"The thunder roared overhead and the lightning, shining through the
cracks, played on the barn floor and showed the cats sitting gravely in
a circle. Only Tom Skip-an'-jump, who still kept his kittenish tricks,
went frisking after his tail and turning somersaults in the hay.
Presently he tumbled over Furry-Purry and bit her ear.
"'Come, play!' said he: 'it's a jolly time for puss-in-the-corner.'
"'Tom,' said Furry-Purry, 'I never shall play again. I am very unhappy.
I have seen Mrs. Tabitha Velvetpaw lying on a silk cushion, while I make
my bed in the hay. She walks on a lovely soft carpet, and I have only
this barn floor. O Tom, I want to be a house-cat.'
"'A house-cat!' repeated Tom disdainfully. 'They sleep all day. They
get their tails pulled and their ears pinched by horrid monsters with
only two legs to walk on, and nights--beautiful moonlight nights when we
barn-cats are roaming the alleys and singing on the roofs and having a
good time generally--they are locked in cellars and garrets and made to
watch rat-holes. Oh, no! not for Tom.'
"He was off with a whisk of his tail to the highest beam in the barn,
looking down on them with the greenest of green eyes, and singing,--
'Some love the home
Of a lazy drone,
And a bed on a cushioned knee;
But in wild free ways
I will spend my days,
And at night on the roofs I'll be.
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