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First published 1872

Published by Puffin Books 1982 Reissued 1995, 2009, 2019

This edition published 2025

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isbn : 978–0–241–73525–1

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introduction by cathy cassidy

I ﬁrst came across this as a library book when I was ten or eleven years old, way back in the 1970s. My dad and I loved to drift about the libraries in Coventry, where I grew up, on the lookout for new stories to explore. I liked the fact that, at a library, you could choose a book without having to fork out your hard-earned pocket money on an author you’d never tried before – it was a no-risk way of choosing a book! Then you got to take it home and escape into a very different world . . .

The cover of that old edition of What Katy Did grabbed me right away – the girl in the picture looked a little bit like me, with long dark hair and a dreamy, slightly cheeky expression. She seemed kind of wild and tomboyish . . . this book looked cool! Back then, I loved reading real-life growing-up stories. These were few and far between in the 1970s, but, although Katy lived in a very different time and place, I could really identify with her.

The minute I opened the book I was hooked . . . and I really did have lots in common with Katy! Like Katy, I

had a vivid imagination, often got myself into scrapes and wasn’t too keen on adult authority . . . but I loved my dad, who, like Dr Carr, was wise, busy and understanding. And, also like Katy, I was just about ‘the longest girl that was ever seen . . . all legs and elbows, and angles and joints’. A book about a long, lanky tomboy with tangled hair, a crazy imagination and a whole heap of good intentions? Katy Carr wasn’t perfect – far from it – but she was perfect for me!

Katy was probably my favourite ﬁctional character back then. She was always up to her ears in trouble, and that was refreshing for me after reading books about neat, well-behaved girls who always did the right thing. Katy always did the wrong thing – although she meant well! She seemed very real to me, very believable.

Although What Katy Did was set in nineteenth-century America, it felt fresh and fun and vivid, and I loved the insights into life in a very different time and place. I remember making cut-out paper dolls of Katy and her family to entertain my friends during a rainy schoolholiday week – I spent forever creating hairstyles, clothes and accessories for them! I’d recreate the storylines in the book with those dolls, but also invent new adventures of my own, and pretty soon I was writing those stories down too. I was addicted to dreaming up stories back then – I still am – and this book inspired me to start thinking about very new and very different settings.

What Katy Did has a plot twist that surprised and shocked me, because bad things weren’t meant to happen in books, were they? Well, maybe they were, because that plot twist kept me reading until the very last page. I just had to know if everything was going to turn out OK in the end! What Katy Did was a book I couldn’t put down . . . and it left me wanting more. I read it again and again, which meant plenty of return trips to the library, and then I spotted the sequels, What Katy Did at School and What Katy Did Next. I devoured them too, and ended up being given all three books for Christmas that year. Result!

Years later, when I started writing my own books for young people, I remembered how important it was for the reader to identify with the main character in the story, to understand her feelings, and to share her troubles, hopes and dreams. These days readers write to me and email my website to tell me how much they love my main characters, Ginger or Joey or Dizzy or Mouse or Scarlett, and that’s a great feeling because I know they are feeling exactly the way I did with Katy, way back when I was ten or eleven years old.

Books are a little slice of someone else’s daydream, an escape into a different world where anything and everything is possible. I have a feeling you’ll like What Katy Did just as much as I did – open the pages and start to dream!

The Little Carrs

Iwas sitting in the meadows one day, not long ago, at a place where there was a small brook. It was a hot day. The sky was very blue, and white clouds, like great swans, went ﬂoating over it to and fro. Just opposite me was a clump of green rushes, with dark velvety spikes, and among them one single tall, red cardinal ﬂower, which was bending over the brook as if to see its own beautiful face in the water. But the cardinal did not seem to be vain.

The picture was so pretty that I sat a long time enjoying

it. Suddenly, close to me, two small voices began to talk – or to sing, for I couldn’t tell exactly which it was. One voice was shrill; the other, which was a little deeper, sounded very positive and cross. They were evidently disputing about something, for they said the same words over and over again. These were the words – ‘Katy did.’ ‘Katy didn’t.’ ‘She did.’ ‘She didn’t.’ ‘She did.’ ‘She didn’t.’ ‘Did.’ ‘Didn’t.’ I think they must have repeated them at least a hundred times.

