Old Blackie 
i°3 
years been deprived of the other pets, and for some 
time while boarding, I didn’t even have a cat. But 
just before Guy was born we started housekeeping 
in a down-town cottage, and on the very first day 
an enormous black cat came to the kitchen door, 
pleading for admittance. Having found that there 
were mice and rats in the cellar, I gladly let him 
in and from that day I never saw a rat or a mouse 
in the house. We fixed him a comfortable corner 
in the basement, and named him ‘ Tom.’ From 
the first he acted like one thoroughly familiar with 
the premises, and no wonder : I learned afterward 
from the neighbors that he had lived in that house 
for many years with successive tenants. 
“ But one morning I heard some very queer noises 
in the basement, and when I went down to see 
what it was, I found Tom lying in his basket with 
four of the tiniest kittens I had ever seen, and look- 
ing up at me so pleadingly, as if to say : ‘ You’ll be 
good to them, won’t you ? ’ 
“ We knew then that ‘ Tom ’ was not an ap- 
propriate name for our cat, for whoever heard of a 
mother cat named ‘ Tom ’ ? So we told Guy’s 
nurse to find a new name for her, and because she 
was so black, Emma named her ‘ Old Blackie.’ ” 
