uld take my charges as titbits. Still I was
determined to try.

My neighbor's kittens were enough and to spare. One of Calico's last
year's lot still waited a good home; and here were seven more to be cared
for. Might not two of these be spirited away, far away; the two squirrels
substituted, and the old cat be none the wiser?

I went home by way of my neighbor's, and found Calico in the basement
curled up asleep with her babies. She roused and purred questioningly as
we bent over the basket, and watched with concern, but with no anxiety, as
two of her seven were lifted out and put inside a hat upon a table. She
was perfectly used to having her kittens handled. True, strange things had
happened to them. But that was long ago; and there had been so very many
kittens that no one mother could remember about them all. She trusted
us--with an ear pricked and eyes watchful. But they were safe, and in a
prideful, self-conscious, young-mother way she began to wash the five.

Some one stood between her and the hat when the kittens were lifted out
and the squirrels were put in their place. Calico did not see. For a time
she thought no more about them; she was busy washing and showing the
others. By and by it began to look as though she had forgotten that there
were more than five. She could not count. But most mothers can _number_
their children, even if they cannot count, and soon Calico began to
fidget, looking up at the hat which the hungry, motherless squirrels kept
rocking. Then she leaped out upon the floor, purring, and bounded upon the
table, going straight to the young squirrels.

There certainly was an expression of surprise and mystification on her
face as she saw the change that had come over those kittens. They had
shrunk and faded from two or three bright colors to a single pale pink.
She looked again and sniffed them. Their odor had changed, too. She turned
to the watchers about the table, but they said nothing. She hardly knew
what to think. She was half inclined to leave them and go back to the
basket, when one of the squirrels whimpered--a genuine, universal baby
whimper. That settled it. She was a mother, and whatever else these things
in the hat might be, they were babies. That was enough, especially as she
needed just this much baby here in the hat to make good what was lacking
in the basket.

With a soft, caressing purr she stepped gently into the hat, took one of
the squirrels by the neck, brought it to