the hole, and kept the door shut.

“One day soon as the door was opened I slipped quick between somebody’s feet, and went up-stairs to the grandma woman’s room, and sat by the fire. The grandma woman looked at me hard and said, ‘Poor Pixie! It is too cold for your kittens down cellar; go bring them here.’

“I knew what she said and answered her in my mew language, and went and got my kittens and she made a bed for us in a basket that had room in it.“When my kittens were big enough to crawl I went away and left them sometimes, and if they cried for my going I punished them. When they were good I let them play with my tail; but I always kept one paw ready to punish them if they bit me, or bit each other. I took great comfort with my dear kittens. They understood everything I said to them. One was taken from me, but I tried to be contented with what were left.

“They soon grew big enough to follow me all over the house, and I took them to many places. One room was always shut. I did not like that. No cat likes to have a door kept shut.

“One day a woman went in that room and worked and moved the things; and she went away and left the door not shut tight, and I pushed in with my kittens, and they had a happy time. They raced and scampered as if they were crazy kittens, for there was a high wind blowing that day. I tried to keep them out of the bed-curtains, but they would go there. They all got on the bed and raced over the pillows where it was not right for kittens or even cats to go, and they bit the fringes, and jumped up and clawed the tassels and some of the tassels were so good that I clawed them myself. Almost any cat will claw a good tassel hanging down in a windy day. The kittens rolled over each other too near the edge of the bed and rolled off, and hopped up and went scampering round the room pulling all the things they wanted to. They went up on high places and tipped things over, and pulled things down, and got into the drawers, and Pomp heard them, and he came in there and jumped about and pulled things out of the drawers, and gnawed things, and played with my kittens. They would not mind me, and all I could do was to sit in a chair and watch them.

“I thought I heard a mouse in a closet, and went in there to see; and while I was in there somebody drove out my kittens and Pomp. I stayed to see about the mouse, and I ate something bad in that closet. It had been put there for the mice.

“What I ate in that closet made me sick and I was very sick. They gave me 

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