DIXIE KITTEN

BY EVA MARCH TAPPAN

ILLUSTRATED

BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1910 BY EVA MARCH TAPPAN

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO REPRODUCE THIS BOOK OR PARTS THEREOF IN ANY FORM

PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 1910

By Eva March Tappan

———

THE PRINCE FROM NOWHERE.

STORIES OF AMERICA FOR VERY YOUNG READERS.

THE LITTLE LADY IN GREEN, AND OTHER TALES.

AMERICAN HISTORY STORIES FOR VERY YOUNG READERS.

ELLA: A LITTLE SCHOOL GIRL OF THE ’60s.

HEROES OF PROGRESS.

HERO STORIES OF FRANCE.

THE FARMER AND HIS FRIENDS.

THE LITTLE BOOK OF THE FLAG.

THE LITTLE BOOK OF THE WAR.

THE HOUSE WITH THE SILVER DOOR.

WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD.

DIXIE KITTEN.

AN OLD, OLD STORY-BOOK.

THE CHAUCER STORY BOOK.

LETTERS FROM COLONIAL CHILDREN.

AMERICAN HERO STORIES.

THE STORY OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE.

THE STORY OF THE GREEK PEOPLE.

THE GOLDEN GOOSE AND OTHER FAIRY TALES.

THE CHRIST STORY.

OLD BALLADS IN PROSE.

All of the above are illustrated.

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY Boston and New York

DIXIE KITTEN

The Home Nest

Dixie kitten was a slender little cat with the softest, silkiest black fur imaginable; that is, you would think it was black when you first glanced at it; but if you looked a little more closely, you would see that here and there were gleams of tawny yellow. Three of her paws were black and one was yellow. Her eyes were yellow, too, in the daytime, with only a narrow line of black down the centre; but at night they were black and shining, and surrounded by a ring of golden yellow. But whether it was day or night and whether they were yellow or black, there was little going on around them that they did not see. Her whiskers, all except two, were jet black, [Pg 2] but those two were snowy white. When she lifted her pretty chin, you could see under it a soft yellow “vest front,” and at the top of the vest front a bit of the whitest, glossiest fur that was ever seen. It was so very pure and dainty that when the sunlight fell upon it, you would almost fancy that it was a bit of filmy white lace.

The first thing that Dixie could remember was of being cuddled up to some one who was soft and comfortable and gave her sweet warm milk to drink. Somehow, she knew that this was her mother, and that her mother would feed her when she was hungry and keep her warm and take care of her and not let anything hurt her.

Their home was a nest of soft hay, so deep in the pile that when Dixie was at the farther end, she could not see out at all. After a while, however, she crept out to the light now and then, and here were so many interesting things that her eyes [Pg 3] grew bigger and bigger the longer she looked. There were piles of hay and straw, there were bags of grain, there were rakes and spades and wheelbarrows, there was a carriage, and there was a sleigh. Dixie climbed up one of the shafts of the sleigh and stretched out her paw to touch a bell. She only wanted to see what it was, but it made such a loud jingle that she almost fell off the shaft. She ran away as fast as ever she could and hid herself in the safe and comfortable hole in the hay.

There were strange noises, too, that Dixie kitten heard, even when she was far out of sight in her own little nest with her mother. There were voices of men and the sound of their steps; there was the happy “Bow-wow!” of a dog; there was the neighing of horses and their crunching of grain, and the sounds of harnessing and unharnessing. Twice every day the great doors of the barn were thrown open [Pg 4] and the Master drove in. She could hear him pat the horses and the dog and speak kindly to them; then his steps passed out of the barn and up the walk and into the house.

