TALES BEFORE BEDTIME.

Waikato Times, Volume 100, Issue 16780, 24 April 1926, Page 16 (Supplement)

TALES BEFORE BEDTIME.

THE PROUD PUSSY. Beauty sat on the hassock before the fire looking every inch a prize pussy, as indeed she was, for at the cat show the Mayor had awarded her a fine silver medal. And how proud she had been, and how proud her mistress was of her! But ever since then a change had come over Beauty. Stie had always been such a jolly cat. She would scamper after the children's balls, and chase the leaves in the garden as the wind blew them, and when she was tired she would cuddle'up in her basket and go to sleep. But after the cat show she grew very important and would not play. "What would people say," she thought, "if 1 behaved like an. ordinary cat?" So she sat on her hassock looking very stately and feeling very miserable.

One day her mistress's friend came to lea. "I've brought Wendy to see you," she said, and on I. of her coat peeped a little Persian pussy.

As soon as she saw Beauty she jumped down for a romp. But Beauty looked very disdainful, and soon Wendy grew tired of trying to play with anyone so disagreeable, and jumped on her mistress's lap, curled herself into a woolly ball, and shut her eyes.

Beauty shook herself rather primly, but suddenly she pricked up her ears. "This is the third prize Wendy has won," the strange lady was saying—"two silver medals and a beautiful collar. I am s'o proud of her." "Three prizes!" gasped Beauty. "Fancy that little kitten winning three prizes! And she plays about just like an ordinary pussy!" Then Beauty stepped down from her hassock and purred round her mistress's knee.

At this Wendy opened her eyes and jumped down again; and Ibis time Beauty joined in her frolics, and the pussies had a line time together. "It's much nicer behaving like an ordinary cat," said Beauty when Wendy had gone.