Miss Elliots Girls | Page 5

and I never repeated the experiment.
"Dinah was a famous hunter, and kept our own and the neighbors' premises clear of rats and mice, but never to my knowledge caught a chicken or a bird. She had a curious fancy for catching snakes, which she would kill with one bite in the back of the neck and then drag in triumph to the piazza or the kitchen, 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 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 cat to come about the place, 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.
"Once I saw her put a flock of turkeys to flight. The leader at first resolved to stand his ground. He swelled and strutted and gobbled furiously, exactly as if he were saying, 'Come on, you miserable little black 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 him, every hair bristling, all eyes, and teeth, and claws, the old gobbler was scared half out of his senses, and made off as fast as his long legs would carry him, followed by his troop in the most admired disorder.
"I was very proud of one feat of bravery Dinah accomplished. One of our neighbors owned a large hunting dog and had frequently warned me that if my cat ever had 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 on a bold front, and assured Mr. Dixon that Dinah Diamond always had come off best in a fight and I believed she always would, and the result justified my boast.
"It happened that Dinah had three little kittens hidden away in the wood-shed chamber, and you can imagine under these circumstances, when even the most timid animals are bold, how fierce such a cat as Dinah would be. Unfortunately for Bruno he chose this time to rummage in the wood-shed for bones. We did not know how the attack began, but suppose Dinah spied him from above, and made a flying leap, lighting 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 across the street, when Dinah released her hold and slipped to the ground, he showed no disposition to revenge his wrongs, but with drooping ears and tail between his legs kept on his homeward way yelping as he ran. Nor did he ever give my brave cat the opportunity to repeat the attack, for if he chanced to come to the house in his master's company, he always waited at a respectful distance outside the gate.
"It would take too long to tell you all the wonderful things Dinah did, but I am sure you all agree with me that she was a remarkable cat. She came out in a new character when I was ill with an attack of fever. She would not be kept from me. Again and again she was driven from the room where I lay, but she would patiently watch her opportunity and steal in, and when 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 died too of grief at my loss. But I didn't die; and when I was getting well we had the best of times, for I shared with