Sulphur-yellow, gall-green shafts mingle with the scarlet of the
sunrise, and slowly wrest a large quadrangular farmhouse from the
cloudy October dawn’s foul wet mists.
Outside the cow-stall, an old-fashioned milk-jar with its narrow neck
appears out of the grey dawn. The milk-woman uses it every morning to
take a pint of milk home to her children. A few traces of milk still
cling to the bottom--enough, at any rate, to tempt a sweet-tooth!
The woman is inside milking, when Red comes sneaking along the barn,
catches sight of the jar, sticks her nose in, and smells distinctly the
milk on the bottom. She rests her forepaws on the round, bulging body
of the vessel, and tries hard to push her head through the narrow neck.
After several attempts she manages, by turning her head vigorously from
side to side, to slide it in, her ears pressed tightly back and her
furry cheeks brushing the smooth earthenware.
She has succeeded--and she licks the jar cleaner than it has ever been
before since the day it was made.
Then she prepares to retreat. But now, suddenly, she cannot get her
head out; her thick neck and gristly ears are wedged fast! She becomes
flurried ... and instead of trying to wriggle out gently, she begins to
tug and wrestle; with the result that she fixes her frightful mask more
firmly still. She topples over on her side, and rolls about clawing
dementedly at the stone cobbles--until at last she regains her feet and
staggers blindly into the yard.
The weird figure is soon seen from one of the windows. Now they’ve got
her at last!
They recognize her at once--so a sack is soon fetched and slipped over
her hind parts. For now she shall be drowned!
Just then a rag and bone man turns into the yard.
Once or twice a year he comes and buys old rags and bottles, and all
sorts of worthless rubbish.
The fellow at once notices the cat’s shining fox-red coat--and the
quick-witted farmer conceives a brilliant idea. The fellow has cheated
him so many times; now he shall be paid back in his own coin!
With a cautious tap of the hammer he releases the cat from the jar....
“Do you want to buy a splendid mouser?”
“You bet I do!” replies the ragged one ... it was just what he was
looking for.
The farmer piled on the agony. “Yes, she’s a record killer! You will
scarcely believe it, but just before you came into the yard, she nearly
strangled herself capturing a mouse which had dived into this milk-jar!”
The rag and bone man was completely taken in; he bought the cat eagerly
and immediately.
He put Red in his sack, and the two thieves left the yard together.