"I don't understand," said old dog Spot to Miss Kitty Cat one day, "why Mrs. Green wants to keep you around the house when she can buy mousetraps at the village." Old Spot eyed Miss Kitty slyly. He dearly loved to watch her whiskers and her tail grow big. And he could make both those things happen almost any time he wanted to.  
If anybody wished to see Miss Kitty Cat turn up her nose he had only to mention mousetraps. Of all worthless junk she thought they were the worst.
 
"They can't catch any but the dull-witted mice," she used to say. "A mouse that knows anything won't go near a trap unless he's hungry. If he wants to go to a little trouble to get a piece of stale cheese he can usually spring the trap without getting caught in it—even if he has to use his tail to do it."
 
"But a mousetrap," Spot objected, "is little or no care. One doesn't have to feed it except when he wants it to catch a mouse. And everybody knows that Mrs. Green feeds you several times a day. Besides, the fewer mice you catch, the more food she has to waste on you."
 
"Rubbish!" Miss Kitty Cat . "You eat ten times as much as I do. And I never heard of your a mouse, either."
 
"Ah!" said Spot. "Don't forget that I drive the cows and watch the house and the barns at night. And during my spare moments I hunt woodchucks. You couldn't ex............