er in such tender
infancy that we could not teach him to lap milk or even suck it from
the finger. Finally he solved the problem himself by tumbling into the
saucer and, when he was lifted out, licking his feet with relish. For
days he insisted on the saucer promenade, taking nourishment only by
applying his wayward little tongue to each foot in turn. From a
roly-poly innocent, wondering at the world out of the roundest of blue
eyes, he grew, with the astonishing speed of kittenhood, into a
profligate young ruffian, limping home from one disreputable fight
after another with torn ears and gashed neck and thighs. One wound
deepened into a festering, offensive sore, beyond the cure of our
domestic surgery, and as veterinaries and animal hospitals were then
foreign to our experience, a brother, in my absence, was bidden take
the cat down to the river and drown him. Very slowly the executioner, a
stout bag in his hand, made his way to the water's edge, Trip careering
about his feet and playing with the fatal string. The bag was weighted
with stones and the cat was ordered to enter the open mouth. Trip
sniffed at it suspiciously, did not like the game, but looked up
trustfully into the familiar face and obeyed. The boy who flung that
bag out into the current and came running home as if nine reproachful
little ghosts were at his heels could never be brought to drown a cat
again.

Later on, there was a graceful mite, Argon, whom I can still see
jumping after moths in the moonlight; but before the moth-season was
over, there came a night whose darkness never rendered him up. Strayed
or stolen, killed, chased, enchanted, it was not for us to know.

Years after, our home rejoiced for a few brief weeks in the charms of
Frisky Fuzzy, a peculiarly affectionate, confiding kitty, who met a
cruel death by the teeth of the rector's terrier. This young priest was
a holy man in general, but he had no regard for the sixth commandment
as broken by his dog. All the neighborhood was aroused, for one beloved
puss after another had been left torn and bleeding by that hypocritical
little brute, who always kept an eye out for fresh victims as he
trotted sedately at his master's heels, making pastoral calls. When at
last vengeance found him out and the dog lay poisoned on the parsonage
steps, the rector's grief was so sincere that my anger melted in
sympathy. There had been a coolness between us since Frisky Fuzzy's
fate, but on the next occasio