A Quarrelsome Little Dog and a Cross Little Cat

From “Bow-Wow and Mew-Mew”

“GET out of the way,” said a little fat dog, as he came near the fire.

“I shall not get out of your way,” said the white puss, who had got the best place first. “Do you keep out of my way.”

“You are as bad a cat as ever I saw!” cried the dog in a rage.

The dog’s name was Bow-Wow.

“I am not half so bad a cat as you are a dog,” said Mew-Mew.

Bow-Wow and Mew-Mew were a very young dog and cat. They did not know how to be good. No one had told them. They did not use kind words the one to the other. They led a sad life and were cross all day long. Bow-Wow said that Mew-Mew was idle, vain, and cross, and of no use to any one. And Mew-Mew said of Bow-Wow that he was only fit to bark, that he was all for himself, and ever in the way. Thus they used to go on all day. It was quite a treat when they fell asleep. That was the only time that there was peace with them.

Bow-Wow and Mew-Mew did not love each other. But you must know that they did not find good in any one thing. All was bad alike to them. They did not like the house they lived in; they did not like the lady they lived with; nor the food they had to eat. They said they did not have what it was good for them to eat or to drink. Bow-Wow wanted other little dogs about the place, so that he could have a good game of play. Mew-Mew sat with her eyes half-shut for hours, to think what a shame it was no other cat ever came to see her.

“Now if I had a real home,” Mew-Mew would say, “I would have a lot of young ones in it. I would have a fire in every room, a cup of warm milk on each floor; and all the meat in the house should be cut up into little bits. And I would kill Bow-Wow and all the dogs that came near my house.”

Mew-Mew would think of such a life till she grew quite glad; she would begin to purr, and so sing herself off to sleep.

“Did ever any one see such a cat?” Bow-Wow said, when Mew-Mew acted in this way. “She sings as if she were out of her wits. I have seen much in my life”—he was quite young—“but I have never seen so silly a cat as Mew-Mew is.”

Then he would go to Mew-Mew and give her a blow on the side of her head to wake her up. Mew-Mew would spring up like a shot. And if Bow-Wow did not take to his heels with all his might, which he most often did, Mew-Mew would use her paws in such a way as to make him wish he had left her to have her sleep out.

Contents -Volume INDEX -AUTHOR INDEX -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD