sometimes he don't have it with him. When he said I was a terror to cats I
thought what fun there is in cats, and me and my chum went to stealing
cats right off, and before night we had eleven cats caged. We had one in a
canary bird cage, three in Pa's old hat boxes, three in Ma's band box,
four in valises, two in a trunk, and the rest in a closet up stairs.

"That night Pa said he wanted me to stay home because the committee that
is going to get up a noyster supper in the church was going to meet at our
house, and they might want to send me on errands. I asked him if my chum
couldn't stay too, 'cause he is the healthiest infant to run after errands
that ever was, and Pa said he could stay, but we must remember that there
musn't be no monkey business going on. I told him there shouldn't be no
monkey business, but I didn't promise nothing about cats. Well, sir, you'd
a dide. The committee was in the library by the back stairs, and me and my
chum got the cat boxes all together, at the top of the stairs, and we took
them all out and put them in a clothes basket, and just as the minister
was speaking, and telling what a great good was done by these oyster
sociables, in bringing the young people together, and taking their minds
from the wickedness of the world, and turning their thoughts into
different channels, one of the old tom cats in the basket gave a 'purmeow'
that sounded like the wail of a lost soul, or a challenge to battle. I
told my chum that we couldn't hold the bread-board over the clothes basket
much longer, when two or three cats began to yowl, and the minister
stopped talking and Pa told Ma to open the stair door and tell the hired
girl to see what was the matter up there. She thought our cat had got shut
up in the storm door, and she opened the stair door to yell to the girl,
and then I pushed the clothes basket, cats and all down the back stairs.
Well, sir, I suppose no committee for a noyster supper, was ever more
astonished. I heard Ma fall over a willow rocking chair, and say, 'scat,'
and I heard Pa say, 'well. I'm dam'd,' and a girl that sings in the choir