KATHIE’S STORY.

NOW stay right still and listen, kitty-cat, and I’ll tell you a story:

Once there was a little girl. She was a pretty good little girl, and minded her papa and mamma everything they said, only sometimes she didn’t, and then she was naughty; but she was always sorry, and said she wouldn’t do so any more, and her mamma’d forgive her.

So she was going to hang up her stocking.

“You’ll have to be pretty good, lest ’twon’t be filled,” said her mamma.

“’Less may be there’ll be a big bunch of sticks in it,” said her papa.

Do you think that’s a nice way to talk, kitty-cat? I don’t.

So the little girl was good as she could be, and didn’t cry nor slap her little sister hardly any at all, and always minded her mamma, specially when she came where the chimney was.

So she hung up her stocking. And in the night she got awake and wanted it to come morning; but in the morning she didn’t get awake till ’twas all sunshiny outdoor. Then she ran quick as she could to look at her stocking where she’d hung it; and true’s you live, kitty-cat, there wasn’t the leastest little mite of a scrimp!

Oh, the little girl felt dreadful!

How’d you feel s’pose it had been you, kitty-cat?

She ’menced to cry, the little girl did, and she kept going harder and harder, till bymby she screeched orfly, and her mamma came running to see what was the matter.

“Mercy me!” said her mamma. “Look over by the window ’fore you do that any more, Kathie.”

That little girl’s name was Kathie, too, kitty-cat, just the same’s mine.

So she looked over by the window, the way her mamma said, and—oh! there was the loveliest dolly’s house you ever saw in all your born life. It had curtains to pull to the sides when you wanted to play, and pull in front when you didn’t. There was a bedroom, kitty-cat, and a dinner-room and a kitchen and a parlor, and they all had carpets on. And there was the sweetest dolly in the parlor, all dressed up in blue silk. Oh, dear! And a penano to play real little tunes on, and a rocking-chair and—O kitty-cat, I can’t begin to tell you half about it.

I can’t about the bedroom, either, nor the dinner-room. But the kitchen was the very bestest of all. There was a stove—a teenty, tonty mite of a one, kitty-cat—with dishes just ’zactly like mamma’s, only littler, of course, and frying-pans and everything; and spoons to stir with, and a rolling-pin and two little cutters-out, and the darlingest baker-sheet ever you saw!

The first thing that little girl did was to make some teenty mites of cookies, ’cause her mamma let her; and if you’ll come right downstairs, kitty-cat, I’ll give you one, ’cause I was that little girl, kitty-cat, all the time.