I was taken into a beautiful house

I was taken into a beautiful house

I was taken into a beautiful house

My earliest recollection is of being carried by the back of my neck, by something or somebody that I afterwards discovered was my mother. I was taken into a beautiful house, and deposited carefully on a rug in the corner of a cupboard. Then my mother began licking me all over with her tongue, when suddenly said a voice close alongside of me, “I declare that pussy has been and gone and got another kitten as if one cat of the kind wasn’t enough about the house. Sarah, go and put it where you put all the others.”

I don’t know who the others were, or where they were put; but I know what Sarah did with me. She took me up with the hot tongs, mother screamed and so did I, till I couldn’t scream any more because the black water was all around me. Then followed a period of agony, and then a blank, and the next thing I recollect is finding myself lying, wet and cold, in my mother’s arms, and she all wet and cold as well as me.