Miss Elliot's Girls / Stories of Beasts, Birds, and Butterflies

to live in the parsonage, an addition of two rooms was built for her on the gr

ndow and the glass door. In summer with this door wide open and the piazza cool and shady with woodbine and clematis, you would hav

heeks; Nellie Dimock, a little dumpling of a girl with big blue eyes and a funny turned up nose; Fannie Eldridge, looking so sweet and smiling, you would not suspect she could be guilty of the fault Susie had charged h

or sewing, and when each girl had received a block with all necessary directions for making it

usie, "you promised to t

t Dinah Diamond, p

ve heard that sto

we like best we have heard over and over again. Besides, the

riously at work, Ruth Elliot

TORY OF DI

turned yellow as she got bigger, and a white spot on her breast shaped like a diamond. I remember she spit and clawed at me all the way home, and made frantic efforts to escape

had covered the center table and a blazing lamp on the floor. It was the work of an instant for my father to raise a window, wrap the lamp in the table-cloth, and throw both into the street. This left the

joined in the pursuit. We tumbled over chairs and footstools. We ran into each other, and I remember my brother Charlie and I bumped our heads together with a dreadful crash, but I think neither of us felt any pain. They called out to each

d rolled her in the hearth rug till every vestige o

Dimock-"please don't laugh. I think it was dreadf

few weeks she was that deplorable looking object-a singed cat. But oh, what tears of joy I shed over her, and how I dosed her with catnip tea, and bathed her paw with arnica, and nursed and petted her till she was quite well again! My little brother Walter ("That was my papa, you know," Mollie whispered to her neighbor), who

itting at him notwithstanding her sore tongue, and showing her claws in a threatening way if he tried to

Eliza Jones. "I didn't know there was

e was a handsome cat, not large, but beautifully formed, 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 pl

tchen, where she would keep guard over her prey and call for me till 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 lived she hunted for snakes, though after a while she stopped bringing them to the

k object, you! I'll teach you to fight a fellow of my size. Come on! Come on!' Dinah crouched low, and eyed her antagonist for a moment, then she made a spring, and when he saw the 'black object' flying toward hi

the presumption to attack his dog, Bruno would shake the breath out of her as easy as he could kill a rat. I was inwardly much alarmed at this threat, but I put

most unexpectedly to him upon his back, for we heard one unearthly yell, and out rushed Bruno with his unwelcome burden, her tail erect, her eyes two balls of fire, and every cruel claw, each one as sharp as a needle, buried deep in the poor dog's flesh. How he did yelp!-ki! ki! ki! ki! and how he ran, through the yard and the garden, clearing the fence at a bound, and taking a bee-line for home! Half-way

hen my mother found that she was perfectly quiet and that it distressed me to have her shut out, she was allowed to remain. She would lie for hours at the foot of my bed watching me, hardly taking time to eat her meals, and giving up her dearly loved rambles out of doors to stay in my darkened room. I have thought some times if I had died then Dinah would have di

that I lo

ore than wor

all cats is

Din

fur is dar

ond is so

eyes are bi

k Di

e lamp, and

ire flew ro

scaped an

r D

end her kit

dogs with mi

hem till they h

e Di

table tak

the famil

p every scr

Din

d beside m

everish co

the tedious

r D

ou art no l

rave I'll

o me wast

k Di

or her at the table and let her eat w

d with perfect propriety. I kept a fork on purpose for her, and when I held it out with a bit of meat on it she would guide it to her mouth with one paw and eat it a

is always telling me I eat too fast, and I know I s

ing, "I was not thinking of you, but

f Dinah at las

at we were raising to take her place-for she was too old and infirm to be a good mouser-that we were afraid she would kill the poor thing outright. One morning, after she had made an unusually savage attack on her son Solomon, my mother said: 'We must have that cat killed, and the sooner the bett

eer! What be

nd in every place we could think of where she would be likely to hide, but we could get no

that she understood what was said and knew

it!-and so the poor thing went off and drown

ie Dimock, "poo

Susie Elliot. "Cats don

ep away into some solitary place to die, and Dinah had a drop or two of wild-cat blood in her veins. I fancy she hid herself in some hole under the barn and died there. It was a curious coincidence, that she

r, and constant and brave, but she lived unloved