Dixie Kitten

by Eva March Tappan

Another of Dixie’s duties was to entertain the Mother. The Mother had always been afraid of cats, and she had never liked them, but she could not help liking Dixie. The kitten often went to her room and lay on a small high table in the sunshine while the Mother sat in her big easy-chair and talked to her. Dixie purred back, and they were very comfortable together, and the best of friends.

When callers came, Dixie was not altogether pleased. Sometimes she would turn her back on them, march straight upstairs, and not come down again until she heard the front door close; but generally she thought it better to keep pretty close watch of them. She was inclined to think that Lady paid them too much attention; therefore she would often jump into Lady’s lap and insist upon remaining there until they were ready to start for home.

Another one of Dixie’s responsibilities was the telephone, and she always ran to it at the first ring. Her care of it was a great convenience to Lady, for the telephone bell and the doorbell sounded so nearly alike that before Dixie came, she had often made mistakes, and had hurried to the telephone when the doorbell rang. Dixie never made a mistake, however, and when Lady saw her running to the telephone, she did not have to guess which bell had rung. The telephone was as much of a mystery to Dixie as it is to some other folk. She would jump up on the table to listen, and would put her head on one side with a puzzled look. One day she stretched out her soft little paw and touched Lady’s lips to see if she could not find out where those strange sounds came from. Once Lady asked the friend with whom she was talking to call “Dixie!” Then the kitten was puzzled indeed. She looked at the receiver from all sides and even tried to get her head into it. At last she left it and jumped down from the table; for most certainly she had come upon something that no kitten could understand.

Dixie in her Home continued

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 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 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 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 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.