Who is Jenny?
Captain Tinker rescued Jenny from a dog when she was a kitten, and she has lived with him ever since. She's timid, and in the first book she watches the neighborhood cats meet under the maple tree outside her window, sure she has no talent worth sharing. When she learns to ice-skate, the club votes her in.
Children often recognize themselves in her: she's nervous about new places and new friends, and braver than she thinks.
The red scarf
Jenny's red scarf is her signature, and it gets a whole book of its own in When Jenny Lost Her Scarf (1951).