Pussy and Doggy Tales

E. Nesbit, L. Kemp-Welch

• Publisher: Read & Co. Books
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781528713030
• eBook ISBN: 9781528787536

"Pussy and Doggy Tales" is a 1899 collection of short children's stories about the lives and adventures of various cats and dogs. Edith Nesbit (1858 – 1924) was a prolific and popular writer of children's literature, publishing more than 60 such books under the name E. Nesbit. She was also a political activist and co-founded the Fabian Society, which had a significant influence on the Labour Party and British politics in general. This charming children's collection will appeal to animal-loving children and would make for perfect bedtime reading. The tales include: "Too Clever by Half", "The White Persian", "A Powerful Friend", "A Silly Question", "The Selfish Pussy", "Meddlesome Pussy", "Nine Lives", "Tinker", "Rats!", "The Tables Turned", "A Noble Dog", "The Dyer's Dog", "The Vain Setter", etc. Other notable works by this author include: "The Prophet's Mantle" (1885), "Something Wrong" (1886), and "The Marden Mystery" (1896). Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially-commissioned new biography of the author.

Pussy Tales

Too Clever by Half

"TELL us a story, mother," said the youngest kitten but three.

"You've heard all my stories," said the mother cat, sleepily turning over in the hay.

"Then make a new one," said the youngest kitten, so pertly that Mrs. Buff boxed her ears at once—but she laughed too. Did you ever hear a cat laugh? People say that cats often have occasion to do it.

"I do know one story," she said; "but I'm not sure that it's true, though it was told me by a most respectable brindled gentleman, a great friend of my dear mother's. He said he was a second cousin twenty-nine times removed of Mrs. Tabby White, the lady the story is about."

"Oh, do tell it," said all the kittens, sitting up very straight and looking at their mother with green anxious eyes.

"Very well," she said kindly; "only if you interrupt I shall leave off."

So there was silence in the barn, except for Mrs. Buff's voice and the soft sound of pleased purring which the kittens made as they listened to the enchanting tale.

"Mrs. Tabby White seems to have been as clever a cat as ever went rat-catching in a pair of soft-soled shoes. She always knew just where a mouse would peep out of the wainscot, and she had her soft-sharp paw on him before he had time to know that he was not alone in the room. She knew how to catch nice breakfasts for herself and her children, a trick I will teach you, my dears, when the spring comes; she used to lie quite quietly among the ivy on the wall, and then take the baby birds out of the nest when the grown-up birds had gone to the grub-shop. Mrs. Tabby White was very clever, as I said—so clever that presently she was not satisfied with being at the very top of the cat profession.

"'Cat-people have more sense than human people, of course,' she said to herself; 'but still there are some things one might learn from them. I must watch and see how they do things.'

"So next morning when the cook gave Mrs. Tabby White her breakfast, she noticed that cook poured the milk out of a jug into a saucer. That afternoon Tabby felt thirsty, but instead of putting her head into the jug and drinking in the usual way,—you know—she tilted up the jug to pour the milk out as she had seen the cook do. But cats' paws, though they are so strong to catch rats and mice and birds, are too weak to hold big brown jugs. The nasty deceitful jug fell off the dresser and broke itself. 'Just to spite me, I do believe,' said Mrs. Tabby. And the milk was all spilled.

"Now how on earth could that jug have been broken?' said cook, when she came in.

"'It must have been the cat,' said the kitchenmaid; and she was quite right, but nobody believed her.

"Then Mrs. Tabby White noticed that human people slept in big soft-cushioned white beds, instead of sleeping on the kitchen hearth-rug, or in the barn, like cat people. So she said to her children one evening—

"'My dears, we are going to move into a new house.'

"And the kittens were delighted, and they all went upstairs very quietly, and crept into the very best human bed. But unfortunately that bed had been got ready for a human uncle to sleep in; and when he found the cats there he turned them out, not gently, and threw boots at them till they fled, pale with fright to the ends of their pretty tails. And next morning he told the Mistress of the house that horrid CATS had been in his bed, and he vowed that he would never pass another night under a roof where such things were possible. Mrs. Tabby White was very glad—because no lady can wish for the visits of a person who throws boots at her. But the Mistress of the house said sadly, 'Oh, Tabby!—you have lost us a fortune!' And Tabby for all her cleverness didn't understand what the Mistress meant, but went on purring proudly, and wondering what clever thing she could do next. And I don't know what it meant either, so don't you interrupt with silly questions.

"'I think we ought to wear shoes,' was the next thing Mrs. Tabby White said; but all the human shoes were too big for her. However, there was a nice pair of salmon-coloured kid shoes, quite new, belonging to the human child's big doll—and Mrs. Tabby White put them on her eldest kitten's little browny feet.

"'Now, Brindle,' she said (he was named after the gentleman who told me the story), 'you are grander than any kitten ever was before.' And at first Brindle felt pleased—then he tried to feel pleased—then he knew he wasn't pleased at all. Then the shoes began to hurt him horribly, so he mewed sadly; and Mrs. Tabby White boxed his ears softly—as mother cats do; you know how I mean! But when she was asleep he took off the pink shoes and bit them to pieces. And Nurse slapped him for it. Poor Mrs. Tabby White was very miserable when she saw her son being slapped: for it is one thing to box your son's ears (softly, as mother cats do; you know how I mean), and quite another to see another person do it—heavily, as is the way with nursemaids.

"But the last and greatest effort Mrs. Tabby White made to imitate human manners was one Saturday night.

"She saw the human child have its bath before the nursery fire, with hot water, pink soap, dry towels, and much fussing, and she said to herself, 'Why should I waste hours every day in washing my children with my little white paws and my little pink tongue, when this human child can be made clean in ten minutes with this big bath. If I had more time I could learn to be cleverer, and I should end by being the most wonderful Cat in all the world...

Table of contents

• E. Nesbit
• Pussy Tales
• Doggy Tales