HOMELIEST CAT AT THE SHOW.

Rosalie M. Jones.

“HI! Hit her again! She’s ugly enough to stop a clock.”

“You let her ’lone,” screamed a small voice from the top story of a towering rear tenement, but alas, it fell far short of the depths, way, way, below where the cruel boys were tormenting the poor kitty.

Then the active little figure belonging to the voice hurriedly left the window above and racing down stairs, three steps at a jump, burst violently into their midst, caught their trembling little victim to her breast, and with no weapons but a flushed face and two big tearful eyes, turned defiantly to brave the cowards.

“Say, fellers, catch on ter de young defender.”

“Yer wanter send her ter de cat show, see. She’ll git a prize, I don’t tink.”

With a look of contempt which stung even the most hardened of them, Maysie turned away with her suffering burden and re-entered the house.

“For goodness sake! What’s that you’ve got now?” asked a tired looking woman, as she saw her small daughter come panting into the kitchen, clutching something by the legs.

“Jus’ a kitty.”

“Well, I never did! Why, Marg’ret Williams, are you crazy? I never saw such a homely creature in all my born days: it’ll bring us bad luck, sure, with that wicked green eye and that mean yeller one—ugh! You just take it straight back to the gutter you fished it out of.”

At this Maysie began to cry; sobbing out the story of its ill treatment.

“Oh, well, I reckon we’ll keep her till she’s cured up, anyway.”

So Maysie kept her cat, and pity blossomed so quickly into love that she was perfectly blind to its ugliness and fondly fancied it the dearest, sweetest and loveliest kitty in all the world.

On the next Sunday, Mrs. Williams read out from her great big newspaper: “A National Cat Show at Madison Square.”

“What’s a National Cat Show?” asked Maysie, who was sitting playing with Rags, as she called her foundling.

“Why it’s—it’s a show of cats, I suppose, and it’s to be held next Wednesday in Madison Square Garden.”

“Oh, yes, that must be where that bad boy in the street told me to send Rags, but I thought, o’ course, he was just foolin’; he said, maybe I’d get a prize for her. Do you—— do you think I might, mother?”

Mrs. Williams hid a smile behind her newspaper, as she read of the gorgeous Angora, Maltese, Persian and other rare and beautiful cats that were to be exhibited by the richest and most fashionable ladies in New York, but she only answered: “I shouldn’t wonder.”

This was enough. In the course of ten seconds, Maysie had decided in her own mind that she would take Rags to the show, and that there was not the slightest use of worrying her poor, tired mother about it beforehand and spoiling the delightful “s’prise.”

Early Wednesday morning Mrs. Williams started for her day’s work. Maysie, when left alone, fairly raced the breakfast dishes around her dishpan, over the towel and up again on the shelf. Then she slipped into a nice little fresh calico dress, tied a new red ribbon around Rags’s neck in a fantastic bow, which, however, would slide around under her chewed-off ear, then cramming her into the market-basket, she set off with a light heart.

She was too early to be admitted, and so had to stand and wait near the side door marked “Entrance for Cats.”

At last a carriage drove up to the great front door of the building and a lady descended from it, followed by a maid in a white cap, carrying a basket. She was such a pretty lady and so beautifully dressed, that Maysie liked her on the spot, and thought that it would only be kind to inform her that she was not at the right entrance for cats and must wait at the side door with her.

The lady smiled when she told her, and she said: “Oh, thank you, you’re very good; I see you have a cat, too! Is it to be in the show?”

“Oh, yes, don’t you think she’ll get a prize?”

“Pro—probably,” said the lady, turning away for an instant and shaking so strangely that Maysie thought she was cold.

“Had’nt I better ask the other lady to bring you a shawl or sumpin’ out of your carriage?”

“No, thank you, I’m quite well. Suppose we go into the show together?”

“Why, we can’t, can we. It ain’t open yet, is it?”

“Not to every one, but I am one of the patronesses, and I fancy they will let us in.” And sure enough they did.

“Here is a little girl who has a cat she would like to exhibit,” said the lady to a gentle-looking man inside, who seemed to be managing everything. “I know it’s rather late to enter it, but—” and she whispered something which made him smile and look almost as queerly at Maysie as the lady had done.

However, he gave Rags a nice cage, with soft straw in it, and a little medal with a number on it to hang around her neck by a scarlet ribbon.

“Now, you had better go up stairs and wait,” he said; “they won’t be on for an hour yet, and the judges cannot award the prizes until then.”

Maysie did not understand very clearly what he meant, but she was a trustful little soul, and so left Rags with him and climbed the stairs to a little waiting-room above.

After awhile the lady joined her saying, “Come, we can go in now.”

Pale with excitement, Maysie accepted the hand held out to her, and grasping it tightly, entered the great exhibition. Oh, wasn’t it beautiful! All lit up with ’lectric light! Row after row of cages crossed the floor, in each one of which blinked and stretched and softly purred a lovely, lovely kitty.

They kept getting more and more wonderful and beautiful as Maysie and the lady went on and on, but in her royal little soul, Rags’s mistress would not admit that any one of them was prettier or sweeter, or half as clever as Rags.

No, not even that grandest, showiest Angora, lying upon a rose-colored velvet cushion with exquisite pink roses in cut-glass bowls around her, and a tiny canary bird singing away blissfully in the same cage.

“You know, Rags ain’t never seen a bird, lessen it’s a sparrer, and she ain’t never smelt a flower in all her life, so wouldn’t you think they’d give her a prize jus’ to keep her from feelin’ bad?”

“Yes, I would indeed. There are the judges and they are coming from the other side of the room. Now, we will go over there and look for Rags, and if they have given her a prize, it will be written upon a card and hung on her cage, where we can see it in an instant.”

“Oh, my, do you suppose everybody what’s got a cat here feels like I do now?”

“I hardly think so much so, dear.”

At last they stood before Rags’s cage. Maysie put both hands over her eyes and peeped fearfully through her fingers.

“Oh! Oh! I believe I see a card.”

“Yes, you do.”

“What’s on it? Oh! What is on it?”

“P-r-i-z-e, prize!” read the lady.

“Ten dollars prize for the ug—for Rags.”

“My,” said Maysie, and she burst into tears of pure joy.

The lady kissed her warmly, dried her eyes and placed the bowl of roses right under Rags’s funny little nose.

Then the great, severe looking judges came up and congratulated her, and counted out into her two little hands all the heap of money that was the prize.

“And now,” said the lady, “I will drive you home.”

So she did, and didn’t all the children in the neighborhood run off to see who was getting out of the fine carriage that stopped before the tenement, and weren’t they surprised to find it was just Maysie? And didn’t Mrs. Williams laugh and cry and scold and pet her all at once when she heard the great news?

“Dear, dear, what a jewel Rags is.”

“Yes,” said her mother, “who’d have thought she’d have brought us such good luck by her very homeliness?”

“Homely? Why, mother, you forget, she’s got a prize.”

“So I did,” said Mrs. Williams, “so I did, of course.”