The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat Part 7

Mrs. Mouse always humored Moses when he was hungry. She knew that he was never fretful after he had eaten a good meal. So her feet twinkled across the cellar floor and she disappeared inside the box.

Not hearing anything from her, Moses Mouse soon grew more impatient than ever.

"Well!" he sang out. "What luck!"

"Potatoes!" came his wife's m.u.f.fled answer, out of a full mouth. "I declare, I forgot to call you."

XVII

THE EAVESDROPPER

FOR ANYBODY that was so faint, Moses Mouse ran to the box of potatoes very spryly. His wife was already inside it, eating.

"I'll have my supper first," he announced, "while you stay outside on the cellar bottom and watch for Miss Snooper."

"I'm just as hungry as you are," his wife objected. "I don't want to wait. You know you'll be a long time at your supper." What she really meant was that Moses Mouse would be sure to overeat.

"Very well!" he said. "But don't blame me if Miss Snooper sneaks up on us."

Thereupon Moses Mouse fell to right greedily. Although there were delicacies that he liked more than raw potatoes, he was hungry enough to enjoy them--and not even ask for salt. And his wife, too, ate almost as heartily as he did. The pale moonlight, streaming through the cellar window, lighted their banquet hall with its ghostly gleams. They enjoyed the cool dampness of the place. They liked its musty smell. And Moses Mouse remarked--between mouthfuls--that they hadn't had such an elegant feast for weeks. "It's quite like old times," he said.

Mrs. Mouse agreed with him. Indeed, they relished their meal so thoroughly that they forgot everything else. And if Moses Mouse hadn't happened to glance up and see two eyes gleaming at him from over the edge of the box he would have had no reason for leaving his meal unfinished. At the moment, his mouth was crammed so full of raw potato that he could scarcely say a word.

"Miss Snooper!" he gasped, all but choking over the words. And he vanished in a twinkling, hoping, of course, that Mrs. Mouse would take the hint and disappear too, but not waiting to see whether she managed to get away safely.

A second later Miss Kitty Cat sprang into the box. She reached out a paw and grabbed at what looked like Mrs. Mouse. But to her great disgust she found her claws clutching nothing more interesting than a small potato, with a little k.n.o.b at one end that looked not unlike a head.

Miss Kitty Cat let go of her prize with a mew of disappointment. She knew that by that time Mr. and Mrs. Mouse had made their escape. And Miss Kitty soon learned how they slipped away. In one corner of the box she found a tiny hole. "Here's where they went!" she exclaimed. "I don't see how I missed seeing it when I first came sniffing around this box."

Though she had lost a midnight supper, Miss Kitty did not feel too sad.

She was too angry for that.

"At last," she cried, "I've found out what old dog Spot wouldn't tell me. The mice are calling me 'Miss Snooper' behind my back!"

In the morning, when Miss Kitty met old dog Spot in the woodshed, she was still feeling peevish. "What are you doing in here?" she snapped.

"Oh, I'm just snooping around to see what I can find for my breakfast,"

he told her with a grin.

Miss Kitty Cat bared her teeth in a snarl.

"_Snooping!_" she cried. "You'd better be careful what you say to me! I heard some mice talking last night."

"Ah!" said old Spot. "Now you know that listeners seldom hear anything good about themselves."

Then he decided, suddenly, that he would look elsewhere for his breakfast.

For Miss Kitty Cat was in a terrible temper.

XVIII

KIDNAPPED

THERE was great rejoicing among all the Mouse family. Pudgy Mr. Moses Mouse had picked up a bit of news that delighted him and his wife and all their many relations. Somebody had stolen Miss Snooper--as the Mouse family always called Miss Kitty Cat! Somebody had taken her away!

Master Meadow Mouse had seen it all; and he had told Moses exactly how it happened. Master Meadow Mouse knew that a wagon had borne Miss Snooper up the road and over the hill. He had watched it disappear, with his own eyes. All those things Moses Mouse repeated as fast as his short breath would permit. He had hurried back home to tell the news as soon as he had heard it. He found, however, that no one cared _how_ Miss Kitty Cat (or Miss Snooper), went, nor where; no one cared who took her; no one cared when. It was enough to know that she was gone. And everybody exclaimed that it was the best news ever--and good riddance to bad rubbish--meaning Miss Kitty Cat.

If it were only true! The Mouse family scarcely dared believe that it was. But when two days pa.s.sed, and Moses Mouse himself had even ventured into the pantry, and the kitchen, and the woodshed, without meeting Miss Kitty, the Mouse family dared decide that she had indeed gone for good.

Meanwhile Miss Kitty Cat was having a most unhappy time. It was true that she had been stolen. A man driving a peddler's wagon up the hill one evening had noticed her as she lay on top of the stone wall, around the turn of the road beyond the farmhouse. "Kitty! Kitty! Kitty!" he called, as he stopped his horse. And reaching behind the seat, he brought out a bit of food, which he held out for her.

Now, it happened that at that very moment Miss Kitty Cat had her mind on food. She had been hoping that a meal would appear at any moment out of a c.h.i.n.k in the wall. And when it was dangled right before her eyes like that she couldn't resist it. She climbed up into the wagon. And the next thing she knew the peddler had clapped her into a basket and fastened the cover. Miss Kitty Cat was a prisoner.

"There, my beauty!" the peddler exclaimed. "I'll take you home with me.

We need a mouser. And I dare say you're a good one. Unless I'm mistaken, you were hunting chipmunks on the wall."

Miss Kitty Cat made no answer. Naturally, it pleased her to be called a beauty. But there were other matters that she didn't like in the least.

Her captor had forgotten to toss the sc.r.a.p of meat into the basket--the bait with which he had caught her. And it was somewhat breathless inside her prison. And Miss Kitty Cat had no idea where the peddler was taking her.

He had clucked to his horse and started him plodding up the hill. Every time a wheel struck a stone Miss Kitty gritted her teeth. She never did enjoy riding in a wagon, anyhow. And this one was not at all comfortable.

"They'll wonder, back home, what's become of me," she thought. "And one thing is certain: everybody will miss me!"

XIX

STRANGE QUARTERS

THE PEDDLER that took Miss Kitty Cat away in his cart drove long into the night. Inside the basket into which her captor had popped her, Miss Kitty kept her wits at work. She knew that there were many twists and turns as they creaked up the hills and rattled down the other side of them. Then there were level stretches where the peddler held his horse to a swinging gait that fast put long miles between them and Farmer Green's place in Pleasant Valley.

"Dear me!" Miss Kitty thought. "What a tramp I'll have getting back home again!" For already she was planning to return to the farm. She didn't care if they did need a good mouser at the stranger's house. They needed one just as much at Farmer Green's.

"If Mrs. Green has to depend on traps to take care of the mice she'll soon be eaten out of house and home," Miss Kitty mused. "The minute that fat Moses Mouse knows I'm gone he'll be as bold as bra.s.s."

At last the wagon left the hard road and pulled up in a dooryard. A dog barked. And Miss Kitty heard voices.