A Kitten's Day rE kitten came to town in a motor.
Ile found himself in a high Georgian house in a town square. Like Nelson, he had never met fear, so he felt only some surprise. Perhaps he missed his suburban home. Perhaps he missed his mother. Again, perhaps she missed him—or did she only feel peace, now that one more kitten had vanished ?
It is a day full of importance to a kitten, the day that he enters his life's home. He was on approbation, but he did not know it. He was smooth and small and black, with an impertinent white nose and white gloves and boots. His white whiskers bristled and his round eyes expressed interest, surprise, and perfect self-confidence. He sat down to his saucer of milk in a neat and competent style, purring loudly. He registered the fact that milk occurred under the kitchen table. Someone took him to the small town garden. He sat on a stone, looking at the smoky walls. He mapped it out—the thorn tree where he would climb, the wall that would one day know his roving feet. A seagull flew over his head. He blinked at it, fascinated by the far-away Wings, the high freedom of this unknown bird. Then, with ears laid back, he rushed at the tree and climbed up it. He was a little surprised at his own skill. A robin mocked him from a twig. At once the kitten became a panther, sinuous creature thirsting for blood. His jaws chattered, his tail lashed. But the robin chuckled at him, flirting a careless tail.
• The kitten fled along the paved path, his tail stiff as a standard. He entered the house and began to rove about. He wanted to look through the front door, the more so because many hands and feet prevented him. - Once or twice he slipped through his guards and peeped into that queer world of town. He saw large dogs running on the pavements. He saw pigeons feeding and he witched an old tabby Tom slink over the road into that club of all tom-cats—the garden of the Square. Then the door was shut in the kitten's face.
He rushed up the long staircase. He had never known ao many steps—fifty-eight of them. He followed a pair of shoes and a voice that spoke to him in a way that he knew was friendly. As he came downstairs he invented for himself, or thought he did, the timeless game of Peep Bo. He thrust his head between the balusters and patted at the head beneath him, the head that belonged to the friendly voice. This evoked response and he became so excited that his eyes blazed and he spat as even human children will in a mimic battle.
Left to himself for a time, he explored the kitchen, but there the warm hearth was invaded by feet that threatened his sleep. He ran upstairs to an untidy room where large chairs offered cover and the hearthrug was peaceful. He abandoned himself to sleep, his hind paws to his nose. Now and then his little form threw itself into some new attitude, exquisitely graceful and humorous. Sometimes be was on his back, curved round a footstool, a sinister half-smile on his widened mouth and in his half-open eyes.
With nightfall his spirits rose. He felt fierce, fey, possessed of wild, jungle instincts. He fancied himself a bold robber kitten and found a den under the largest easy-chair. From the shadow he dashed fiercely at any hands and feet he saw in the light of fire and reiiding- &nip. He bit and scratched in a sort of frenzy, imagining hiinself a beast of prey, then darted back to his lair.
Sometimes, in full and frenzied onrush, the inconsequence of cathood spoiled a "dramatic moment and he would sit down to lick a hind leg, mindful of a hint from his well-nigh forgotten mother. He became conscious of laws, strange laws that fought against nature. He was thrust into outer cold and darkness and meowed wistfully at a dosed door.
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