Dixie’s mother had made her understand that she must stay near the home nest; but there was a flight of steps close by, and Dixie did so long to go down them! She felt sure that they led to where those wonderful things that she heard must be. Her mother went down the steps sometimes, and one day when she was gone away from home, Dixie kitten thought that she would go, too. She went to the head of the stairs and stretched out her little right forepaw very carefully; but it would not reach the first step. She stretched out the left paw, but that would not reach any farther. She drew back and sat looking down the staircase for a while. Then she tried again, and this time she [Pg 5] reached so far that not only the two little black forepaws, and the black hind paw and the yellow hind paw, but also her whole little black and yellow body tumbled down one step, two steps—and no one knows how much farther she would have gone, had she not come, plump, right against her mother, who had seen what was going on and was hurrying up the stairs as fast as she could run. Dixie

was a much surprised little kitten, for her mother lifted her by the back of the neck and carried her straight to the little nest in the hay. Then Dixie was still more surprised. She had always thought her mother’s smooth soft paws were only beautiful playthings, but now one of them gave her a pretty hard cuff right on her ears. Even if Master had been listening, he could not have heard Mothercat say anything, but Dixie kitten understood perfectly well that she would get into [Pg 6] trouble if she went near that staircase again.

And yet, the very next day Mothercat lifted Dixie by the neck and carried her downstairs, and neither of them ever saw the soft warm nest in the hay again.

[Pg 7]

Leaving Home

This is the way it came about that Dixie kitten and her mother left the home nest. At night, when Master came home, he stepped down from the carriage much more slowly than usual, for he was holding a big basket carefully in his hand. He did not go into the house at once, but climbed up the stairs and stood at the top a moment looking around. He had set the basket on the floor, and now he called, “Kitty, Kitty!” Mothercat listened a moment, then peered out of the nest, her eyes as big as saucers. Dixie kitten crept out between her mother’s forepaws, for she, too, had heard a gentle “Mew!” coming from the basket, and even a kitten could guess what was within it. She was so eager [Pg 8] that she could hardly wait to see it opened; but Mothercat crouched low and lashed her tail angrily back and forth. Then Master took off the cover of the basket, and what should be in it but four little kittens!

Dixie kitten was delighted. She climbed over Mothercat and started to run out to see them; but once more Mothercat boxed her ears with her big soft paw, and Dixie had to go to the back of the nest in the hay. “Kitty, Kitty!” called Master, “come and see the new kittens”; but Mothercat did not stir from her place, and she swished her tail more angrily than ever. Master gave the new kittens a dish of milk, and then he went away.

The kittens drank the milk, then they began to run about the room. They climbed the heaps of hay and straw and they smelled of the bags of grain. They ran over the carriage and the sleigh and the wheelbarrow. They touched the teeth [Pg 9] of the rake curiously with their small pink noses. Once they went near the little nest where Mothercat crouched, watching everything that they did. “Gr-r-r-r!” growled Mothercat; and they ran away from her corner as fast as ever they could. It began to be twilight. They were lonely and somewhat frightened, and pretty soon they curled up together in a soft little heap and went to sleep.

Dixie kitten went to sleep, too, but Mothercat sat a long time thinking. Master meant those new kittens to stay there, that was plain. It was her house, the place that she had picked out so carefully as a home for her kitten, and he had put those strangers into it! She had never thought of Master’s doing such a thing as that; but there they were, and what should she do? There was one thing sure, she would not live in the same house with them, and her kitten should have nothing [Pg 10] to do with them. She waited until it was dark and everything was quiet downstairs except the occasional moving of the horses and once or twice a sleepy bark from the dog, Prince, who was dreaming that he had caught a rabbit. She listened awhile, but there was nothing more to be heard. Then she picked up Dixie kitten by the back of the neck and stole quietly down the stairs. Master had cut a hole in the barn door, so that no cat need ever be shut out, and she slid softly through this, and went under the barn. It was open on one side, but the air was warm, and she knew where there was a heap of straw.

She pushed it about a little with her paws, then she turned round and round to make a smooth nest, and at last she lay down, and Dixie kitten lay down beside her. Dixie thought all this was very strange, but of course whatever Mothercat did was right, so she snuggled down, and in three [Pg 11] minutes she was sound asleep. Before long, Mothercat was asleep, too. The coarse straw was not so comfortable as the hay, but, whether it was hard or soft, she would not stay in the same place with those strange kittens, indeed she would not.

