The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat | Page 8

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."

XI
THE WRENS' HOME
THERE wasn't a bird on the farm that didn't dislike Miss Kitty Cat.
And there was only one bird family that didn't live in dread of her. That
was the Wren family. And they had a good reason for feeling safe from
Miss Kitty.
Miss Kitty Cat always spluttered whenever she unbent herself enough
to talk with anybody about Rusty Wren and his busy little wife, who
had their home in the cherry tree outside Farmer Green's window.
"The Wrens needn't feel so proud of their house," Miss Kitty Cat
sometimes said. "It's nothing but an old syrup can. And I know for a
fact that Mrs. Bluebird looked at it last spring when she was hunting for
a home. And she said she wouldn't live in such a place. I heard her tell
her husband so."
Now, the reason why Mr. and Mrs. Wren liked their house and the
reason why Miss Kitty Cat didn't were one and the same: Miss Kitty
couldn't get inside it. The mouth of the syrup can, which the Wren
family used for a door, was no bigger than a quarter of a dollar. It was

entirely too small for Miss Kitty Cat, though it was big enough to admit
Rusty Wren and his plump wife.
Miss Kitty said everything she could to persuade the Wren family to
build themselves a nest in a crotch of the tree, like other birds.
"I'm sure," she told them, "you'd like such a home much better than this.
There's no reason why you shouldn't be as fashionable as everybody
else. You wouldn't have to look for a place to build. There's room
enough right in this old cherry tree for a hundred happy homes if
anybody wanted to build them."
"We like our house," Rusty Wren said.
"I wouldn't move, even if he wanted to," Mrs. Wren declared.
"Maybe you'd move because he doesn't want to," Miss Kitty Cat
suggested.
But Mrs. Wren shook her head in a most decided way.
"No!" she said. "I'm satisfied with my house. And our neighbors would
be far better off if they built as we do, inside a snug sort of box."
"You'll never know what you're missing," Miss Kitty remarked, "if you
don't try an open nest sometime. Now, only yesterday I visited Jolly
Robin's family over in the orchard. And their youngsters