T

HE long-promised yellow kitten was held up to me in the shaking hands of the old grandmother as I sat on my horse before the

farm-house door.

"He ain't got no tail," she quavered apologetically. "Rabbit-cat, we call him. Awful' cunnin'. Won't scratch ye, will he?"

Tucking the fluffy mite inside the breast of my coat, I started cautiously down the hill, mindful of the antics of another small pussy once carried like this who had spit and clawed all the way home. The fuzzy head under my chin turned slightly now and then, gazing about with baby wonder; otherwise the rabbit-kitten never moved. He hung on tightly when my horse trotted or cantered, staring with a somewhat heightened intensity in his round, blue eyes; but the warm little body did not stir.

"You 're an angel, Bobby," I murmured, dismounting at our own farmhouse. "Come in and meet your Uncle Tipey."

Tipey, otherwise Stripes, a great gray cat, was sitting placidly in the kitchen. He had been born on the farm, and though accustomed to his solitary state, was still a courteous creature and tolerant of other animals. If he met even a hen on the path to the barn, he would raise his tail in greeting, and turn out to let the lady pass! So I set the little new-comer confidently down upon the floor. At once an awful change shot through Tipey's sea-green eyes; he crouched, glaring hate at the yellow baby, then with a lashing tail stalked to the door and disappeared.

The next morning, however, as I stepped into the kitchen, there again, to my amazement, sat the big cat, blandly washing a milky mouth with a strong, white forearm, while behind him the

little rabbit-kitten hopped innocently about, actually patting the long and hitherto sacred tail. I went softly out, rejoiced at this transformation, and feeling sure that it must be due in part to small Bobby's unlikeness to his race. Had he been mere undiluted kitten, his Uncle Tipey, a tenacious beast, and evidently jealous of cat solitude on the farm, might not have endured the little fellow near him for months.

And Bobby continued to be engagingly different from his kind. His build was queer, being stubby and compact, with peggy fore legs and long, ungainly hind heels that lifted him higher in the rear than in front. His back line was straight, with no cat curves or slinkings, and at its end stood up a puffball of a stub, a fluffy, round thing like a cottontail's, carried high and triumphantly above his back. It was an ill moment indeed that made our Bobby's tail droop. As he trotted stubbedly along on those peggy legs, he had the look of a plucky terrier; in fact, we could never decide whether he was more like a dog or a rabbit, for he developed noticeably doggish ways, answering his name instantly, and coming at a cordial trot if one snapped one's fingers at him.

"Boo-boo!" some one would call (his name had soon dwindled to this absurdity), and he would promptly look up, though there was little to be read in his pale, now lemon-colored eyes, monotonous and unemotional as a rabbit's. If he was absorbed in some mischief and did not immediately obey, "Boo-Boo!" was roared at him irately, and he came at once. When one shouted louder than usual, he often remarked, "Pr-oo?" inquiringly, and with every sign of pleasure as he trotted across the floor, although any ordinary feline would have fled in fright if thus addressed.

On summer mornings, as I opened the porch door to the fresh air and the

mountain view, a tight, orange-colored ball would uncurl from the mat into a profound stretch.

"Morning, Boo!"

"Pr-oo?" he would respond, putting his paws as far up on one's skirt as he could, and hinting for a shoulder. The little fellow had a passion for being carried. Much as he liked to go to the barn, he would wait patiently for a ride, and whoever went out, no matter how laden with milk-pails or calf-feed, was usually decorated with a yellow bunch on one shoulder. Boo-boo enjoyed the barn, we concluded, for no particular occupation that he found there; he did not care especially for hunting or for mice per se, though I occasionally saw him on the path playing tolerantly with a pitiful little baby mouse not an inch long, being too indolent and easy-going, evidently, to attempt the capture of adults. Uncle Tipey, on the other hand, did barn duty devotedly, spending much of his time crouched on a high beam, staring intently into the hay. I have even seen him fish casually down a crevice with a masterful forearm and bring up a victim on one claw, such was his scornful prowess.

But Boo-boo had none of these cruder ambitions. In his consistently doggish way, he liked society and variety. He liked interfering in human pursuits: posing with bland assurance on the round of a ladder just as some one was backing embarrassedly down with a huge forkful of hay; winding fervidly around one's ankles while one was suspended delicately over the edge of a deep grain-bin; and once, as I sat laboriously milking my pet cow, approaching from the rear and beginning to sharpen his claws on my back.

