PEDRO GETS THERE FIRST

Evening Star, Issue 20132, 23 March 1929, Page 20

PEDRO GETS THERE FIRST

A BED-TIME TALE This is the true story of a cat. He was brought over f ram the Isle m Wight to the mainland by old Mr Julfkin, who desired to present him to bis married daughter Annie. Now, Annie was married to a man who worked by a ierry across the harbour, and Annie’s house was right on the water. When poor puss was unpacked (a speckled cat called ! edro) lie leaped with one bound of fright on to tho top of Annie’s dresser, scared at the noise going on inside the kitchen and without; and lo and behold, he smashed to smithereens the cover of her best muffin dish. Annie was surprised and confounded, for she bud not heard that her_ father was bringing her a cat, nor, indeed, had she any'desire to have one, being over-busy already. She gave Pedro s smooth back such a resounding slap of punishment that iu a second Pedro had sprung down on the floor and was out through the door and dashing across the road to the tramway. “It was a good thing J _ lelt her, thought the puss, palpitating behind a lamp-post. % “She didn’t want me. But before be could proceed farther with his plans a tram conductor caught him up and said: “ A stray ’mi! It’ll just do for the children. And all through a mysterious tram journey Pedro struggled in the arms that held him clumsily while tickets were being punched. Everybody in the train talked about him and made remarks, and not one was the sort o) remark a nervous, proud, and sensitive puss likes to hear, things like “Tunny sort of colour, that!” Pedro struggled f eebly and thought of his past. There had at least been quiet iu Ids home in the Isle of Wight, though he hadn’t had much to eat. > Then somebody remarked: ‘He s a perfect darling.” Then somebody approached and stroked the quivering, frightened thing so artfully and caressingly, in just the right place down the nose, that Pedro felt a great longing logo away for even with this pretty little girl with the wreath of bine cornflowers round her hat who stooped over him. But very soon after the train stopped, and the conductor took him into a little house in the middle of a row and threw him roughly on a table. “ Here, Jerry, here’s a present for you.” he said to a little hoy who Was busv with bricks in the kitchen. “"i’ll put him’ in my tower, screamed Jerry; and poor Pedro v\as squashed down into a small tower; out of which he instantly burst, and, scared stiff with horror, took refuge under the table. But Jerry had him out, dragging him painfully by one paw, and out Pedro, glaring and slitting, had to come. Then Jeriy’s sister Alice put a doll’s bonnet round bis head and tied the strings under his chin. He gave a yell and dashed out, bonnet and all, from a house where they were glad to see him but didn’t know in tho least how to treat him. He ran; ran like a bare up the street and down past a. field till, tired out, bo threw himself at tho loot of a great syringa bush in a garden, and wondered if there were any home for him in the world, any corner where they wouldn’t bold him wrong, drag him by a paw, squeeze hint by_tho tail, but let him settle down quietly. Then from out behind the syringa bush there strolled the little girl with tho blue cornflowers round her hat. She spied him, panting there in fits doll’s bonnet. She disappeared. Just like her! Then she returned, laid a saucer ol creamy milk gently near him, murmured something gentle, and disappeared again. Pedro drank. Nothing happened; he lay in the sun; he slept. An" hour later ho was lifted carefully, slowly; tho bonnet was pulled softly off. and a voice said lovingly : “ Mv little darling, I do hope yon’Jl live with us. I’ve been longing for a cat.” Aral then a band got busy, cleverly stroking an ear. Pedro found himself, to bis own surprise, purring gently, and in be- wont most happily lo the white cottage where he was in live for many years with a mistress wfio understood.