Pluto and the Kitten
THE lanes had turned to streets with pavements before the girls had their next adventure. They were walking along, looking at the gardens, when suddenly they missed Pluto.
“Where can he have gone?” cried Joan. “He was following us just now.”
They turned and stared back along the way they had come.
“Yes; there he is,” cried Wendy. “Look―he’s got his front paws on the top of that gate. What can he be looking at? Pluto! Pluto! Come here, you had dog!”
But Pluto paid no attention to the call; and even when his little mistress whistled loudly, he still would not come.
“We shall have to go back and get him,” said Wendy.
“All right,” said Joan. “It’s funny that he should be naughty now — he’s been so good all day.”
“I can’t think what’s come over him!” declared Wendy. “Oh, look! — run! He’s jumped over the gate now!”
Both girls began to run as fast as they could down the road, and presently came to the house where Pluto had disappeared. Wendy opened the gate quickly, and then stopped short.
“Look at him!” she said indignantly.
Pluto was sitting on the wide doorstep of the house, playing with a tiny white kitten. The kitten was standing on its hind paws, smacking Pluto’s nose with its front paws, and the big dog was shaking his head, and pretending to be mightily afraid of the tiny thing.
“Pluto! Come here!” called Joan, but Pluto took no notice.
“Pluto, you wicked dog, come here!” scolded Wendy, but still the dog went on playing with the kitten, and would not even look at them.
“What shall we do?” asked Joan.
“Oh, look — the kitten’s standing on his head now!” cried Wendy, and she began to giggle.
“We ought to get him away,” said Joan, but she, too, began to laugh as the wee thing danced up and down Pluto’s back, holding its tail high in the air, and then sprang on to his head again.
Pluto seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself, and now shook his head, but gently, so that the kitten did not fall off but slithered gently down his neck and between his front paws. Then the big dog put one paw squarely on the kitten’s back.
“Oh, Pluto―you’ll hurt her!” cried Wendy, and she rushed forward. Joan followed her, and Pluto looked up with a doggy smile, and lifted his paw, showing the kitten to be none the worse. It frolicked about, smacking him with its little white paws, not a bit frightened of him, until he put his paw down on its back again, and held it prisoner.
“Pluto, you’d better not do that,” said Wendy firmly, lifting up his paw and freeing the kitten. Pluto, of course, was not putting his full weight upon it, or he would have made it mew; but Wendy was afraid that he might become too rough, so she would not let him trap the kitten again, but held on to his paw whenever he raised it.
Joan sat clown on the step, and stroked the kitten; but the little thing did not want to play with her — it wanted to play with Pluto! And so it darted away, and then ran out from behind a bush and bit his tail, causing him to jump in the air with a startled yelp. Wendy and Joan laughed delightedly.
“Whatever is all this noise in my front garden?” cried a shrill voice, and both little girls got up hurriedly, and Pluto bounded down the steps, and the kitten disappeared behind the bushes. A thin, gray-haired woman was standing on the top step staring at them. Her eyes looked gray and cold, and her mouth was thin and cross-looking. Both little girls felt rather frightened.
“I’m sorry,” said Wendy. “We were playing with the kitten.”
And how dare you come into my garden and play with my kitten! And whose is that horrid great dog? Take him away — take him away at once! He’ll eat the kitten — he’ll eat Snowflake! Take him away at once!”
“He won’t hurt it,” said Joan hurriedly. “He jumped over the gate to play with it.”
“He’ll kill her! He’ll eat her! Take him away at once or I’ll call the police! “screamed the woman. “Pluto! Go outside!” commanded Wendy.
“And you, too, both of you,” said the woman angrily. She snatched a big walking-stick from just inside the door, and shook it at them. Pluto departed hurriedly, but Wendy tried not to show how frightened she was.
“Please, we only came in to fetch Pluto,” she said. “And we’re sorry we made a noise.”
“You came in to steal Snowflake!” said the woman. “Be off with you, before I call the police!”