I got from my seat to see if I could ﬁnd the speakers, and sure enough, there on one of the cat-tail bulrushes I spied two tiny pale-green creatures. Their eyes seemed to be weak, for they both wore black goggles. They had six legs apiece – two short ones, two not so short, and two very long. These last legs had joints like the springs to buggy-tops; and as I watched, they began walking up the rush, and then I saw that they moved exactly like an oldfashioned gig. In fact, if I hadn’t been too big, I think I should have heard them creak as they went along. They didn’t say anything so long as I was there, but the moment my back was turned they began to quarrel again, and in the same old words – ‘Katy did.’ ‘Katy didn’t.’ ‘She did.’ ‘She didn’t.’

As I walked home I fell to thinking about another Katy – a Katy I once knew, who planned to do a great many wonderful things, and in the end did none of them, but something quite different – something she didn’t like at

all at ﬁrst, but which, on the whole, was a great deal better than any of the doings she had dreamed about. And as I thought, this story grew in my head, and I resolved to write it down for you. I have done it; and, in memory of my two little friends on the bulrush, I give it their name. Here it is – the story of What Katy Did.

Katy’s name was Katy Carr. She lived in the town of Burnet, which wasn’t a very big town, but was growing as fast as it knew how. The house she lived in stood on the edge of town. It was a large square house, white, with green blinds, and had a porch in front, over which roses and clematis made a thick bower. Four tall locust-trees shaded the gravel path which led to the front gate. On one side of the house was an orchard; on the other side were wood piles and barns, and an ice-house. Behind was a kitchen garden sloping to the south; and behind that a pasture with a brook in it, and butternut trees, and four cows – two red ones, a yellow one with sharp horns tipped with tin, and a dear little white one named Daisy.

There were six of the Carr children – four girls and two boys. Katy, the eldest, was twelve years old; little Phil, the youngest, was four, and the rest ﬁtted in between.

Dr Carr, their papa, was a dear, kind, busy man, who was away from home all day, and sometimes all night too, taking care of sick people. The children hadn’t any mamma. She had died when Phil was a baby, four years before my

story began. Katy could remember her pretty well; to the rest she was but a sad, sweet name, spoken on Sunday, and at prayer-times, or when papa was specially gentle and solemn.

In place of this mamma, whom they recollected so dimly, there was Aunt Izzie, papa’s sister, who came to take care of them when mamma went away on that long journey, from which, for so many months, the little ones kept hoping she might return. Aunt Izzie was a small woman, sharp-faced and thin, rather old-looking, and very neat and particular about everything. She meant to be kind to the children, but they puzzled her much, because they were not a bit like herself when she was a child. Aunt Izzie had been a gentle, tidy little thing, who loved to sit, as Curly Locks did, sewing long seams in the parlour, and to have her head patted by older people, and be told that she was a good girl; whereas Katy tore her dress every day, hated sewing, and didn’t care a button about being called ‘good’, while Clover and Elsie shied off like restless ponies when any one tried to pat their heads. It was very perplexing to Aunt Izzie, and she found it quite hard to forgive the children for being so ‘unaccountable’, and so little like the good boys and girls in Sundayschool memoirs, who were the young people she liked best, and understood most about.

Then Dr Carr was another person who worried her. He wished to have the children hardy and bold, and

encouraged climbing and rough plays, in spite of the bumps and ragged clothes which resulted. In fact, there was just one half-hour of the day when Aunt Izzie was really satisﬁed about her charges, and that was the halfhour before breakfast, when she had made a law that they were all to sit in their little chairs and learn the Bible verse for the day. At this time she looked at them with pleased eyes; they were all so spick and span, with such nicelybrushed jackets and such neatly-combed hair. But the moment the bell rang her comfort was over. From that time on, they were what she called ‘not ﬁ t to be seen’. The neighbours pitied her very much. They used to count the sixty stiff white pantalette legs hung out to dry every Monday morning, and say to each other what a sight of washing those children made, and what a labour it must be for poor Miss Carr to keep them so nice. But poor Miss Carr didn’t think them at all nice; that was the worst of it.

‘Clover, go upstairs and wash your hands! Dorry, pick your hat off the ﬂoor and hang it on the nail! Not that nail – the third nail from the corner!’ These were the kind of things Aunt Izzie was saying all day long. The children minded her pretty well, but they didn’t exactly love her, I fear. They called her ‘Aunt Izzie’ always, never ‘Aunty’. Boys and girls will know what that meant.

