OCTOBER 14: A Naughty Cat
“Jota, the cat,” said daddy, “was always complaining. First Jota would leave her milk as if she didn’t like it at all and then she would upset her little dish filled with bacon.
“There was really nothing in the world the matter with Jota except that she had been spoiled.
“‘I have some nice milk for you to-day,’ said the cook. ‘It has just come and it is good and warm.’
“Now Jota was thinking of the mice she had heard scampering in the cellar. She didn’t want the milk. She would much rather have mice. And when cook lifted her up and carried her to the corner of the kitchen where she had put the bowl of milk, Jota scratched as well as snarled.
“Oh, how badly the cook did feel! Not because the scratch was such a bad one. No, that amounted to very little, but she felt so hurt that Jota could have scratched her. She had always been so good to Jota.
“Jota hurried to the cellar. Yes, now she smelt the mice! Ah, what a scamper she would have. She did not want milk. No, she would have mice. She sprang for a mouse. What! It had vanished. Then she tried for another as it was hurrying across the floor. She missed the second one. She tried to catch three others and each time she missed them.
“Jota for once in her life was thoroughly and absolutely ashamed of herself. She had not been able to catch the mice and she had once been famous for her powers as a mouse catcher.
“Yes, she had grown lazy and useless. She had been stupid too. That was all because she had not been unselfish and nice, but had been horrid to every one. And it had spoiled her. She could not catch mice!
“Jota was a very sad cat as she slowly climbed the cellar stairs. She went back into the kitchen and there she drank the milk she had been so rude and horrid about before.
“‘Oh, you were thirsty after all,’ said the kind cook. Jota purred and jumped into the cook’s lap, trying to say:
“‘I know I have been horrid but please forgive me now.’”