Read "Mammy Tittleback and Her Family: A True Story of Seventeen Cats" by Helen Hunt Jackson online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
In the morning, after breakfast, the news was told them, that the cats had arrived the night before and were in the barn. Almost before the words were out of their mother's mouth they were off like lightning to see them. Jerry was on hand ready to open the box, and the whole family gathered to see the prisoners set free. What a scene it was! As soon as the slats were broken enough to give room, out the cats sprang, like wild creatures, heads over heels, heels over heads, the whole thirteen in one tumbling mass. They ran in all directions as fast as they could run, poor Rosy and Johnny in vain trying to catch so much as one of them.
"They're crazy like," said Jerry; "they've been scared enough to kill 'em; but they'll come back fast enough. Ye needn't be afeard," he added kindly to Johnny, who was ready to burst out crying, to see even his beloved Spitfire darting away like a strange wildcat of the woods. Sure enough, very soon the little ones began to stick their heads out from behind beams and out of corners, and to take cautious steps towards Johnny, whose dear voice they recognized as he kept saying, pityingly, --