THE CAT WHO BECAME HEAD-FORESTER.

If you drop Vladimir by mistake, you know he always falls on his feet.  And if Vladimir tumbles off the roof of the hut, he always falls on his feet.  Cats always fall on their feet, on their four paws, and never hurt themselves.  And as in tumbling, so it is in life.  No cat is ever unfortunate for very long.  The worse things look for a cat, the better they are going to be.

Well, once upon a time, not so very long ago, an old peasant had a cat and did not like him.  He was a tom-cat, always fighting; and he had lost one ear, and was not very pretty to look at.  The peasant thought he would get rid of his old cat, and buy a new one from a neighbour.  He did not care what became of the old tom-cat with one ear, so long as he never saw him again.  It was no use thinking of killing him, for it is a life’s work to kill a cat, and it’s likely enough that the cat would come alive at the end.

So the old peasant he took a sack, and he bundled the tom-cat into the sack, and he sewed up the sack and slung it over his back, and walked off into the forest.  Off he went, trudging along in the summer sunshine, deep into the forest.  And when he had gone very many versts into the forest, he took the sack with the cat in it and threw it away among the trees.

“You stay there,” says he, “and if you do get out in this desolate place, much good may it do you, old quarrelsome bundle of bones and fur!”

And with that he turned round and trudged home again, and bought a nice-looking, quiet cat from a neighbour in exchange for a little tobacco, and settled down comfortably at home with the new cat in front of the stove; and there he may be to this day, so far as I know.  My story does not bother with him, but only with the old tom-cat tied up in the sack away there out in the forest.

The bag flew through the air, and plumped down through a bush to the ground.  And the old tom-cat landed on his feet inside it, very much frightened but not hurt.  Thinks he, this bag, this flight through the air, this bump, mean that my life is going to change.  Very well; there is nothing like something new now and again.

And presently he began tearing at the bag with his sharp claws.  Soon there was a hole he could put a paw through.  He went on, tearing and scratching, and there was a hole he could put two paws through.  He went on with his work, and soon he could put his head through, all the easier because he had only one ear.  A minute or two after that he had wriggled out of the bag, and stood up on his four paws and stretched himself in the forest.

“The world seems to be larger than the village,” he said.  “I will walk on and see what there is in it.”

He washed himself all over, curled his tail proudly up in the air, cocked the only ear he had left, and set off walking under the forest trees.