“Honestly we didn’t!” cried Joan, deeply shocked that anyone could think such a thing. “We were afraid Pluto might hurt her, that was why we came in.”
“Of course he would have hurt her!” said the angry woman. “He would have killed her, and you would have stolen her — it’s a good thing I came out when I did! I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard all that noise in my front garden: I thought it must be in the road. And then, when I opened the door to tell you to be quiet, I found you actually on my own doorstep! Now be off with you, before I come after you!”
She looked so threatening, waving the walking-stick at them, that both girls thought that it was high time to depart! So they went out, closing the gate behind them, and saw Pluto in front of them, walking sedately down the road.
“He is a wretch!” said Joan indignantly. “He got us into that scrape!”
“Well, it was a lovely little kitten,” said Pluto’s mistress apologetically. “I wish it was mine!”
“So do I!” sighed Joan. “I wish she had let us stay and play with it for a little while.”
“She was a horrid, bad-tempered old thing!” said Wendy. “Fancy thinking we meant to steal her kitten!”
“Fancy being so cross, just because we made a little noise in her garden!” said Joan. “We only laughed — I could make much more noise than that!
“So could I,” agreed Wendy. “Of course, we were calling Pluto, and trying to stop him from squashing Snowflake, and we did laugh rather a lot when she bit his tail. And he yelped, too. Oh, dear, that was funny!” And Wendy began to giggle again, and Joan joined in, and they both sat down on the pavement to have their laugh in comfort.
Meanwhile, Pluto had gone on quite a bit ahead, and now he stopped to see what they were laughing about. When he saw them sitting down, leaning against each other, nearly crying with laughter, he trotted back and stood in front of them with his head on one side.
“Oh, dear, that was funny!” said Joan, and she wiped her eyes. She patted Pluto’s side. “You wicked dog! — you did make us laugh, though!”
Pluto did not say anything, but put his head a little more on one side.
“What’s he got in his mouth?” cried Wendy. “Oh, look, Joan — he’s got something white hanging out of the side of his mouth!”
“Where?” asked Joan, and bent round to look. “Oh, it’s the kitten!” she screamed. “It’s the kitten’s tail!”
“Oh, wicked, wicked, wicked Pluto!” cried Wendy, nearly sobbing with fright. “What have you done to it? Put it down, you wicked dog! Put it down at once.”
Pluto lay down on the pavement and opened his mouth. The little white kitten, looking a bit damp and ruffled, rolled out and at once began boxing him with its tiny paws. The game began all over again, and both girls were tremendously relieved that Snowflake was not harmed.
“When could he have done that?” cried Wendy. “Do you think he just picked it up while that cross old thing was shouting at us?”
“I expect so,” said Joan. “Oh, dear — what a nuisance he is! What shall we do now?”
“I suppose we ought to take it back,” said Wendy slowly.
“Well, we can’t steal it,” said Joan.
“And we can’t leave it alone here — it might get lost or run over,” said Wendy.
“We might take it to the police station,” said Joan doubtfully. “I expect they’d know where it lived. I don’t like the idea of going back to that cross old thing, do you?”
Wendy sat still with her head down, thinking. Pluto and the white kitten were playing happily, but she knew that he could not be allowed to keep his new playmate. She sighed.
“I suppose we ought to take it back, really,” she said. “I expect she’ll be cross, but we’ll have to do it.”
“All right,” said Joan, and she picked up the little kitten. They walked back slowly, with Pluto staring up at his new friend, and the kitten trying to get out of Joan’s arms to continue the game. At last they reached the gate — and then a strange sound met their ears: someone was crying; crying, and calling “Snowflake! Snowflake!” in a most heart-broken way. Joan pushed open the gate and ran forward.
“Here she is!” she called. “She’s all right! Here she is! Our dog stole her, hut she’s quite all right.”
