Three Little Kittens
Copyright© 2024 by Katharine Pyle
Chapter 12
Mother Bunch and Aunt Tabby were sitting on the kitchen steps, feeling very sad.
It was a long time since little Jazbury had run away and left them, but they could not get used to being without him. Bitterly did they miss his fun and his liveliness and all his pretty ways.
“The quickest, strongest, handsomest kitten I ever had,” said Mother Bunch.
“If I only hadn’t boxed his ears that time,” mourned Aunt Tabby, “maybe he wouldn’t have run away.”
“You mustn’t let yourself think that,” mewed Mother Bunch. “I guess we were both of us a little hard on him.”
Suddenly there was a sound of scratching and scrabbling on the fence between the yard and the lot.
“Oh, if that were only little Jazbury,” mewed Aunt Tabby sadly.
“Don’t say that; you know it couldn’t be,” said Mother Bunch.
A moment later both cats sprang to their feet with a loud mew.
Above the top of the fence appeared a little black and white face, two white paws, a black body, a black tail waving like a flag. It was Jazbury.
He jumped down into the yard, and rushed up to his mother and Aunt Tabby. Fluffy followed him.
“Momma! momma!” he mewed. “Oh, Aunt Tabby! I’ll never run away again. Oh, I’m so glad to be home!”
He and his mother and Aunt Tabby rubbed noses, and the cats kissed Jazbury, cat fashion, and mewed aloud with joy.
“And little Fluffy, too!” cried Mother Bunch. “Oh, how glad your mother will be to have you home again. She’s so unhappy about you.”
None of them noticed, at first, that Yowler had followed the other two kittens into the yard, and was now sitting over near the fence grinning at them.
“It was very, very naughty of you to run away, Jazbury,” said his aunt. “We’ve been worried to death about you.”
“I know,” mewed Jazbury, “and I’m so sorry. But I’ll never do it again, Aunt Tabby. Indeed I won’t.”
“I suppose you ought to be punished,” sighed his mother, “but I’m so glad to have you back again I haven’t the heart to do it.”
At that moment Aunt Tabby espied Yowler sitting there grinning at them.
“Did you go away with that Yowler cat?” she cried. “Did you, Jazbury? Tell me at once.”
“Well, yes, I did.”
“I knew it! It’s all his fault. S-s-st! Gr-r-r-r! Get out of here, you bad cat!” And Aunt Tabby flew at Yowler so fiercely that he gave a wild miaw, and flew over the fence and disappeared from sight.
“And don’t you ever dare to come back again,” Aunt Tabby growled after him.
And Yowler never did. Maybe he went back to the baker’s, and maybe he left the neighborhood in search of a better home, but at any rate Jazbury never saw him again.