{"collection":"folklore-oral-tradition","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_74181/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_74181","id":"gutenberg_74181","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/74181","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Children & Young Adult Reading","Cats -- Juvenile fiction","Fairy tales","Older people -- Juvenile fiction","Picture books for children"],"text":"[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n  MILLIONS OF CATS\n\n  [Illustration]\n\n  BY WANDA G\u00c1G\n\n  PUBLISHED IN NEW YORK by\n  COWARD-M^cCANN, INC.\n  IN THE YEAR 1928\n\n\n\n\n  Copyright 1928 by\n  COWARD M^cCANN, INC.\n  ALL rights reserved.\n\n\n  Printed in U.S.A.\n  By the Jersey City Printing Co.\n\n\n\n\nMILLIONS OF CATS\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nOnce upon a time there was a very old man and a very old woman. They\nlived in a nice clean house which had flowers all around it, except\nwhere the door was. But they couldn\u2019t be happy because they were so\nvery lonely.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\u201cIf we only had a cat!\u201d sighed the very old woman.\n\n\u201cA cat?\u201d asked the very old man.\n\n\u201cYes, a sweet little fluffy cat,\u201d said the very old woman.\n\n\u201cI will get you a cat, my dear,\u201d said the very old man.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n[Illustration]\n\nAnd he set out over the hills to look for one. He climbed over the\nsunny hills. He trudged through the cool valleys. He walked a long,\nlong time and at last he came to a hill which was quite covered with\ncats.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n      Cats here, cats there,\n  Cats and kittens everywhere,\n        Hundreds of cats,\n        Thousands of cats,\n  Millions and billions and trillions of cats.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\u201cOh,\u201d cried the old man joyfully, \u201cNow I can choose the prettiest cat\nand take it home with me!\u201d So he chose one. It was white.\n\nBut just as he was about to leave, he saw another one all black and\nwhite and it seemed just as pretty as the first. So he took this one\nalso.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n[Illustration]\n\nBut then he saw a fuzzy grey kitten way over here which was every bit\nas pretty as the others so he took it too.\n\nAnd now he saw one way down in a corner which he thought too lovely to\nleave so he took this too.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nAnd just then, over here, the very old man found a kitten, which was\nblack and very beautiful.\n\n\u201cIt would be a shame to leave that one,\u201d said the very old man. So he\ntook it.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nAnd now, over there, he saw a cat which had brown and yellow stripes\nlike a baby tiger.\n\n\u201cI simply must take it!\u201d cried the very old man, and he did.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nSo it happened that every time the very old man looked up, he saw\nanother cat which was so pretty he could not bear to leave it, and\nbefore he knew it, he had chosen them all.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nAnd so he went back over the sunny hills and down through the cool\nvalleys, to show all his pretty kittens to the very old woman.\n\nIt was very funny to see those hundreds and thousands and millions and\nbillions and trillions of cats following him.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n[Illustration]\n\nThey came to a pond.\n\n  \u201cMew, mew! We are thirsty!\u201d cried the\n          Hundreds of cats,\n          Thousands of cats,\n  Millions and billions and trillions of cats.\n\n\u201cWell, here is a great deal of water,\u201d said the very old man.\n\nEach cat took a sip of water, and the pond was gone!\n\n[Illustration]\n\n[Illustration]\n\n  \u201cMew, mew! Now we are hungry!\u201d said the\n          Hundreds of cats,\n          Thousands of cats,\n  Millions and billions and trillions of cats.\n\n\u201cThere is much grass on the hills,\u201d said the very old man.\n\nEach cat ate a mouthful of grass and not a blade was left!\n\n[Illustration]\n\n[Illustration]\n\nPretty soon, the very old woman saw them coming.\n\n\u201cMy dear!\u201d she cried, \u201cWhat are you doing? I asked for one little cat,\nand what do I see?--\n\n[Illustration]\n\n            \u201cCats here, cats there,\n        Cats and kittens everywhere,\n            Hundreds of cats,\n            Thousands of cats,\n  Millions and billions and trillions of cats.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut we can never feed them all,\u201d said the very old woman, \u201cThey will\neat us out of house and home.\u201d\n\n\u201cI never thought of that,\u201d said the very old man, \u201cWhat shall we do?\u201d\n\nThe very old woman thought for a while and then she said, \u201cI know! We\nwill let the cats decide which one we should keep.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh yes,\u201d said the very old man, and he called to the cats, \u201cWhich one\nof you is the prettiest?\u201d\n\n\u201cI am!\u201d\n\n\u201cI am!\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, I am!\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, I am the prettiest!\u201d \u201cI am!\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, I am! I am! I am!\u201d cried hundreds and thousands and millions and\nbillions and trillions of voices, for each cat thought itself the\nprettiest.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nAnd they began to quarrel.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nThey bit and scratched and clawed each other and made such a great\nnoise that the very old man and the very old woman ran into the house\nas fast as they could. They did not like such quarreling. But after a\nwhile the noise stopped and the very old man and the very old woman\npeeped out of the window to see what had happened. They could not see a\nsingle cat!\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\u201cI think they must have eaten each other all up,\u201d said the very old\nwoman, \u201cIt\u2019s too bad!\u201d\n\n\u201cBut look!\u201d said the very old man, and he pointed to a bunch of high\ngrass. In it sat one little frightened kitten. They went out and picked\nit up. It was thin and scraggly.\n\n\u201cPoor little kitty,\u201d said the very old woman.\n\n\u201cDear little kitty,\u201d said the very old man, \u201chow does it happen that\nyou were not eaten up with all those hundreds and thousands and\nmillions and billions and trillions of cats?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, I\u2019m just a very homely little cat,\u201d said the kitten, \u201cSo when you\nasked who was the prettiest, I didn\u2019t say anything. So nobody bothered\nabout me.\u201d\n\n[Illustration]\n\n[Illustration]\n\nThey took the kitten into the house, where the very old woman gave it a\nwarm bath and brushed its fur until it was soft and shiny.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nEvery day they gave it plenty of milk--\n\n[Illustration]\n\n--and soon it grew nice and plump.\n\n\u201cAnd it is a very pretty cat, after all!\u201d said the very old woman.\n\n\u201cIt is the most beautiful cat in the whole world,\u201d said the very old\nman.\n\n\u201cI ought to know, for I\u2019ve seen--\n\n            Hundreds of cats,\n            Thousands of cats,\n  Millions and billions and trillions of cats--\n    and not one is as pretty as this one.\u201d\n\n[Illustration]\n\n[Illustration]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber\u2019s note\n\n\nMinor punctuation errors have been changed without notice.","title":"Millions of cats","tradition":"folklore-oral-tradition","translated_text":null,"word_count":1053}