The woman gave a cry and snatched the kitten. She wept over it and petted it, and did not seem to notice the two girls and the dog at all. After standing for a moment, not quite sure what to do next, they turned to go; but then the woman remembered them.
“Thank you for bringing her back,” she said, wiping her eyes. “You evidently didn’t mean to steal her, and I apologize for saying that you did.”
“That’s all right,” smiled Wendy. “She’s such a lovely little kitten, anyone would love to have her. And I’m afraid our dog did steal her! But they’re such friends.”
“Surely she’s terrified at such a big, rough dog?” said the woman.
“She isn’t — not a bit,” said Joan. “She bit his tail. That’s what we were laughing at when we made such a noise.”
“I can hardly believe it,” said the woman, kissing the top of the kitten’s head.
“Do put her down for a minute, and watch them play,” urged Wendy. “They’re so lovely, and Pluto is as gentle as can be.”
The woman hesitated, and then put the kitten down. At once it bounded over to Pluto and tried to climb up one of his forelegs; but it got stuck halfway and stayed there, mewing angrily, until even the woman had to laugh.
“I shouldn’t have believed it,” she said. “Well, I owe you some amends for having been so sharp with you this morning; but, you see, Snowflake is my only friend. Now come and have a glass of milk and a piece of sponge cake.”
Of course the girls thanked her, and accepted the offer at once. As they sat in the cool under a shady tree, watching the big dog and the little kitten playing together, the woman told them that her name was Miss Twiss, and then asked them where they came from and what they were doing so far from home.
This gave them the opportunity they were hoping for, and they began to tell her of the Heavenly Friend who loved her and was only waiting for her love. But to their disappointment she shook her head impatiently.
“Don’t talk that sort of nonsense to me, children!” she said. “I call that real impertinence, little girls of your age speaking like that to me!”
“It’s all in the Bible,” said Wendy, feeling rather frightened, now that Miss Twiss seemed so unfriendly again. “We copied out some texts — do look at them.”
“I haven’t time,” said Miss Twiss. She looked at her watch. “Now, if you children have quite finished, I’ve an appointment in the town. I’m very grateful to you for bringing Snowflake back, and I’m sure you mean well; but that’s no excuse for preaching to me. I never heard of such a thing!”
“We — we only wanted people to know that they’d be happier if they remembered that God loves them,” said Joan, backing towards the gate.
“That’s quite enough! Good-bye. Call your dog,” said Miss Twiss, and she shut the door very firmly.
“I wonder why she wouldn’t listen?” said Wendy, as they went on down the road. “She was quite nice when we brought the kitten back, and then she turned all horrid as soon as we started talking about God. I don’t understand it.”
“I suppose the Holy Spirit hadn’t had time to prepare her heart for the message,” said Joan thoughtfully. “Perhaps when we asked God this morning to send us people who wanted helping, we ought to have asked for the Holy Spirit to begin preparing their hearts right away. Then Miss Twiss would have been ready to listen by the time we came to her. A heart like hers must take an awful lot of preparing. I expect it’s like the stony ground that Jesus talked about.”
“Well, it’s too late now to say a prayer about it,” sighed Wendy. “It’s awfully disappointing, though.” Joan thought for a moment.
“I don’t think it’s too late. We put the seed in the ground when we told Miss Twiss about God loving her and wanting her to love Him, and I’m sure God could still water it and make it grow, even though we forgot to ask for the ground to be prepared first.”
“But we shan’t know if it grows or not,” objected Wendy.
“No, but God will―and we’re doing it for Him,”
Joan pointed out. “Besides, don’t you remember that text we learned at Sunday school, about if we ask God to do things we know He wants, we know He hears us...?”
“And if we know He hears us, we know we have the things we asked for!” finished Wendy triumphantly. “That’s in one of John’s Epistles.”
“Well, we know He wants Miss Twiss to love Him, so He’s sure to answer our prayer.”
“So He is!” Wendy cried. “Let’s ask Him now.”