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Title: Willy Washes Kitty's Face
Date of first publication: early 1800s
Author: Anonymous
Date first posted: July 22 2012
Date last updated: July 22 2012
Faded Page eBook #20120725
This eBook was produced by: L. Harrison & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net
The images for this eBook were provided courtesy Special Collections, University Libraries, Ball State University
I know the sweet-est ba-by-boy that ev-er lived! Yes, we all know him, on-ly we all have dif-fer-ent names for him. Wil-ly Mc-Tag-gart I call him—"Will-tag-gy" he calls him-self; and he lives in South Bos-ton.
Wil-ly and I were vis-it-ing his mam-ma in her own room one day, when we heard a faint tap at the door, like a fair-y rap. "See who's there, Wil-ly," says mam-ma.
Wil-ly ran to the door and o-pened it, stand-ing on his tip-toes to reach the knob. He threw up both plump lit-tle hands. "How-de-oo!" he says. "Tum wite in!"
In walked the fun-ni-est lit-tle kit-ten you ev-er saw. Round and soft and of a bright yel-low, with white paws and tail and breast, its two fun-ny pricked-up ears pierced and hung with pink and blue rib-bons just the col-or of its soft lit-tle nose and twink-ly eyes.
"O, my good gwa-cious!" says Wil-ly, and the kit-ten arched her back and rubbed a-gainst his legs.
Mam-ma and I looked on in as-ton-ish-ment. Where the kit-ty came from no-bod-y knows; and I think the fair-ies must have brought her straight from fair-y-land for Wil-ly, and left her, with that gen-tle tap, at the door.
"Milk!" de-mands Wil-ly. "Mam-ma—kit-ty—milk!" (He nev-er us-es more words than he needs.)
So mam-ma fetched some milk, and kit-ty soon showed us that what-ev-er land she came from there must have been cows there; for no kit-ty could drink milk as she drank that un-less she was used to it.
While she was eat-ing Wil-ly ran and brought a damp cloth that hung on the tow-el-rack, and sat down on the floor be-side her, cross-legged, his fat hands on his plump lit-tle knees, his gold-en head bent o-ver, and his eyes look-ing straight in-to kit-ty's face. He did not move nor stir till she had fin-ished her milk, but then he caught her up sud-den-ly, and rubbed her mouth and her del-i-cate pink nose with his cloth, just as mam-ma bathes his face af-ter he has had his milk; and kit-ty kicked and squirmed and tried to get a way, just as Wil-ly does, some-times.
I don't sup-pose kit-ty had ev-er had a-ny-one but her own mam-ma wash her face be-fore, and she was so sur-prised! We laughed so loud at the fun-ny sight that Wil-ly stopped to laugh with us, and kit-ty ran a-way and got un-der the bed, where, per-haps, she laughed, too.
Wil-ly has had his kit-ty three weeks now, and she doesn't seem to like hav-ing her face washed a-ny bet-ter than at first.
"Ver-y sin-g'-lar!" says Wil-ly.
What do you sup-pose Ba-by Chris had for a Christ-mas pres-ent?
It was the cun-ning-est thing in all the world, and Chris' mam-ma was so glad when it came in-to her mind to do it. She want-ed to buy a big pict-ure-book; she want-ed to buy a gay set of nois-y bells, and a love-ly long train of cars to whiz back and forth a-long the floor; she want-ed to buy a big doub-le arm-ful of pret-ty things, but she could not, for she had on-ly five cents to spend. And I can't be-gin to tell you what a hard Christ-mas ache there was in her heart, for she longed to make her ro-sy-cheeked, lit-tle two-year-old ba-by-boy as hap-py as the hap-pi-est.
But the day be-fore Christ-mas, just at night, a bright, fun-ny thought came to her. She laughed right out, and jumped up and kissed lit-tle Chris, and told him to sit still in his crib, and ran out and spent her five cents joy-ful-ly; "for," said she, "he won't care for much else when he sees that!"
As soon as Chris had gone to sleep, she got her work-basket and sat down to car-ry out her mer-ry plan; she sewed a long time on the lit-tle red frock he had taken off, smil-ing to her-self all the while, and when she went to bed she looked as hap-py as if she had had five hun-dred dol-lars to spend.
Well, when Chris was dressed next morn-ing, what do you think he found?
Why, there was a pock-et on his red frock—a cun-ning, lit-tle out-side pock-et trimmed with braid and but-tons. Chris saw it at once, and though it was his first pock-et, the lit-tle dim-pled hand went straight down in-to it, and of course there were nuts and rai-sins and can-dy there, but these rare lit-tle daint-ies were nothing at all com-pared with the pock-et it-self; and I am sure Chris' mam-ma en-vied no oth-er wom-an in all the world that day, when her lit-tle boy came tod-dling up to her ev-er-y few mo-ments, hold-ing up his dress—"See! See! Mam-ma, O, do see!"
It all hap-pened down in a sun-ny mead-ow—a mead-ow so sun-ny that the clou-dy face of wee Nell was real-ly pit-i-ful.
She was sit-ting on the ground a-mong the tall grass-es and the gay wild flow-ers. The light fin-gers of the wind ruffled her hair. Gold-en but-ter-flies flut-tered by. But Nell did not see them. She just clasped her two chub-by hands a-bout her knees and mur-mured, as she rocked back and for-ward:
"It's just too bad—and we were hav-ing such a 'light-ful time. He's not a bit nice—an' what'll I do 'th out a-ny hat? The sun'll speck-le my face all o-ver, an'—"
Just here a lit-tle fel-low in a dark sail-or suit, with gold-en hair rip-pling down his shoul-ders, came soft-ly up be-hind. He dropped a wide-brimmed hat o-ver the lit-tle dis-mal head, and cov-ered with brown hands her big brown eyes.
But hat and hands were dashed a-side.
"Why, Nell, what is the mat-ter, has you run mad?"
No an-swer. So Bert went on:
"Cos I just runned o-ver the hill to make a daisy wreath for you. An' I thought you'd be glad."
Nell peeped from un-der the brown lash-es at this. Yes, true as true, there was the hat all crowned with the white dai-sies of peace. She be-gan to grow glad in spite of her-self.
The brown lash-es were lifted, the brown eyes looked full in Bert's face, and a smile dim-pled her cheeks.
And Bert flung his arms a-bout her neck, his ber-ry stained lips touched her cheek in the shyest and sweet-est of kiss-es—and all was made up.
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[The end of Willy Washes Kitty's Face by Anonymous]