When morning came, Mothercat went into the barn to get the breakfast that was always brought out for her, and there were those kittens eating out of her dish! She stood still and looked at them. Dixie kitten had followed, and now one of the strangers went toward her in a friendly fashion. “Gr-r-r-!” growled Mothercat, and the kitten ran back to the dish. Mothercat did not touch the milk, and maybe she would have had no breakfast at all, if Mistress had not come out to see the new kittens. “Why, Mothercat,” she said, “aren’t you going to be good to those little stranger kittens?” Mothercat did not answer, but she did not go any nearer to [Pg 12] the dish. “She’ll soon get used to them,” said Master; but Mistress slipped into the house and brought out another dishful of milk. Master laughed, but Mistress said, “Never mind. I don’t know that I want to eat out of the same dish with everybody, either.” Then Mothercat ate her breakfast, but all the while she kept one eye on the new kittens to make sure they did not go near her child.

So it went on day after day and week after week. Dixie kitten was soon old enough to drink from a dish. Mothercat allowed her to use the same dish as the others, but never once would she let her stay and have a good play with them; Dixie could not see why. The new kittens still lived in the barn, and Dixie and Mothercat still lived under it.

[Pg 13]

Dixie Finds a Friend

Dixie grew until she was much larger than when she first lived in the nest in the hay, and she learned a number of things from Mothercat. She learned that to keep her fur clean and dainty she must wash it several times a day, and that nothing else made it so soft and smooth and silky as to wash it after she had just been drinking some good creamy milk. She learned that mice were to be caught; that beetles and other queer creatures of the sort that ran about in the grass were to be played with, but not eaten; that horses never ate kittens, though without meaning to do any harm, they sometimes stepped upon them. Dogs, she learned, were quite different from horses in their treatment of cats. One should always run away from dogs, [Pg 14] not on the ground, but up some tree-trunk, for dogs cannot climb trees; and Dixie thought it was great fun to scamper up a tree, curl up on a branch, and sit there comfortably while a dog barked at the foot and tried in vain to reach her. Prince chased other cats, but if any dog troubled the kittens in his barn, then in about three

seconds the strange dog was running down the street with Prince at his heels. Prince was a little puzzled about Mothercat and Dixie. They came into the barn to eat and Mistress fed them, but they lived under the barn instead of in it. This was strange, Prince thought, and he hardly knew whether he ought to take care of them or drive them away. He decided that he ought not to do them any harm, but that he might give them just a little chase now and then. They understood this as well as he, and after he had driven them up a tree, they would come down, go into [Pg 15] the barn, and eat their dinner beside him as peaceably as possible.

Of course Dixie kitten had learned to climb any tree in the neighborhood. She had learned also what some kittens never do learn, and that is, how to come down again. The stranger kittens were always scrambling up smooth, slender saplings, and then tumbling back to the ground or crying for some one to come and help them. One of them climbed a telephone pole, and there she sat on a crosspiece, not daring to come down. She cried so piteously that at length Master sent to the fire engine company on the next street and paid a man a dollar to bring a ladder and take her down. And the next day he had to send for the man once more, for that foolish kitten had climbed the pole again!

Dixie kitten had learned, then, how to behave toward mice and beetles and horses and dogs; but People were quite [Pg 16] another matter. In the first place, they did not live either in barns or under them, like kittens, but in houses. She had often watched Master and Mistress go up the steps and into their house; and once, when she was quite small, she, too, had slipped in when the door chanced to be open. She had walked on a thick carpet that was much more agreeable than the bare ground or even the barn floor. She had seen sofas and easy chairs, and she had jumped up on a cushion that was far softer than even the home nest in the hay. There was plenty of room and no other kittens were to be seen. The People, however, had not allowed her to stay there, but had driven her out at once, she wondered why. In other ways, too, than their manner of living, People were quite different from dogs and horses and cats. Their fur was of different colors on different days, and one never knew how they [Pg 17] were going to behave. Sometimes they gave kittens good things to eat, and sometimes

they did not. Sometimes they spoke to them or patted them, and sometimes they hurried by without seeming to see them. They had long arms, and sometimes they reached out and lifted a kitten far up into the air. Then if she was frightened and tried to keep herself from falling by sticking her claws into them, they were not pleased, and often they dropped her upon the ground. To be sure, none of these things had ever happened to Dixie, for Mothercat had taught her to keep away from People; but she had seen them all occur more than once, and she had made up her mind never to have anything to do with People.

