A LOST DINNER.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 242, 12 October 1929, Page 3 (Supplement)

A LOST DINNER.

. "Stay here and watch for a field mouse? ,, said Pussykin, looking down a little hole in the ground, then surveying her own smooth paws with pride. "I should think I could, indeed! I can catch him, too, if he so much as looks out. My mother needn't think it such a great tiling for her to go oil" to the barn and leave ine to watch for a little while. What a great many charges she did give me! Dear me! Of.course I can watch for a field mouse as well as she." Pussykin blinked her bright eyes, frisked around after her tail once or twice by way of exercise, and looked in at the mouse's door again. "What a time he is coming out! Does lie think a cat wants to wait all day for his dinner? I wish my mother would leave thitf stupid place and go whore we could make our fortunes. There are places where mice are plentiful, too, for 1 heard my mistress read.about one Jast night. Poverty was

the name of it. She said a man who lived in it was a great mice—'micer' she called it —and he was found to have five hundred hid up in gold in an old chest. But I don't see what he wanted to lay them up in gold for when he had so many. Five hundred mice would last us a long time, and we could enjoy ourselves. It would be much better than watching so long for one." Pussykin pranced about once, darted after a pretended mouse in the shrubbery, and altogether kept up so much noise that the real mice were not likely to appear. Just then a hungrylooking grey cat crept through the hedgeand softly approached. "Ah, I thought I heard music; was it your sweet voice, jny dear?" he asked. "Do you sing tenor?" "Oh, yes, I can sing ten or a dozen," replied Pussykin, arching her neck. "I can sing as much as twenty sometimes." "What a lovely coat you have!" said Grayfur, with longing eyes turned towards the mouse's door. "And what beautiful paws! I lived with an old school teacher once who was always telling the children to 'mind their pawses,' and they hadn't any that I considered worth minding. But yours, now, I should think you would want to take care of them and not dig in the dirt too much. Scratching about after field mice doesn't seem fit work for them; it

doesn't, really." "No, I don't like it," answered Pussykin discontentedly; "but my mother left me here to keep watch at this hole till she comes back." "I wouldn't mind watching it for you if you'd like to go away and attend to anything else for a little while," offered Grayfur eagerly, "I'm too old and no good for much else, but I hate to see a talented young creature like you kept at such stupid work." Pussy hesitated. bhe had some misgivings about leaving her post, but just at that moment a brilliant butterfly flew up from a blossom near and spread its bright wings in the sunshine*. Pussykin's round eyes opened wide in surprise and delight. * What wus'that ? Something far better than mice, no doubt. Any common cat could watch for a iield mouse, but would not her mother l>e astonished and rejoice if she should capture this glittering unknown treasure? What a triumph it would be! And without further words Pussykin darted away in pursuit. Overhead, backward and forward flew the butterfly, now alighting on a blossom, now tan-talisingly near on a grass blade, but always up and away before Pussykin could reach him. On followed poor puss, racing and jumping, now scratched by the thorns of the hedge, now plunged into the mud by the eagerness of her chase, but never overtaking; and at last the butterfly fluttered gaily away, far overhead, and disappeared. Tired, draggled, and forlorn, Pussykin made her way back to her post, only to see olq\ Greyfur marching oil' with the field m&use in his mouth, and to wait for her mother, with no prize, but a humiliating story. "Well, well," said the old cat gravely shaking her grey whiskers, "the butterfly wouldn't have been good for anything if you had caught it. Now we must go hungry. That's what comes of neglecting plain work before you and chasing off after something that looks grander. And when you hear any more talk about genius, just you remember this: It's faithfulness and not brilliancy that earns the most dinners in this world."