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Dixie Kitten

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<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/dkchap11.jpg" width-obs="570" height-obs="209" alt="Dixie playing with yarn" /></div> <h2 class="nobreak">Dixie in her Home continued</h2></div> Dixie had her small troubles, and she did not always bear them like a good child in a story-book. At one time Lady thought she was having too much salmon, and she set down some bread and milk for her. This did not suit Dixie at all. She sniffed at it and walked away. Through the morning she went to it once in a while, plainly hoping that it had changed into salmon; and each time when she saw that it was still bread and milk, she gave a little growl and turned away as angrily as a cross child that does not like his breakfast. She thought Lady would yield, and it was not until almost supper-time that she concluded to eat that bread and milk. Another one of her trials was the swing door between the pantry and [Pg 79] the dining-room. She did not like doors that went both ways and did not stay shut after they had been shut. Even when Lady or Somebody Else held the door open for her, she was afraid, and when she had screwed up her courage and run through it at full speed, she would turn and look at it over her shoulder as if there was no knowing what that thing might do yet, and she would not trust it behind her back for a moment. Still another of her troubles was that neither in the attic, nor in the cellar, nor among the soft gray shadows of that beautiful old stone wall could she ever succeed in finding a mouse. I have no idea how many long nights she may have spent wandering about the cellar and watching beside every promising hole; but I do know that wherever in the house she might be, she never failed to hear the opening of the attic door. Then she would scamper upstairs as [Pg 80] fast as her feet could carry her. She would examine every corner and every hole, and finally walk slowly downstairs with as nearly a look of anger and disgust as her happy face could be made to wear. Dixie finally concluded that there were no mice in her house, but she still hoped she might find one in that of her next-door neighbor. The first time that his cellar door was left open, she slipped in, and there she stayed. He tried to coax her out, then to frighten her out, and then he told Lady. Lady went to the door and said, “Dixie, come right home,” and Dixie stepped down daintily from a pile of wood and went home. This was her last search for mice. The kind neighbor was sorry for her disappointment, and one day he brought her two that had been caught at his store. Dixie looked at them gravely. Then she stretched out her paw and touched one of them. It did not move, and she turned [Pg 81] around and walked away scornfully and ungratefully. She did not care for dead mice; what she wanted was the fun of catching live ones. But of all the troubles that came to the petted cat, the very worst of all was her getting angry with Lady. There was a certain cushion that Dixie thought was specially her own, and one sad and sorry day Lady needed to open the box on which it lay, and put her off. Then Dixie was angry. Lady pointed her finger at her and said “Shame!” and told her she was a naughty cat. A cat cannot bear to be scolded. Dixie stood looking straight into Lady’s face. She growled and she spit, and was in as furious a little temper as one could imagine. Suddenly she seemed to remember that it was Lady, her own best friend, toward whom she was behaving so badly. She stopped growling, turned away for a moment, and then came running up to [Pg 82] Lady, purring and rubbing against her feet, and trying in every pretty little way that she knew to make her understand what a penitent cat she was. Most cats become more sedate as they grow older, but Dixie became more playful. When she was a barn cat, she never played, and she would gaze with the utmost gravity and a dignified air of indifference and surprise if any one tried to tempt her to run for a ball. Now, however, she was always ready for a game. She played with everything,—with a table leg, a corner of a rug, or the hem of Lady’s dress. She played with the dry leaves on the ground. When it snowed, she played with the snowflakes. Sometimes she caught them in her paw and held them up to examine them more closely. Then when she found that they had disappeared, her look of amazement was comical enough. She would run out of doors in the rain and play [Pg 83] with the drops or with the tiny streams of water running off the sidewalk. She did not mind getting wet in the least, and sometimes she would sit a long while on a piazza post in a pouring rain. The moment she came into the house, however, she set to work to dry herself. With only her little tongue to use as a towel, this was rather a slow business, and two or three times Lady wiped her fur with a cloth. Dixie was somewhat surprised, but she did not object. Evidently she soon discovered how much trouble this saved her, and whenever she was wet, she would go to the drawer where her own particular towel was kept and wait till Somebody Else wiped her dry. One day she was so thoroughly drenched that she felt in need of comfort as much as towel, and she ran to the study to show herself to Lady. She stood in the doorway a moment, then walked up to Lady with a long and much aggrieved “Meow-ow-ow-ow!” [Pg 84] which meant, as any one might know, “Lady, isn’t this a shame? Did you ever see a little cat so wet before?” Dixie’s notions of what was proper and what was not proper were decidedly original. Things to eat she never touched unless they were given to her, but things to play with were free plunder. One unlucky day Lady gave her an empty spool, and after this all spools were her province. Unfortunately, she preferred those that had thread on them. She liked thimbles, too, and she would jump up on the table where Lady’s work-basket stood, select a thimble or a spool to play with, and jump down with it in her mouth. If she had a spool full of thread, she was happy; but when Lady came into the room, she did not always sympathize with the kitten in her pleasure, for that thread was almost sure to be wound about everything in the room except the spool. Indeed, Dixie kitten of the house was a [Pg 85] very different little cat from Dixie kitten of the barn. She was as happy as the days were long. I might as well say, “As happy as the nights were long,” for she did not dread bedtime now, as in the times when she was sent out of the warm sitting-room to the barn. She never stayed out all night, and she was always willing to go to bed. Lady could have told a secret about this if she had chosen. It was that Dixie knew a nice little lunch was always waiting for her at the foot of the stairs. It is no wonder that she did not care to spend nights away from home. The Caller stood by one evening while Lady was preparing the lunch. “How you do spoil that cat!” she said laughingly. Lady replied thoughtfully, “Spoil her? I only make her happy, and I don’t believe it spoils either cats or people to be happy. What do you think about it, Dixie kitten?” and Dixie answered “Purr-r-r-r” contentedly. [Pg 86] Now when people wish to write the life of a person, they generally wait until he is dead—maybe because they are afraid he may contradict what they have said of him. Dixie is not dead by any means. She is sitting on the corner of the table this very minute, gazing straight at my paper; but this life of her is so true that it would not trouble me in the least if she should read every word of it. <div class="bbox"> Transcriber’s Note On the assumption of printer error, the following amendment has been made: <div class="amends"> Page 38—made amended to make—“... I’m going to make you a bed, Dixie,” ... </div> The list of books by the same author has been moved to follow the title page. </div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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