Two-footed folk often change their minds, and sometimes four-footed folk do the same; and it was not long before the little black kitten began to look at this [Pg 18] matter somewhat differently. Just beyond the barn were some apple trees and syringas and rosebushes and grapevines and a green lawn with bright blue forget-me-nots in the grass, the very place for kittens to run about and play. A fence shut off the stranger kittens, but Dixie and her mother could slip out from under the barn and have many a fine run over the grass or up the trees when no one was looking. At the end of the lawn was a cottage. There were People in it, but that did not trouble Dixie and Mothercat especially, for they never interfered. Sometimes Lady sat on the piazza with a pile of books, sometimes she picked a handful of flowers or broke off the dead twigs from some bush. When she saw Dixie and Mothercat, she always spoke to them, and they stopped and looked at her; but if she came toward them, they ran away.

Dixie had now grown so large that [Pg 19] Mothercat no longer watched her so closely. Probably she thought that the kitten had learned how to take care of herself and keep out of danger; but she might have changed her mind if she had guessed what Dixie was thinking of in her wideawake little brain. She would certainly have thought that Dixie was not doing credit to the careful teaching that she had had. Dixie was thinking hard about Lady, for there was something about her that the kitten liked. She was People, of course, but Dixie had come to the conclusion that People were not all alike. The kitten had seen a good deal of her of late—at a distance, for now that the weather was warmer, Lady was out of doors much of the time. Dixie was out almost all day, and much of it was spent among Lady’s trees and flowers. Lady frequently spoke to her, but Dixie made no reply. Still, her bright little eyes were watching.

[Pg 20] After a while one might often have seen a half-grown kitten with old-gold eyes creeping quietly around the lawn, keeping close to the fence, but holding her eyes fixed upon Lady. One morning when Lady was tying up the morning-glory vines, the small kitten screwed up all her courage and started toward her. Dixie ran as fast as ever she could, for she wanted to come, and yet she was afraid. She was all a-tremble, and her heart was beating fast; but she kept on bravely. Lady was not looking down at the path, but up at the vines, and the first that she knew, a black kitten was rubbing against her ankles and purring with all her little might. Lady stooped and patted the kitten’s head and talked to her awhile very gently; then she started to go into the house. This was not such an easy thing to do, for the kitten was so happy that she kept running back and forth before her feet and purring [Pg 21] like a tiny spinning-wheel. This was the way that a wild little kitten found a friend who was to do more for her than she ever dreamed.

[Pg 22]

Dixie and the Cottage

Lady was always kind to Dixie when they were under the trees together, but she had a way of going into the house and closing the door which the kitten thought was rather unfriendly. Some weeks passed; then, as Lady turned to close the door one morning, she saw a round black face with two shining yellow eyes pushing in shyly. “I don’t know about this, kitty,” said Lady; but Somebody Else said, “Oh, let her come in just a minute”; and Lady held the door ajar. The kitten crept in, but very timidly, for she had not forgotten that when she had run into a house before, she had been sent out at once. She did not venture very far, but she did put her little feet on a soft rug, and in a room beyond [Pg 23] she saw cushions and a sofa that she thought would be a most delightful place for a kitten to lie down and have a nap. She took only one look, then she ran back to the door and slipped out, for she did not know what might happen if she stayed longer.

Every day the kitten became a little less timid, though she was still easily startled by anything that was new to her. All cats like to be rubbed gently under the chin; but when Lady first rubbed her there, right over her dainty bit of white fur that looked so like lace, the kitten drew her head away and looked back over her shoulder at Lady’s hand as if it was something she had never seen before and she did not know what strange things it might do. It was not long, however, before she learned that nothing Lady did would ever hurt her. She had now grown brave enough to follow Lady about under the trees and [Pg 24] among the grapevines and roses and syringas; and when Lady stooped to pick a spray of forget-me-nots, she was very likely to feel a smooth black furry head pushed under her hand, for the wild little kitten who had made up her mind never to go near People was fast learning that to have a good friend among them was the best thing in all a cat’s little world.