Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 January 1876 — KITTY’S WISHES. [ARTICLE]

KITTY’S WISHES.

Kitty Hathway sat by the open window and looked out. in a disconsalate frame of mind. Her mother had told her that the sun was too hot for her to go out in the yard without a hat on, and her hat was away up-stairs in the nursery, and she did not want tcjC go up there for it. Nurse was putting the baby to sleep, and so she could not be called to throw it down, and Kitty, in a very lazy frame of mind, did not know what was to be done about it. She had a habit of letting herself be very discontented. She knew it was wrong, for her mamma had often told her so, and said that if she did not overcome it and stop wishing for things she did not have, and be satisfied with what she had, that she would grow up to be a very unhappy woman. But Kitty thought her mamma was very hard ou her; that no little girl could be contented with everything; she must want things she could not have, and be very unhappy that she did not get them. As she sat there thinking it over she was so engaged in being unhappy that she did not see a little fairy come in the window; however, she could not have seen her, anyway, for she was invisible to mortal eyes. She was not a very pretty fairy; she had an unhappy look" on her face, her eyes were drawn down, the corners of her mouth went in the same direction, her hair hung down all limp and draggled, as if she had just come out of a sea-bath, her clothes were and hanging loosely oii her, and altogether she was in a forloi'B plight. It was hardly to he wondered at, for she was the fairy who (grants foolish wishes, and the poor thing was so pushed for time, so dragged hither and yon by the quantity of foolish wishes people made, that she had not a moment of time to “ do up” her hair, or ke*p her clothes clean or mended. ' There were so many people wanting her just now that she could not stay by Kitty; so she just waved,, her wand, which looked very much like a scourge, over her, and, in a twinkling of an eye, surrounded by the land where . wishes come true.

She did not know it, however, but still kept thinking about how nice it was out of doors, and how- far it was up to the nursery where her hat was. As she thought, some sparrows hopped down on the pavement and began to eat the crumbs her mitlier had thrown out to them,{. “ O dear,” sighed Kitty, “ I do wish I was a sparrow, then I could go out in the sun without putting on a hat.’ 1 ’ Much to ner surprise she suddenly began to dwindle away; her legs shrank up until they were not much larger than a. match, her clothes changed into feathers, and her arms grew into wings. “ Dear me!” she exclaimed, in surprise, “I am a sparrow-. Isn’t that nice?” And up she started to fly out of the window and join the others; but she had never flown before and, of course, did not know- how, so she flew against the win-dow-pane and fell down' on the ground, nruisea by the fall. She made another attempt and succeeded no better, and it was five or six minutes before she was able to fly out of the window as she w anted to. When she finally did get out she flew directly to the rest of the sparrows, thinking Uiat, of course, they would know- her and be glad to see her. But she found they did just like little girl# do when a strange child comes among them. They drew off and began to whisper and laugh as they nodded their heads toward her. She felt very uncomfortable about it and tried hopping up nearer to them, and saying, “Peep, peep,” which she meant for “ How do you do?” Then they flew at her and commenced to peck at her leathers, so she grew- frightened and flew off by herself. She saw her pussy-cat toasting herself near by in the sun, and thought, at any rate, xhe would know and play with her; so up she hopped, in the most confiding manher. The pussy-cat was really very well behaved in regard to sparrows when they kept out of’Ker way; but what cat could be expected to resist such temptation as a sparrow- deliberately walking up to its very mouth. Pussy, of course, made a ferocious spring on her poor little mistress, who did hot at all understand what it meant until she felt the sharp claws in her w-ing; then she remembered, and peeped out: “oh, I wish I was a t pussycat instead of a sparrow.” No sooner said than done, and slie turned into the cat, and instantly felt Verv indignant that tlio sparrow had escaped from her. \ “ It really is too bad,” she thought to herself, “that when I so seldom 'have a chance of catching a sparrow I Should miss when I did have one almost in hry claws.”

“ Never mind!” she wenton; “ I know where there are some nice young mice in the stable across the alley; I will go after them.” f Off she went down the yard, not even 1 stopping to frisk with a dead leaf that blew in her way., until she reached her own stable. She had cleared that out of mice some time ago, and they had not yet come back, so now she had begun to prey on the neighbors’ stables. Under the door was a hole where she could creep out and go” into the alley. Reaching it, she found it was so closely filled up with bricks that she could not get out any more. In the midst of being so provoked at finding her hole shut that her tail bristled up, and her hair stood on end, she suddenly remembered that, as Kitty Hathway, she had that morning put in the bricks herself to keep Kitty Pussv from going into the alley, where she kept bad company and soiled her pretty white fur. “This serves me right,” she thought; “ the first thing 1 will do when I am Kitty again will be to take the bricks out of poor Pussy’s hole so she can go through. However, there’s a hole in the next-door stable; I’ll go through there; and out, she rushed into the yard again, a very frolicsome kitten, and went right up the fence, thinking, as she rushed to th§ top: “ Oh, isn’t this nice—to climb the fence so easily; it is a dreadful trouble when I am a little girl. I’ll always stop a cat.”

With which words down she jumped into the next yard, not noticing, in her delight, that Carlo, the neighbor’s large dog, stood ready to catch her as she came down, which he did, and holding her down on the ground with his big paw barked at her in the most ferocious manner, almost terrifying her out of her wits. She was too frightened to know what to do, and Carlo’s foot pressed so heavily she could hardly breathe. She thought that she was just dying when a voice called: “Fie, Carlo! Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, teasing Kitty Hatliway’s little Pusssy? Let it alone, sir!” Carlo raised his foot as he turned to look at the speaker, and Kitty sprang for her life back over the fence, quicker "than she had come over, thinking as she went; /“ Oh, dear! oh, dear, I do wish I was Kitty Hathway again.” She spoke tomguickly, for she changed back into a litU'e girl while she was still in the air, and came down upon the ground on her hands and knees. She fell so hard that it hurt her very much, and, jumping up, she ran into the house, crying, and forgetting all about the dog. Her mother met her, and as she was washing the dirt off her hands she said: “How did you hurt yourself, Kitty?” “ I fell off the fence, mamma,” she sobbed. „ “ That fence is too high for you to try to climb.” “ I wasn’t myself, I was Pussy, mamma,” she answered. “ Mfell, you musn’t play pussy on high fences, any more,” her mother said. “Bdt l was Pussy,” Kitty answered, with a sob, “ and 1 fell off and turned to myself.” "Heir mother laughed and said: “You are sleepy come and take a nice nap and -you’ll feel better.” Mrs. Hathway shut the shutters and made the room cool and dark, and Kitty soon fell asleep. When she woke up everything was quiet, and she lay there thinking. Presently, little by little, it all came back to her and she began to wonder whether it was a dream all about the pussy and sparrows and Carlo’s almost killing her, and she could not quite settle it to her satisfaction. “Anj'way,” she said to herself at last, for she was not always a foolish, discontented little girl, but often had nice, sensible thoughts, “ I suppose it was meant to teach me what mamma is always telling me, about how wrong it is to make foolish wishes and not to be contented. I will try and remember it now, and, when I make a foolish wish, remember what a dreadful time I’ve had to-day.”— N. Y. Observer.