ithfully to work; and in a few weeks he had seventeen. One
morning, when they were all gathered together to be fed, he called Mr.
Connor to look at them.

"Do you think there are enough, sir?" he said.

"Goodness! Jim," cried Mr. Connor, "what did you get so many for? We
shall be overrun."

Jim laughed. "I'm three short yet, sir, of the number you ordered," he
said. "There are only seventeen in that batch."

"Only seventeen! You are joking, Jim," cried Mr. Connor; and he tried
to count; but the cats were in such a scrambling mass, he could not
count them.

"I give it up, Jim," he said at last. "But are there really only
seventeen?"

"That's all, sir, and it takes quite a lot of meat to give them all a
bite of a morning. I think here are enough to begin with, unless you
have set your heart, sir, on having twenty. Mexican has got six kittens,
you know, and they will be big enough to hunt before long. That will
make twenty-three."

"Plenty! plenty!" said Mr. Connor. "Don't get another one. And, Jim," he
added, "wouldn't it be better to feed them at night? Then they will be
hungry the next morning."

"I tried that, sir," said Jim, "but they didn't seem so lively. I don't
give them any more than just enough to whet their appetites. At first
they sat round the door begging for more, half the morning, and I had to
stone them away; now they understand it. In a few minutes, they'll all
be off; and you won't see much of any of them till to-morrow morning.
They are all on hand then, as regular as the sun rises."

"Where do they sleep?" said Mr. Connor.

"In the woodpile, every blessed cat of them," replied Jim. "And there
are squirrels living in there too. It is just a kind of cage, that
woodpile, with its crooks and turns. I saw a squirrel going up, up, in
it the other day; I thought he'd make his way out to the top; I thought
the cats would have cleaned them all out before this time, but they
haven't; I saw one there only yesterday."

Jim had counted too soon on Mexican's kittens. Five of them came to a
sad end. Their mother carried to them, one day, a gopher which she found
lying dead in the road. Poor cat-mother! I suppose she thought to
herself when she saw it lying there, "Oh, how lucky! I sha'n't have to
sit and wait and watch for a gopher this morning. Here is one all ready,
dead!" But that gopher had died of poison which had been put down his
hole; and as soon as the little kittens ate it, they were all take