Priscilla's Prized Pet

Priscilla’s Prized Pet by Abigail Zacharias (LoCascio)
(When I was 11 this story was publised by Majestic Books . All rights reserved.)

Priscilla Arlington ran up the front steps and through the door. She and her mother were going to make grape jelly that day.

“Mother! Mother! She called.

“In the kitchen darling,” her mother called back. Prissy ran into the kitchen. Mrs. Arlington hugged Prissy to go upstairs and get into some old clothes. Prissy ran upstairs and yanked on her work dress, long stockings (which she hated) and boots. She ran back downstairs and told her mother she was ready. Then she grabbed her bucket, ran out the back door and down the steps to the buggy.

The grapes were delicious. Prissy grabbed a handful of grapes. She put one in her mouth and the rest in the bucket. She filled a bushel basket that way.

Prissy was soon tired out, so she walked along the bushes eating grapes as she went. When she came back her mother was finished picking grapes. Before they left they sat down under a shady tree and ate a lunch of sandwiches, cookies, and grapes (and grapes and grapes!).

The next morning Prissy and her mother picked the grapes off the stems, squeezed the grapes, and put them into a jelly bag to drain. After they got their jars ready, they went outside where it was cooler for a break.

While they were outside their kitten, named Concord because she loved grapes, was inside. She smelled the grapes straining, jumped on a chair then up on the table, and started eating the pulp. She ate so much she rolled right off the table. She picked herself up, waddles into the sitting room, crawled into her favorite chair and fell asleep. Prissy came in to get her doll and saw little purple footprints all over the table and floor. She followed the footprints to the sitting room, saw her kitten lying on the chair, and screamed. Her mother came running to her side.

“What on earth is the matter?” Mrs. Arlington asked. When she saw the kitten she gasped, “Oh my! What happened?”

“Concord lived up to her name Mother,” Prissy said. Then Prissy saw something she didn’t like. There were little purple footprints on her clean white shawl which she had laid across the chair. She was going to make a design on it for a local contest.

“Oh! No!” she moaned.

“What’s the matter, Prissy?”

“Look at what she did to my shawl!”

"Oh dear,” her mother said. “Well maybe you can use it anyway. Look, the footprints are only here in the middle. It would surely be different from all the others."

“That sounds great!” exclaimed Prissy. “Good now I’ll go finish the grape jelly while you clean up this mess, said Mother.

Later on that day when her father came home, he brought an announcement for a cat show. All the girls in the territory could show their kittens and cats. The person with the prettiest cat would win a beautiful silver cat dish for the cat and a silver statue of a cat for the girl. Prissy thought about the contest. Her snow white kitten was purple! Purple!! Prissy jumped up and found her mother. She found her washing the table cloth and jelly bag in the washtub.

“What fortune!” she thought. “Mumma?” Prissy asked as she tapped her mother.

“Hmm-m-m?”

"Do you think we could wash concord in your washtub?” “Of course we could. I’m almost done anyway. Go get a bar of soap honey, and I’ll get Concord,” her mother replied.

When Prissy was all set her mother said,

“Ok, Prissy, be careful—don’t get her against your clothes. I’ll hold her, you soap her up. But, wait; push up your sleeves first.”

After they soaped up the kitten they dipped her under the rinse water and pulled her back up.

“Ouch! Yelled Prissy angrily, holding her hand. “She scratched me!”

“Let’s finish her up quick—then we’ll fix it.”

Then Prissy got a good look at Concord. She was still purple, only all over!

“Mumma! Look at her!” She cried.

“I see, honey. I don’t know what to do now.”

A couple of days passed. They tried everything they could think of on the cat trying to get her snow white again. But instead she turned a lovely lavender.

Prissy was sitting on the front steps forlornly holding her lavender kitten. Her best friend, Caddie, came skipping up the road. She stood at the bottom of the steps and said,

“What’s the matter, Prissy? You look like you lost your last friend!”

“Look at this cat,” Prissy said angrily. “She’s purple!”

“Well, don’t snap at me I didn’t do it,” said Caddie.

“I can’t enter a purple cat! I’ve tried everything I could think of and the contest is tomorrow,” said Prissy sadly.

“You haven’t thought of everything, Enter her anyway,” Caddie suggested. “She’ll be the only purple cat there. Besides, she’s really a lovely shade of lavender.”

“Do you think she’ll have any chance to win?” asked Prissy.

“Concord is gorgeous! With a big silver bow around her neck, she’d be the prettiest cat there,” said Caddie.

Prissy smiled at last. “Ok! You could be right.”

“I have a piece of silver ribbon you can use. Want to go with me to get it now?” asked Caddie. “And bring Concord so we can make sure it’s long enough.”

“Sure! Let me tell my mother first.” Prissy was so excited she couldn’t sit still. She had gotten up early and brushed and fluffed Concord. Then she put the big silver bow around her neck. At the last minute she put her into the old picnic basket and climbed into the buggy with her brother Will.

“Sit still Priss! If you bounce anymore you’ll bounce right out of the buggy,” Will teased.

“I can’t help it! I’m terribly nervous,” she replied.

In just a little while they pulled up in front of the schoolhouse, Prissy jumped down and carefully took the basket.

Will said, “You go on in. I’ll take care of the buggy.”

When Prissy entered she saw at least a dozen other girls with cats and kittens. There were two fluffy white cats, one sleek calico, a slim grey cat, an old orange tomcat, a tiny black and white kitten, another one a little older and a lot more ornery, two brown tabbies that kept scrapping, one sleek all-black cat, a grey and white spotted cat with one blue eye and one green eye and one yellow and white half grown kitten. The two tabbies were entered by Caddie and her little sister. Prissy decided to keep Concord in the basket till it was her turn to show her. Since she was last to arrive she would be last to show her cat.

So Prissy watched as all the other girls went to the table in the center to show their cats one at a time. Before she knew it, it was her turn. As she pulled Concord out of the basket everyone gasped. She could hear people whispering,

“She’s gorgeous! She’s beautiful! She’s lavender!”

The judges asked how she got a lavender cat. Prissy related all that had happened. The judges just nodded and asked her to go back and sit down. People were still whispering about the unusual cat when the judges made their decision.

"We all agree, said the head judge, “that Concord, the lavender cat, is the prettiest cat her. Please come forward for your prize, Miss Arlington."

Will whooped and whistled while everyone else clapped. After Prissy collected her prize the judge continued,

“There’s a prize for every cat here, because they are all special.”

Prissy felt really proud and happy as she and Will started back home in the buggy. And she felt a little more hopeful about the shawl design contest next week.

Will offered to take Prissy to the shawl contest too. She wasn’t quite as nervous this time. Everyone took their shawls in earlier that week to be judged. Today they’d see who had won. When Prissy entered the room, she saw a rainbow of colored shawls all around it. Most were embroidered, but some were painted, some had the pattern woven right in, and one had little purple footprints running right across the middle. Prissy was surprised to see a big blue ribbon pinned on the shawl. She had gotten first prize for the most unusual design. Will thumped Prissy on the back and said,

“Good work, Priss.”

Prissy smiled. Who would have thought all of this would have happened when she picked up a lovely little white kitten in the grape vineyard a few weeks ago.