I hope the little boys and girls who read this letter will not laugh when I tell them I am going to write about cats. My dear old Sheppie dog was poisoned, so I can't write about him, and our kittie is not just a common kind of a cat, for she has seven toes on each of her fore-paws, and she can catch more rats and mice than any other three cats I ever saw. She came in the other day with an awfully big rat, and when I went to pat her a little, the rat bit me. She is striped just like a tiger.
Mamma told us such a funny story about a kittie she had when she was a little girl. One day she went up an apple-tree near the house after some dear little birds. Mamma ran after her, but was too late to save even one little bird. She was so provoked with her kittie that she ran up stairs, and tore a big piece out of a dress, and made a bag. Then she put poor kittie in it, with a big stone for a pillow, and ran as fast as she could to a big pond over past the corn field, and threw poor kittie in. When mamma got back to the house, the first thing she saw was that same little kittie sitting beside the door, washing herself off, and looking so sorry and pitiful that mamma took her in her arms, and dried her with her apron. Then she carried her into the house, and put her in the oven to get warm. She thought she would not let grandpa and grandma know about it, for fear they would laugh at her, but the colored driver was there, and saw it all, and he told them when they came home. They laugh at mamma about it yet.
I think Young People is just the nicest, jolliest paper in all the world.
We are making up a boxful of things to send to the poor little boys and girls at the Howard Mission, in New York.
Frank J. T.
Golden, Colorado.
I live in the far West. It is a very nice place. Our schools are just splendid. They are graded, and we have the best of teachers.
Sometimes the Ute Indians come here. They are awful dirty and lazy, and very mean. They steal and beg all the time, and we are glad to see them go away. Once in a while we have a visit from gypsies. I am twelve years old.
Tillie K.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
I must tell you about a funny mistake I made the other day at the breakfast table. I was talking about Toby Tyler calling his monkey Mr. Stubbs because he looked like a man he knew by that name, and I said I did not think the man would feel very much complicated. Papa and mamma and my two big brothers all laughed very much. At first I did not know why, and was feeling very uncomfortable, when mamma explained to me that I should have said complimented, and told me the difference in the meaning of the words. Then I laughed as much as any of them. I am eight years old.
Jack M.