I Did Something Bad.
“The dog dropped me behind a tree and people found me and said I was dead. The girl I belonged to said I was alive, and they waited, and when they saw the end of my tail stir they put something on the sores the dog made, and the grandma woman took care of me, and I got well. But I would rather have died than to have that cruel boy do so again. Only a cat can know what a cat can suffer from cruel boys. Dogs would not hurt us if people and cruel boys did not tell them to.
“One day I had some kittens of my own. We were in a good closet close by my own girl’s bed. Oh I was proud of my pretty little dears! I wanted people to come and see them. But when people came they said, ‘Why! why! why! The cat has kittens in the closet! Take the cat and kittens away from that closet!’
Carried Them to the Barn.
“They carried us up to the garret and put us in a box. I would not stay there. I took my kittens one at a time and carried them in my mouth back to the closet. We were put up in the box again and the garret door was kept shut. I got out of the window and carried my kittens down by tree branches, and got in by another window, and soon they found us in the closet. Then the boy put some of my kittens in his hat and another boy took some and they carried them to the barn, and I went there too; but I would not stay there. I knew what the best place was, the best place was the closet.
“When it was dark I carried my kittens back to the closet. Then they carried us down cellar, and kept the door shut. I found a hole and made it bigger, and squeezed through that hole with my kittens and went back to the closet. They put us down cellar again and stopped up the hole, and kept the door shut.
“One day soon as the door was opened I slipped quick between somebody’s feet, and went up-stairs to the grandma woman’s room, and sat by the fire. The grandma woman looked at me hard and said, ‘Poor Pixie! It is too cold for your kittens down cellar; go bring them here.’
“I knew what she said and answered her in my mew language, and went and got my kittens and she made a bed for us in a basket that had room in it.