"Boo-boo!" I exploded as loudly as I dared without frightening the cow, which happened to be in an ideally peaceful frame of mind and was "letting down milk" wonderfully. Boo stopped his sharpening and stood there on his hind legs, his claws still sunk in my coat, peering round at me and purring sweetly, his little round face so pleasant, so unmoved! What was one to do with such an unimpressible little pest of a cat?

Doubtless our cows and horses echoed this sentiment, for Boo-boo feared none of the animals, even the most horny and

bristly of them. Strolling along the cattle stanchions, he would pick out a promising back, step on the beast's head, then walk along the ridge of her neck, down her spine, and settle deliberately in some hairy hollow, folding his paws under his breast and blinking impish satisfaction from slits of yellow eyes. Not, I think, that he especially cared to sleep on cows' backs; it was merely something amusing and new.

Early one morning I entered the horsestable and was petrified to see a yellow ball on the round, blanketed hips of our hackney stallion, Goldcoin, an emphatic animal, which, I am sure, had never been slept on before. The horse looked around at me inquiringly, whereat Boo-boo awoke, rose, and stretched fearfully fore and aft, giving a couple of heartfelt clutches through the blanket as he finished. Poor Goldcoin, suddenly hollowing his back under these pricks, clattered his feet in alarm; but his tormentor sat there looking unusually blissful, and blinking benignly down at me from that impressive height.

Our Shetlands, too (for this was a pony-farm, and in winter thirty or forty of them were herded in yards behind the barn), knew all about the rabbit-kitten's absence of nerves. Their coats at this season grew into thick mats, and a warm, woolly pony-back made the best of grand stands on a cold morning. As we distributed hay in long windrows before the ranks of expectant little noses, Boo-boo would wander abstractedly about the snowy yard, gazing up to find an adequate cushion for chilly toes, and unfailingly picking out old Julia, a fat, benevolent mother pony whose back was not only well padded, but nicely hollowed with years. Leaping up with an announcing "Pr-oo!" he would fit himself into depressions in Julia's anatomy, while she, too kind to defend herself aggressively, wriggled her skin in increasing distaste, finally trotting briskly around the yard to rid herself of this undeserved burden on her spine.

and eyes half shut, evidently praying for patience. Sometimes one or two of the young ponies, an investigating brood, would approach, poking at this queer yellow growth on their Aunt Julia's back; whereat the fungus would shoot out an amused paw and pat the black muzzles, then settle down again, unresentful. If they actually nudged him off, he blinked upward dazedly a moment, then jumped on another traveling bed that promised well. But he always began with old Julia, and we never ceased to wonder how, from his kitten level, and in that forest of furry legs, he could unfailingly pick her out.

He developed more and more into an endearingly talkative little person, with round, humorous eyes, and a habit of being extremely vocal when impish and bad. His almost absurd honesty in this respect, indeed, was another of his doggish qualities. When he was about a year old, his pet villainy was that of jumping upon the dining-room-table; but he always gave us deliberate notice, a loud "pr-oo!" as if to say, "See me!" and then made his leap. On one occasion (there was creamed chicken that day) Boo had been observed sniffing busily as he trotted about the room, a restless little being always, and as I came in, he crouched, throwing me an unutterable look, and with a cheerful, indeed a proclamatory, "Pr-oo!" vaulted gaily upon the table, an obvious case of sinning pour la galerie.

It was the same with the bird's nest in the grape-vine. A little brown bird had foolishly placed her nest by the old wall at one end of the terrace, which was our outdoor living-room and where most of our summer meals were taken. Booboo was, of course, an attendant upon those meals, sitting dreamily on the wall and listening to the hummingbirds in the foxgloves beside it, or sprawling, on a hot day, lazily on the grass. One noon he caught sight of the mother bird slipping into the wild grape-vine that smothers one end of the wall, and followed craftily. My daughter sprang after him.

"No, Boo! You sha'n't!" For there were three eggs in that nest. We peered anxiously into the tangle. Boo-boo stood on a bit of grape-vine, looking

gravely down with the expression of an observant naturalist. Six inches below his whiskers the bird crouched motionless on her eggs, her little heart doubtless beating in terror. "Boo!" I gasped imperatively. He looked around mildly, then backed himself out of the hampering vine and followed us obediently to the table, sitting down on his stub and staring intently up at me. Was it reproach for my suspicion of his immaculate intentions in those unemotional eyes? Was it mere expectation of bread with butter on it, his favorite treat? I do not know, but for weeks afterward, at meal-time, this brief drama was repeated. Boo-boo, with a conscious glance at me, would walk straight to the grape-vine, have a stare at the sitting bird, and back out again on request! Apparently he never thought about it at any other time, or wanted to be there unless we were; as ever, he required an audience to stimulate him into sin.

