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"Don't laugh, Mollie," said tenderhearted1 Nellie Dimock—"please don't laugh. I think it was dreadful2. O3 Miss Ruth, was the poor little thing4 dead?" "No, indeed, Nellie; and, wonderful to relate5, she was very little hurt6. We supposed her fine thick coat kept the fire from reaching her body, for7 we could discover8 no burns. Her tongue was blistered where she had lapped the flame9, and in her wild flight she had lamed10 one of her paws. Of course her beauty was gone, and for a few weeks she was that deplorable looking object—a singed cat. But oh, what tears of joy I shed over her, and how I dosed11 her with catnip tea, and bathed her paw with arnica12, and nursed and petted her till she was quite well again! My little brother Walter ("That was my papa13, you know," Mollie whispered to her neighbor), who was only three years old, would stand by me while I was tending her14, his chubby face twisted into a comical expression of sympathy, and say in pitying tones: 'There! there! poo-ittle Dinah! I know all about it. How oo must huffer' (suffer). The dear little fellow had burned his finger not long before and remembered the smart15. "I am sorry to say that the invalid16 received his expressions of sympathy in a very ungracious manner, spitting at him notwithstanding her sore tongue, and showing her claws in a threatening way17 if18 he tried to touch her. As fond as I was of Dinah, I was soon obliged19 to admit that she had an unamiable20 disposition21." "Why22, Miss Ruth, how funny!" said Ann Eliza Jones. "I didn't know there was any difference in cats' dispositions." "Indeed there is," Miss Ruth answered: "quite as much as23 in the dispositions of children, as any one will tell you who has raised a family of kittens. Well, Dinah made a quick recovery, and when her new coat was grown it was blacker and more silky24 than the old one. She was a handsome25 cat, not large, but beautifully formed26, with a bright, intelligent face and great yellow eyes that changed color in different lights. She was devoted to me, and would let no one else touch her if she could help it, but allowed me to handle her as I pleased. I have tucked her in my pocket many a time27 when I went of an errand28, and once I carried her to the prayer-meeting29 in my mother's muff. But she made a serious disturbance in the midst of the service by giving chase30 to a mouse, and I never repeated the experiment. "Dinah was a famous hunter, and kept our own and the neighbors' premises31 clear of rats and mice, but never to my knowledge caught a chicken or a bird. She had a curious fancy for32 catching snakes, which she would kill with one bite in the back of the neck and then drag in triumph to the piazza33 or the kitchen, where she would keep guard over her prey and call for me till34 I appeared. I could never quite make her understand why she was not as deserving of praise as when she brought in a mole or a mouse; and as long as she lived35 she hunted for snakes, though after a while she stopped bringing them to the house. She made herself useful by chasing the neighbors' hens from the garden, and grew to be such a tyrant that she would not allow a dog or a cat36 to come about the place37, but rushed out and attacked them in such a savage fashion that after one or two encounters they were glad to keep out of her way. |
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