Dixie plays in the grassDixie Finds a Friend
Dixie plays in the grass
Dixiegrew until she was much larger than when she first lived in the nest in the hay, and she learned a number of things from Mothercat. She learned that to keep her fur clean and dainty she must wash it several times a day, and that nothing else made it so soft and smooth and silky as to wash it after she had just been drinking some good creamy milk. She learned that mice were to be caught; that beetles and other queer creatures of the sort that ran about in the grass were to be played with, but not eaten; that horses never ate kittens, though without meaning to do any harm, they sometimes stepped upon them. Dogs, she learned, were quite different from horses in their treatment of cats. One should always run away from dogs,not on the ground, but up some tree-trunk, for dogs cannot climb trees; and Dixie thought it was great fun to scamper up a tree, curl up on a branch, and sit there comfortably while a dog barked at the foot and tried in vain to reach her. Prince chased other cats, but if any dog troubled the kittens inhisbarn, then in about three seconds the strange dog was running down the street with Prince at his heels. Prince was a little puzzled about Mothercat and Dixie. They came into the barn to eat and Mistress fed them, but they lived under the barn instead of in it. This was strange, Prince thought, and he hardly knew whether he ought to take care of them or drive them away. He decided that he ought not to do them any harm, but that he might give them just a little chase now and then. They understood this as well as he, and after he had driven them up a tree, they would come down, go intothe barn, and eat their dinner beside him as peaceably as possible.
Of course Dixie kitten had learned to climb any tree in the neighborhood. She had learned also what some kittens never do learn, and that is, how to come down again. The stranger kittens were always scrambling up smooth, slender saplings, and then tumbling back to the ground or crying for some one to come and help them. One of them climbed a telephone pole, and there she sat on a crosspiece, not daring to come down. She cried so piteously that at length Master sent to the fire engine company on the next street and paid a man a dollar to bring a ladder and take her down. And the next day he had to send for the man once more, for that foolish kitten had climbed the pole again!
Dixie kitten had learned, then, how to behave toward mice and beetles and horses and dogs; but People were quiteanother matter. In the first place, they did not live either in barns or under them, like kittens, but in houses. She had often watched Master and Mistress go up the steps and into their house; and once, when she was quite small, she, too, had slipped in when the door chanced to be open. She had walked on a thick carpet that was much more agreeable than the bare ground or even the barn floor. She had seen sofas and easy chairs, and she had jumped up on a cushion that was far softer than even the home nest in the hay. There was plenty of room and no other kittens were to be seen. The People, however, had not allowed her to stay there, but had driven her out at once, she wondered why. In other ways, too, than their manner of living, People were quite different from dogs and horses and cats. Their fur was of different colors on different days, and one never knew how theywere going to behave. Sometimes they gave kittens good things to eat, and sometimes they did not. Sometimes they spoke to them or patted them, and sometimes they hurried by without seeming to see them. They had long arms, and sometimes they reached out and lifted a kitten far up into the air. Then if she was frightened and tried to keep herself from falling by sticking her claws into them, they were not pleased, and often they dropped her upon the ground. To be sure, none of these things had ever happened to Dixie, for Mothercat had taught her to keep away from People; but she had seen them all occur more than once, and she had made up her mind never to have anything to do with People.
Two-footed folk often change their minds, and sometimes four-footed folk do the same; and it was not long before the little black kitten began to look at thismatter somewhat differently. Just beyond the barn were some apple trees and syringas and rosebushes and grapevines and a green lawn with bright blue forget-me-nots in the grass, the very place for kittens to run about and play. A fence shut off the stranger kittens, but Dixie and her mother could slip out from under the barn and have many a fine run over the grass or up the trees when no one was looking. At the end of the lawn was a cottage. There were People in it, but that did not trouble Dixie and Mothercat especially, for they never interfered. Sometimes Lady sat on the piazza with a pile of books, sometimes she picked a handful of flowers or broke off the dead twigs from some bush. When she saw Dixie and Mothercat, she always spoke to them, and they stopped and looked at her; but if she came toward them, they ran away.
Dixie had now grown so large thatMothercat no longer watched her so closely. Probably she thought that the kitten had learned how to take care of herself and keep out of danger; but she might have changed her mind if she had guessed what Dixie was thinking of in her wideawake little brain. She would certainly have thought that Dixie was not doing credit to the careful teaching that she had had. Dixie was thinking hard about Lady, for there was something about her that the kitten liked. She was People, of course, but Dixie had come to the conclusion that People were not all alike. The kitten had seen a good deal of her of late—at a distance, for now that the weather was warmer, Lady was out of doors much of the time. Dixie was out almost all day, and much of it was spent among Lady’s trees and flowers. Lady frequently spoke to her, but Dixie made no reply. Still, her bright little eyes were watching.
After a while one might often have seen a half-grown kitten with old-gold eyes creeping quietly around the lawn, keeping close to the fence, but holding her eyes fixed upon Lady. One morning when Lady was tying up the morning-glory vines, the small kitten screwed up all her courage and started toward her. Dixie ran as fast as ever she could, for she wanted to come, and yet she was afraid. She was all a-tremble, and her heart was beating fast; but she kept on bravely. Lady was not looking down at the path, but up at the vines, and the first that she knew, a black kitten was rubbing against her ankles and purring with all her little might. Lady stooped and patted the kitten’s head and talked to her awhile very gently; then she started to go into the house. This was not such an easy thing to do, for the kitten was so happy that she kept running back and forth before her feet and purringlike a tiny spinning-wheel. This was the way that a wild little kitten found a friend who was to do more for her than she ever dreamed.