I want to show you the little Carrs, and I don’t know that I could ever have a better chance than one day when they were all so spick and span, with such nicely jackets and such neatly combed hair. the

ﬁve out of six were perched on the top of the ice-house, like chickens on a roost. This ice-house was one of their favourite places. It was only a low roof set over a hole in the ground, and, as it stood in the middle of the side-yard, it always seemed to the children that the shortest road to every place was up one of its slopes and down the other. They also liked to mount to the ridge-pole, and then, still keeping the sitting position, to let go, and scrape slowly down over the warm shingles to the ground. It was bad for their shoes and trousers, of course; but what of that? Shoes and trousers, and clothes generally, were Aunt Izzie’s affair; theirs was to slide and enjoy themselves.

Clover, next in age to Katy, sat in the middle. She was a fair sweet dumpling of a girl, with thick pig-tails of light brown hair, and short-sighted blue eyes, which seemed to hold tears just ready to fall from under the blue. Really, Clover was the jolliest little thing in the world; but these eyes, and her soft cooing voice, always made people feel like petting her and taking her part. Once, when she was very small, she ran away with Katy’s doll, and when Katy pursued, and tried to take it from her, Clover held fast and would not let go. Dr Carr, who wasn’t attending particularly, heard nothing but the pathetic tone of Clover’s voice, as she said, ‘Me won’t! Me want Dolly!’ and, without stopping to inquire, he called out sharply, ‘For shame, Katy! Give your sister her doll at once!’ which Katy, much surprised, did; while Clover purred in triumph, like a satisﬁed kitten.

Clover was sunny and sweet-tempered, a little indolent, and very modest about herself, though, in fact, she was particularly clever in all sorts of games, and extremely droll and funny in a quiet way. Everybody loved her, and she loved everybody, especially Katy, whom she looked up to as one of the wisest people in the world.

Pretty little Phil sat next on the roof to Clover, and she held him tight with her arm. Then came Elsie, a thin, brown child of eight, with beautiful dark eyes, and crisp, short curls covering the whole of her small head. Poor little Elsie was the ‘odd one’ among the Carrs. She didn’t seem to belong exactly to either the older or the younger children. The great desire and ambition of her heart was to be allowed to go about with Katy and Clover and Cecy Hall, and to know their secrets, and be permitted to put notes into the little post-ofﬁces they were for ever establishing in all sorts of hidden places. But they didn’t want Elsie, and used to tell her to ‘run away and play with the children’, which hurt her feelings very much. When she wouldn’t run away, I am sorry to say they ran away from her, which, as their legs were longer, it was easy to do. Poor Elsie, left behind, would cry bitter tears, and, as she was too proud to play much with Dorry and John, her principal comfort was tracking the older ones about, and discovering their mysteries, especially the post-ofﬁces, which were her greatest grievance. Her eyes were bright and quick as a bird’s. She would peep and peer, and follow and watch, notes into the little post-offices they were forever estab-

till at last, in some odd, unlikely place, the crotch of a tree, the middle of the asparagus bed, or, perhaps, on the very top step of the scuttle ladder, she spied the little paper box, with its load of notes, all ending with ‘Be sure and not let Elsie know.’ Then she would seize the box, and, marching up to wherever the others were, she would throw it down, saying defiantly: ‘There’s your old post-office!’ but feeling all the time just like crying. Poor little Elsie! In almost every large family, there is one of these unmated, left-out children. Katy, who had the finest plans in the world for being ‘heroic’, and of use, never saw, as she drifted on her heedless way, that there, in this lonely little sister, was the very chance she wanted for being a comfort to somebody who needed comfort very much. She never saw it, and Elsie’s heavy heart went uncheered.

Dorry and Joanna sat on the two ends of the ridgepole. Dorry was six years old; a pale, pudgy boy, with rather a solemn face, and smears of molasses on the sleeve of his jacket. Joanna, whom the children called ‘John’, and ‘Johnnie’, was a square, splendid child, a year younger than Dorry; she had big grave eyes, and a wide rosy mouth, which always looked ready to laugh. These two were great friends, though Dorry seemed like a girl who had got into boy’s clothes by mistake, and Johnnie like a boy who, in a ﬁt of fun, had borrowed his sister’s frock. And now, as they all sat there chattering and giggling, the window above opened, a glad shriek was heard, and

Katy’s head appeared. In her hand she held a heap of stockings, which she waved triumphantly.

‘Hurray!’ she cried, ‘all done, and Aunt Izzie says we may go. Are you tired of waiting? I couldn’t help it, the holes were so big, and took so long. Hurry up, Clover, and get the things! Cecy and I will be down in a minute.’

