The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat. Arthur Scott Bailey. 1919. 92 pages. [Source: Bought]
First sentence: The rats and the mice thought that Miss
Kitty Cat was a terrible person. She was
altogether too fond of hunting them.
They agreed, however, that in one way it
was pleasant to have her about the farmhouse.
When she washed her face, while
sitting on the doorsteps, they knew—so
they said!—that it was going to rain.
And then Mrs. Rat never would let her
husband leave home without taking his
umbrella.
Premise/plot: The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat is a vintage early chapter book. The setting is Farmer Green's farm and it primarily focuses on Miss Kitty Cat's adventures and misadventures. While Mrs. Green and her son, Johnny, often give her pets and enjoy her company, the family dog, Spot, is less desirable a companion. Spot likes to chase Miss Kitty Cat, and she has little tolerance for his nonsense.
There are twenty-four chapters in all, but the chapters are super short.
My thoughts: I found this vintage chapter book charming! I thought Miss Kitty Cat was a great narrator. I could easily believe it was written from a cat's point of view!
Quotes:
When Miss Kitty Cat awoke from her
nap she got up and stretched herself. In
her opinion, a nap was no nap at all if
one didn't stretch after taking it.
"There's nothing like a good stretch to
make a person limber," she often remarked.
"I declare!" Farmer Green's wife cried
one day. "Somebody's been stealing my
cream in the buttery."
The buttery was a big bare room on the
shady side of the house, where great pans
of milk stood on a long table. When the
cream was thick enough on the milk Mrs.
Green skimmed it off and put it in cans.
At one end of the buttery there was a
trap door in the floor. When the trap
was raised you could look right down into
a well. And into its cool depths Mrs.
Green dropped her cans of cream by
means of a rope, which she fastened to a beam under the floor, so the tops of the
cans would stay out of the water.
Mrs. Green made butter out of that
cream. So it was no wonder she was upset
when she discovered that some one had
meddled with one of her pans of milk.
"It can't be the cat," said Farmer
Green's wife. "The buttery door has
been shut tight all the time."
Miss Kitty Cat was right there in the
kitchen while Mrs. Green was talking to
her husband. And it was easy to see that
Miss Kitty agreed with her mistress.
She came close to Mrs. Green and purred,
saying quite plainly that she was a good,
honest cat and that she deserved to be
petted. At least, that was what Mrs.
Green understood her to mean.
Often, after that, Mrs. Green discovered
traces of the thief in the buttery.
Flecks of cream on the side of a milk pan, drops of cream on the table, smudges of
cream now and then on the floor! Such
signs meant something. But Farmer
Green's wife couldn't decide what.
And another strange thing happened.
Miss Kitty Cat lost her appetite for milk.
She would leave her saucer of milk untasted
on the kitchen floor.
Now and then Mrs. Green picked Miss
Kitty up and looked closely at her face.
At such times Miss Kitty purred pleasantly.
She did not seem to be the least bit
disturbed.
One evening, after dark, Johnnie Green
went into the buttery to get a pail. The
moment he opened the door there was a
crash and a clatter inside the room.
Johnnie jumped back quickly.
"There's somebody in the buttery!" he
shouted.
But when his father brought a light
they found no one there. A tin dipper
lay on the floor.
"When you opened the door it must
have jarred the dipper off the edge of the
table," said Farmer Green.
"Meaow!" said a voice behind them.
There stood Miss Kitty Cat, saying that
everything must have happened exactly as
Farmer Green said.
"She couldn't have been in here, could
she?" Farmer Green puzzled. "Come,
Kitty!" And he picked up Miss Kitty
and held her where the light fell full upon
her face. "Clean as a whistle!" said
Farmer Green. "I guess she just followed
us in." He set her down again.
And once more, with a plaintive meaow
she agreed with him perfectly.
Farmer Green's wife threw away pan
after pan of milk, because she knew somebody
had been stealing cream off the top
of them. At least, she told Farmer Green
to feed the milk to the pigs, because she
wasn't going to make butter of any cream
that had been tampered with by goodness
knew whom or what. And old dog Spot
said that feeding good creamy milk to the
pigs was just the same as throwing it
away. He made that remark to Miss
Kitty Cat, adding that it was a shame that
somebody was stealing cream and declaring
that he hoped to catch the thief.
Miss Kitty Cat made no reply whatsoever.
"Don't you hope I'll catch the guilty
party?" Spot asked her.
"Please don't speak to me!" Miss Kitty
Cat exclaimed impatiently. "I don't
enjoy your talk; and you may as well
know it."
"Very well!" said Spot. "But when I
catch him I'll let you know."
"She's jealous," Spot thought. "She
knows I'm a good watch dog. And she
can't bear the idea of my catching a
thief."
It was hard, usually, to tell how Miss
Kitty Cat felt about anything. She was a
great one for keeping her opinions to herself.
It seemed as if she wanted to be let
alone by every one except Farmer Green's
family.
Having boasted about catching the
cream thief, old dog Spot began to watch
the buttery very carefully. Search as he
would, he couldn't find a chink anywhere
that was big enough even for a mouse to
squeeze through.
One day he happened to catch a glimpse
of something moving under the roof of the
shed next the buttery. To his amazement
he saw Miss Kitty Cat slip through an old
stove-pipe hole that pierced the great
chimney which led down into the buttery,
where there was an ancient fireplace which
hadn't been used for years and years.
Miss Kitty Cat crept along a tiebeam and
hid herself in a pile of odds and ends that
somebody had stowed high up under the
roof and left there to gather dust and cob-webs.
"Ah, ha!" said Spot under his breath.
"This is interesting."
When Miss Kitty Cat visited the kitchen
a little later there wasn't a speck of dirt
on her coat. And her face was spotless.
No one would have guessed that she had
ever made her way through an old
chimney.
Old dog Spot said nothing to her then.
But he chuckled to himself. He had a
plan that pleased him hugely.
All this happened on a morning. And
late that afternoon when Miss Kitty Cat
wasn't anywhere to be seen, and Farmer
Green's wife opened the buttery door to
get a pitcher of cream for supper, Spot
suddenly began to bark in the shed. He
scrambled up a stepladder that leaned
against the wall and stood on the top of it
while he pawed the air frantically, as if
he were trying to fly.
The noise brought Mrs. Green hurriedly
out of the buttery. And she was just in
time to see Miss Kitty Cat peer out of the old stove-pipe hole, with a creamy look
about her mouth.
Well, the cat was out of the bag at last.
Or perhaps it would be more exact to say
that Miss Kitty was out of the buttery.
Anyhow, it was very plain to Mrs. Green
that she had been in the buttery only a
moment before, lapping thick cream off a
pan of milk. And she hadn't had time to
wash her face.
After that Farmer Green stopped up
the stove-pipe hole. And soon Miss
Kitty's appetite for milk returned.
When Mrs. Green set out her saucer of
milk for her Miss Kitty lapped it up
greedily—and even licked the saucer
clean.
Old dog Spot watched her with a grin.
"I let you know when I caught the
cream thief, just as I promised you I
would," he jeered.
Miss Kitty wiped her face very carefully
before replying.
"Don't boast!" she said. "It's a disagreeable
thing to do.... Besides, I
knew—long before you did—who was taking
Mrs. Green's cream."
© 2021 Becky Laney of Young Readers
