[She used to think they were to chase]
Ju-ju was a cat. She was grey, like smoke, and had a bushy tail and long hair and yellow eyes. I don’t think yellow eyes are very pretty, do you? None of us ever liked Ju-ju very much, although we soon got to respect her. She was very vain of her long hair and thick tail and used to spend hours doing nothing but washing herself. Cats are very lazy, I think, and waste too much time on themselves. Once I asked Mother what cats were for and she sighed and said [she used to think they were to chase] but she had changed her mind [and thought now they were just to look at]. Mother had a place on her nose like a scratch where the hair never grew and sometimes I’ve wondered whether Ju-ju made it. When we first got out into the yard Ju-ju used to come and jump on top of one of the fence-posts and look down at us just as though we were funny and strange. That used to make us very angry and we would bark and jump at the post for the longest time. But of course we couldn’t reach her and after awhile she would blink and blink at us and then go to sleep up there! Cats are very annoying. They’re almost as bad as ducks!
[... and thought now they were just to look at]
We were born in the Spring and lived in the yard until we were four months old. Then my brother, whose name was Franz, and one of my sisters, whose name was Franzchen, left us. They went away off to live in the city and Freya and I were quite lonely at first, and our mother felt very badly about it. But she told us that they had gone to live with some nice, kind people and would be very happy, and after that we didn’t feel so badly about it.
After Franz and Franzchen left us we were no longer kept in the Kennel yard, but were allowed to go anywhere we pleased—except the house. We weren’t allowed in the house, but sometimes we got in. When we did we scampered straight for the kitchen. The first time we did it Cook had a tin dish filled with cake-batter in her hand and when we ran at her and barked and jumped up on her she was so surprised and scared that she cried “Saints presarve us!” and dropped the dish. [Most of the batter went on Freya] and she ran out as quick as she could go, much more frightened than Cook, and I after her. We had a fine time licking the batter off. It was nice and sweet and sticky and lasted all day. Father was quite angry with us, but Mother said “Puppies will be puppies.”
[Most of the batter went on Freya]
After that it was very hard to get in the kitchen, and when we did get in Cook would drive us out with a broom. Of course we tried not to go and made believe we didn’t know what she meant when she cried “Shoo!” and “Scat!” We would run under the tables and into the pantry and quite often she would have to coax us out with pieces of meat or something nice. It was very exciting. If we thought she really meant to hit us with the broom we would lie on our backs with our feet in the air and pretend we were awfully frightened. Then Delia, who was the maid and a great friend of ours, would say “Oh, the poor little dears. Don’t you dare hit them, Mary McGuire!” Then we would have a piece of cake each and Delia would pet us and put us outside.