CAT STORIES - BY HELEN JACKSON - 1886 - INTRODUCTION - DO not feel wholly wrote these letters the letters written to me by my marnrna, or other friends, and I never caught Pussy writing at any time when I was at home but the printing was pretty bad, and they were signed by PUS name and my rnarnma a w s looked very mysterious when I asked about them, as if there were sotne very great secret about it all so that until I grew to be a big girl, I never doubted but that Pussy printed them all alone by herself, after dark. They were written when I was a very little girl, and was away from home with my father on a journey. We made this journey in our own carriage, and it was one of the pleasantest things that ever happened to me. My clothes and my fathers were packed in a little leather valise which was hung by straps underneath the carriage, and went swinging, swinging, back and forth, as the wheels went round. My father and I used to walk up all the steep hills, because old Charley, our horse, was not very strong and I kept my eyes on that valise all the while I was walking behind the car- riage it seemed to me the most unsafe way to carry a valise, and I wished very much that my best dress had been put in a bundle that I could carry in my lap. This was the only drawback on the pleasure of my journey, my fear that the valise would fall off when we did not know it, and be left in the road, and then 1 should not have anything nice to wear when reached my aunts house. But the valise went through all safe, and I had the satisfaction of wearing my best dress every afternoon while I stayed and I was foolish enough to think a great deal of this. On the fourth day after our arrival came a letter from my mamma, giving me a great many directions how to behave, and enclosing this first letter from Pussy. I carried both letters in my apron pocket all the time. They were the first letters I ever had received, and I was very proud of them. I showed them to everybody, and everybody laughed hard at Pussys, and aslced me if I believed that Pussy printed it hcrself. I thought perhaps.......... --This text refers to the Paperback edition.