The children jumped up gladly, and slid down the roof. Clover fetched a couple of baskets from the wood-shed. Elsie ran for her kitten. Dorry and John loaded themselves with two great faggots of green boughs. Just as they were ready the side-door banged, and Katy and Cecy Hall came into the yard.

I must tell you about Cecy. She was a great friend of the children’s, and lived in a house next door. The yards of the houses were only separated by a green hedge, with no gate, so that Cecy spent two-thirds of her time at Dr Carr’s, and was exactly like one of the family. She was a neat, dapper, pink-and-white girl, modest and prim in manner, with light shiny hair which always kept smooth, and slim hands which never looked dirty. How different from my poor Katy! Katy’s hair was forever in a tangle; her gowns were always catching on nails and ‘tearing themselves’; and, in spite of her age and size, she was as heedless and innocent as a child of six. Katy was the longest girl that was ever seen. What she did to make herself grow so, nobody could tell; but there she was – up above papa’s ear, and half a head taller than poor Aunt Izzie. Whenever

she stopped to think about her height she became very awkward, and felt as if she were all legs and elbows, and angles and joints. Happily, her head was so full of other things, of plans and schemes, and fancies of all sorts that she didn’t often take time to remember how tall she was. She was a dear, loving child, for all her careless habits, and made bushels of good resolutions every week of her life, only unluckily she never kept any of them. She had ﬁts of responsibility about the other children, and longed to set them a good example, but when the chance came, she generally forgot to do so. Katy’s days ﬂew like the wind; for when she wasn’t studying lessons, or sewing and darning with Aunt Izzie, which she hated extremely, there were always so many delightful schemes rioting in her brains, that all she wished for was ten pairs of hands to carry them out. These same active brains got her into perpetual scrapes. She was fond of building castles in the air, and dreaming of the time when something she had done would make her famous, so that everybody would hear of her, and want to know her. I don’t think she had made up her mind what this wonderful thing was to be; but while thinking about it she often forgot to learn a lesson, or to lace her boots, and then she had a bad mark, or a scolding from Aunt Izzie. At such times she consoled herself with planning how, by and by, she would be beautiful and beloved, and amiable as an angel. A great deal was to happen to Katy before that time came. Her eyes,

which were black, were to turn blue; her nose was to lengthen and straighten, and her mouth, quite too large at present to suit the part of a heroine, was to be made over into a sort of rosy button. Meantime, and until these charming changes should take place, Katy forgot her features as much as she could, though still, I think, the person on earth whom she most envied was that lady on the big posters with the wonderful hair which sweeps the ground.

Paradise

The place to which the children were going was a sort of marshy thicket at the bottom of a ﬁeld near the house. It wasn’t a big thicket, but it looked big, because the trees and bushes grew so closely that you could not see just where it ended. In the winter the ground was damp and boggy, so that nobody went there, excepting cows, who didn’t mind getting their feet wet; but in summer the water dried away, and then it was all fresh and green, and full of delightful things – wild roses, and sassafras, and birds’ nests. Narrow, winding paths ran here and there,

made by the cattle as they wandered to and fro. This place the children called ‘Paradise’, and to them it seemed as wide and endless and full of adventure as any forest of fairyland.

The way to Paradise was through some wooden bars. Katy and Cecy climbed these with a hop, skip, and jump, while the smaller ones scrambled underneath. Once past the bars they were fairly in the ﬁeld, and, with one consent, they all began to run till they reached the entrance of the wood. Then they halted, with a queer look of hesitation on their faces. It was always an exciting occasion to go to Paradise for the ﬁrst time after the long winter. Who knew what the fairies might not have done since any of them had been there to see?

‘Which path shall we go in by?’ asked Clover, at last.

‘Suppose we vote,’ said Katy. ‘I say by the Pilgrim’s Path and the Hill of Difﬁculty.’

‘So do I!’ chimed in Clover, who always agreed with Katy.

‘The Path of Peace is nice,’ suggested Cecy.

‘No, no! We want to go by Sassafras Path!’ cried John and Dorry.

However, Katy, as usual, had her way. It was agreed that they should ﬁrst try Pilgrim’s Path, and afterward make a thorough exploration of the whole of their little kingdom, and see all that happened, since last they were there. So in they marched, Katy and Cecy heading the procession, and Cecy climbed these with a hop, skip and jump,

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The Little Carrs

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