He made a great point, as he grew older, of his friendship with the collie, a beautiful dog, the guardian of every creature on the farm. The two yellow things, large and small, often came trotting down the hill to meet us on our return from a ride, invariably halting on a certain thanky-marm, where Boo would twist himself extravagantly about his friend's legs, while Goliath, giving the devoted one a hasty and parenthetical sniff, as if to say: "Yes, yes, you 're very nice, but I'm watching for my mistresses," would fix his eyes determinedly on the turn in the road. When the horses appeared, Boo-boo prostrated himself in the dust before them, rolling over and over in rapture and ruining the looks of his orange coat, the horses, meanwhile, stepping over him with touchingly worried expressions, or even turning out into the grass to avoid him; for he never dreamed of getting out of their way. All his petted young life, indoors and out, large-sized beings had taken time to lift themselves patiently over him; so while the collie leaped to kiss the horses' noses, an endearment they dodged with distaste, Sir Pussy groveled luxuriously before us, jumping up after we had passed, to rush madly ahead and grovel again.

In winter, when evenings are fire

lighted and long, the rabbit-kitten became a treasured comedian. "Pr-oo!" he would suddenly remark out of a complete silence and apropos of nothing whatever, making a rush at a mythical mouse on the wall-paper, and reaching up to claw it viciously. "Pr-ow!" (a quite different signal), and he had dashed into the next room to assault an equally imaginary victim residing in the upper panel of a door. One of these points of attack, on a special door, was known, in fact, as "Boo-boo's spot." A bit of white paint had flaked off, just beguilingly above kitten reach, and in its direction the wild "pr-oos" and "prows" were oftenest aimed. Walking deliberately in and glancing about with inscrutable, lemon-colored eyes, he would pause fatefully, twitching his stub of a tail; the pale eyes would turn suddenly black, like two fiery coals. Then, with an unprecedentedly furious "Prrrrr-oo!" he would give one of his strange, uncat-like leaps, flying tailfirst into the air, and assaulting the spot with a thudding kick from one of the rabbity heels.

Tipey, by this time his benignant friend, would sit contemplating these gambols with pensive, sea-green eyes, touched of late with admiration and approval. Sometimes he kindled, too, with elderly ardor, his eyes darkened imitatively, and he and Boo would fly up together, a frantic cat fountain of gray and yellow, then roll over in a frenzy of kicks and bites which not infrequently ended in a disillusioned squall of temper on Tipey's part, and an attempt at dignified withdrawal from the fray.

At all possible seasons our doughty stub-tail escorted us on tramps about the farm, in summer even going with us into the wilds of an enormous pasture to help bring back the cows. He trotted gallantly along, apparently as much at home as we were, achieving phenomenal leaps over raspberrybushes and thistles, or threading his way indomitably through hemlockthickets and brush, in which the cattle loved to hide. If we were on horseback, he followed the more gleefully, making it a point of honor to keep up with his chum, the collie, or at least to keep him in sight, no slight undertaking

on these hunts, for Goliath, when his mind was on his job and not distracted with woodchuck holes, was a whirlwind on his feet.

Even in light snows Boo-boo still accompanied us on strolls to our woods or on sunset climbs to the high knoll. But the winter when he was two years old was a severe one, with deep snow that covered the landscape for months, sadly curtailing the little fellow's expeditions. One bright, blue-and-white morning, however, as my daughter and Goliath and I, bound for a winter picnic, crossed the slope of a neighboring pasture, topping the drifts and trudging serenely over buried fences, a faint cry sounded behind us. Goliath stopped, pricked his ears, and stared; and there, far away, was a yellow dot bobbing pathetically along in our snow-shoe tracks, now and then stopping to let out a despairing call:

"Wait for me!"

"It 's Boo!" I exclaimed. "The scamp! What shall we do with him?"

Boo-boo, presently catching up with us, answered my question by remarking with extreme brevity and directness, "Pr-oo!" and by clutching his way up to my shoulder, where he wheezed and carded wool with immense energy. We began to laugh.

