“Just what I say,” interposed Serena with a toss of her head. “Here am I being pointed out as the sister of the fighting cat on Beacon Street.”
“It's fun, isn't it, when you get your blood up?” said Jimmy Dory to me in a low voice.
I shook my head. I had found no fun in fighting.
“I should advise you,” continued my father, “not to let it happen again.”
Well pleased to think that I had got off so cheaply, I yet plucked up courage enough to say meekly, “Suppose she takes my bed again?”
“Choose another,” said my father decidedly. “You are only a kitten. You are not settled in your habits. Now, if it were a question of a cat of my age giving up his bed, it would be another matter.”
“Suppose another cat should take your bed, father,” I inquired humbly, “what would you do?”
He said nothing, but there was a dangerous glitter in his eye as he looked at me.
“I bet you'd wallop him till there wasn't a grain of sense left in him,” exclaimed Jimmy Dory feelingly. Then he ran under a big chair, for my father's paw was uplifted threateningly.
This seemed a good time for me to throw my sensation in among them. “My dear family,” I said impressively, “I have a tremendous piece of news for you. I am to be taken from Boston.”
My mother stopped licking me, and put her head close to mine, as if to listen more attentively.
My father and Serena were immensely impressed, but tried not to show it, while Jimmy Dory took advantage of their abstraction, and crept from under the chair to his former position beside me.
“Well,” I continued, “the Denvilles are going to the country for the summer. I am to be taken with them, also Slyboots, and the dogs, and the birds.”
“What country—where is it?” inquired Jimmy Dory breathlessly.
“To Maine,” I replied, then I was silent, for this was my great stroke.
Maine was the far-distant, fabled country that my father had come from. He had only alluded to it vaguely, for indeed I don't think he remembered much about it, having been only a kitten when he left it. But to us, his kittens, it was a land of dreams, of fair promise, of beauty—in fact, just the kind of place an adventurous little cat would like to visit.
“Oh, cracky!” muttered Jimmy Dory, “I wish I could go too.”