FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   >>  
big old-fashioned fire-place. The chimney itself was wide enough inside for a man to stand up and walk about. So there was plenty of room for a little Tom Cat. [Illustration] [Illustration] He jumped right up into the fire-place, balancing himself upon the iron bar where the kettle hangs. [Illustration] Tom Kitten took another big jump off the bar, and landed on a ledge high up inside the chimney, knocking down some soot into the fender. [Illustration] Tom Kitten coughed and choked with the smoke; and he could hear the sticks beginning to crackle and burn in the fire-place down below. He made up his mind to climb right to the top, and get out on the slates, and try to catch sparrows. "I cannot go back. If I slipped I might fall in the fire and singe my beautiful tail and my little blue jacket." The chimney was a very big old-fashioned one. It was built in the days when people burnt logs of wood upon the hearth. The chimney stack stood up above the roof like a little stone tower, and the daylight shone down from the top, under the slanting slates that kept out the rain. [Illustration] Tom Kitten was getting very frightened! He climbed up, and up, and up. [Illustration] Then he waded sideways through inches of soot. He was like a little sweep himself. It was most confusing in the dark. One flue seemed to lead into another. There was less smoke, but Tom Kitten felt quite lost. He scrambled up and up; but before he reached the chimney top he came to a place where somebody had loosened a stone in the wall. There were some mutton bones lying about-- "This seems funny," said Tom Kitten. "Who has been gnawing bones up here in the chimney? I wish I had never come! And what a funny smell? It is something like mouse; only dreadfully strong. It makes me sneeze," said Tom Kitten. [Illustration] [Illustration] He squeezed through the hole in the wall, and dragged himself along a most uncomfortably tight passage where there was scarcely any light. [Illustration] He groped his way carefully for several yards; he was at the back of the skirting-board in the attic, where there is a little mark * in the picture. [Illustration] All at once he fell head over heels in the dark, down a hole, and landed on a heap of very dirty rags. When Tom Kitten picked himself up and looked about him--he found himself in a place that he had never seen before, although he had lived all his li
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   >>  



Top keywords:

Illustration

 

Kitten

 

chimney

 
inside
 
slates
 

landed

 

fashioned

 
scrambled
 

reached

 

loosened


mutton

 

gnawing

 

groped

 
picture
 

picked

 

looked

 

squeezed

 
dragged
 

uncomfortably

 
sneeze

dreadfully

 
strong
 

passage

 

carefully

 
skirting
 

scarcely

 

sticks

 

beginning

 

crackle

 

fender


coughed

 

choked

 

sparrows

 

knocking

 
plenty
 

jumped

 
balancing
 
kettle
 
slanting
 

daylight


frightened

 

climbed

 

confusing

 
inches
 

sideways

 

jacket

 

beautiful

 
slipped
 

hearth

 
people