"Settled, are n't you, Boo?" I said. "All right; stick on," and we tramped along through an orchard, over hidden walls, and into an untrodden, white wood-road, my furry shoulder-knot riding peacefully until we went slowly up a steep pitch in the woods, when he grew restless, and I put him down.

"Come along, dog-cat," I said, missing the soft warmth on my neck; "you won't get lost here."

And he trotted complacently in our broad, goose-like tracks, his stub high with enterprise, Goliath, much amused, casting humorous glances downward at the small companion that paced so dauntlessly beside him. It was an exquisite winter morning, with a sky full of color, and a deep-blue frill of mountains. showing through the thin lavender of the forest branches. We climbed with difficulty a stone wall uncovered with snow, little Boo skipping over gaily on his rubber pads, and came at last to a valley

and a sunken brook. There we built a gay red fire on green spruce branches laid on the snow, Boo-boo, very much in the midst of everything as usual, nearly backing his precious stub into the blaze, and insisting on occupying my lap during all the cooking operations. Doubtless it was great joy for a deserving little person to be for once lifted on a level with delicious matters usually carried on, at home, at least a yard above his head; so I let him stay, whereat he purred like a furnace. Having, unfortunately, only one lap, I was obliged later to use him as a plate-holder; he sniffed inquiringly up at the attractive burden of chops and fried potatoes resting almost on his ear, but made no objection, waiting calmly beneath it till our meal was done.

And he trotted homeward again after us at sunset-time, over the snowy hills, wriggling perversely down when we attempted to carry him. In the dusk of the deep woods, however, as we were passing a pile of hollow logs, he stopped, looking uncertainly about and jerking his stub. Then, ducking his head, he suddenly crawled into one of the logs! It was a long log, its farther end pushed against a stump, so that the interior was dark; and in that gloom, far out of reach, glowed two fiery balls. Babs and I looked at each other in dismay.

"Boo!" I said imploringly. "Booboo, come!"

The two balls glowed steadily, unmoving. Again and again we called without result; then sat upon the stump conferring anxiously, while the dusk deepened, and Goliath stood guard over the end of the log. At last my daughter, smiling, approached it again.

"BOO-boo!" she shouted harshly. "Pr-ow?" said a sad little voice far within, and out he walked obediently, though looking forlornly up at us, and still twitching that temperamental stub. I bent, and picked him up, thankfully; and the rest of the way, whether he would or not, he rode.

Dark places, we found, had a charm. for him. A cupboard-door slightly ajar was irresistible, and into its gloom he would disappear, startling the next person who opened it. He would be found sitting idly in the dusky space behind a solid piece of furniture, or squeezed

futilely between the wall and a picture set against it, bleak lurking-places an ordinary cat would not have tolerated. When thus discovered, he eyed us vacantly or murmured a faint "pr-oo" of protest. Why must he be disturbed in this nice new hole he had just found?

We often wondered about the possible scientific aspect of this tendency. Did it come, perhaps, from the rabbit ancestry at which the grandmother had hinted? Might it be a survival of a racial fondness for burrows?

Whatever his heritage, however, the rabbit-kitten had a sense of humor all his own, totally unrabbity or even uncat-like. Dogs are very often amusing, magnanimous dears, who only moderately mind being laughed at; but pussies, as a rule, are far too dignified and self-conscious for humor. Our Boo-boo, on the contrary, was a deliberate buffoon. Merely to see him enter a room, in certain of his moods, put the family into helpless laughter. Though no longer a kitten, he kept his round face and his chubbiness, and was as impassionedly playful as ever. As of old, victims lurked behind doors or hid in dusky corners; but, triumphant over all, still reigned the spot, the vision supreme.

"We must n't ever have it painted over, Mummy," announced Babs, solemnly, one day after a prolonged exhibition of antics on Boo's part before this treasure. "If they paint the door, they 've got to paint around his spot."

On our return one spring from a visit to town, we brought each of the pussies, distrusting their hunting abilities now that the nesting season had come, the present of a collar with silver bells. Buckling them on, we stood back to watch the effect. The two cats sat down suddenly, side by side on the grass, vainly trying to see under their own chins. Not succeeding, they each lifted a concerned hind leg and scratched perplexedly at the collars, which of course whirled resultlessly around. The older cat labored long at the constricting band, revolving it in a kind of furious patience while the bells rang and rang; but Booboo, after a careless scuff or two, gave his head a little toss, rose, bestowed a humorous pat on a dandelion blossom beside him, and went his light-hearted way.