Page:Stories and story-telling (1915).djvu/200

 took the cat. He held her with both hands out before him and started straight for home. On the way a mouse scurried across his path and the cat leaped from his hands; but Jack still held them out, ready for her when she should come back, and kept on toward home.

When he reached home his mother looked at his hands and said, "What have you in your hands, Jack?"

"I had a cat, mother," said he, "a good mouser, but she made after a mouse and hasn't come back yet."

"Get out of my sight," cried his mother, "before I lose my patience and do something I might be sorry for. Haven't you an atom of sense about you at all, at all, at all? Wouldn't a child know that's no way to bring home a live cat? The safest thing to do with a cat is to tie a string around her neck, put her on the ground, and draw her home after you."

"Say no more about it, sweet mother," cried Jack, bawling outright; "that's what I'll do the very next time." So his mother wouldn't see him starve that night.

Well, the very next day Jack hired out to a butcher, and got for his day's labor a splendid shoulder of mutton for Sunday's dinner, for this was Saturday. Jack took the mutton, tied a string around it, put it on the ground, and dragged it home