and it was covered with a cloud of pink blossoms.

One day Ethel ran out of the conservatory in a hurry and left the door open; and Kafoozalum--the red bow with the kitten behind it--ran into the conservatory in a hurry, as she had never had the chance before.

Tom, coming home from school, went, watering-pot in hand, to attend to his geranium-slips; he found the door open, and the kitten nearly on its head in frantic attempts to roll in the begonia pot.

A few weeks after, all the pink bloom was gone. The begonia, branch and leaf, died away. There was nothing left but a dry brown stump.

"It is dead!" cried Ethel. "A knock or a rub kills the young shoots.

Mrs. Smith told me so. Kafoozalum rubbed and knocked it enough to kill it all."

"Tears! tears for the begonia!" laughed Tom. "Why, Ethel, I thought nothing but the death of Kafoozalum would reduce you to tears."

"Ah! Tom, but you don't know how fond I was of that plant. It was the only one I ever had. I feel almost as if it was _really alive_ once, and dead now! I shall make it a grave and bury it."

Tom seemed very much amused at this idea--because the begonia was buried already in its own pot--and Ethel could not bear his making fun about it. So she ran away to her mother's room, with tears in her eyes.

"Mother, how do you spell 'begonia'?"

"Why, dear? who are you writing to?"

"My poor begonia is quite dead," sobbed Ethel, with a gulp of grief. "I want to write its epitaph."

"You mustn't cry about it now, Ethel dear. It could not feel. I shall get you another next summer."