e. Malta cried to get upstairs, Davy
scampered through the hall, and Bella hurried after him. If I was
outdoors I ran in the house, and Jim got on a box and looked through the
window.

Davy's place was on Miss Laura's shoulder, his pink nose run in the
curls at the back of her neck. I sat under the piano beside Malta and
Bella, and we never stirred till the music was over; then we went
quietly away.

Malta was a beautiful cat--there was no doubt about it. While I was with
Jenkins I thought cats were vermin, like rats, and I chased them every
chance I got. Mrs, Jenkins had a cat, a gaunt, long-legged, yellow
creature, that ran whenever we looked at it.

Malta had been so kindly treated that she never ran from any one, except
from strange dogs. She knew they would be likely to hurt her. If they
came upon her suddenly, she faced them, and she was a pretty good
fighter when she was put to it. I once saw her having a brush with a big
mastiff that lived a few blocks from us, and giving him a good fright,
which just served him right.

I was shut up in the parlor. Some one had closed the door, and I could
not get out. I was watching Malta from the window, as she daintily
picked her way across the muddy street. She was such a soft, pretty,
amiable-looking cat. She didn't look that way, though, when the mastiff
rushed out of the alleyway at her.

She sprang back and glared at him like a little, fierce tiger. Her tail
was enormous. Her eyes were like balls of fire, and she was spitting and
snarling, as if to say, "If you touch me, I'll tear you to pieces!"

The dog, big as he was, did not dare attack her. He walked around and
around, like a great clumsy elephant, and she turned her small body as
he turned his, and kept up a dreadful hissing and spitting. Suddenly I
saw a Spitz dog hurrying down the street. He was going to help the
mastiff, and Malta would be badly hurt. I had barked and no one had come
to let me out, so I sprang through the window.

Just then there was a change. Malta had seen the second dog, and she
knew she must get rid of the mastiff. With an agile bound she sprang on
his back, dug her sharp claws in, till he put his tail between his legs
and ran up the street, howling with pain. She rode a little way, then
sprang off and ran up the lane to the stable.

I was very angry and wanted to fight something, so I pitched into the
Spitz dog. He was a snarly, cross-grained creature, no friend to Jim and
me, and