Daisy Part 20

Tom held the fort, and knew how to keep it; and the children were too well aware of Tom's power as an ill.u.s.trator to desire to represent etchings, even by their "own artist, taken on the spot."

When at last the bottle was taken from him, only one-half of the valerian was left.

As soon as their father could command his voice, he said, "I will make good the loss of the hat, and keep Tom on short rations to pay for it."

The children were bursting with suppressed laughter at the sight of Cousin Robert, in one of their father's old hats. When they said good night to him, Tom got up, and, walking around him, c.o.c.ked up his eye as if to say, "How funny you do look!"

Tom went in for his full share of the fun, when they all drew near the fire, laughing over the funny features of the scene. If his tongue was silent, his eyes were eloquent with a language they all understood.

After a time he went to his corner and returned with the poor old hat, which he laid with great dignity at his master's feet. "That settles the question," he seemed to say.

It did settle it with Cousin Robert. Though he got a new hat, it was months before he visited them again, and then Tom was put out of the room--an indignity he resented by stealing a neighbor's chicken.

It was pure wickedness, for he did not care for it himself, but gave it to the poor alley cats to devour; for he patronized them and had many disreputable pensioners. All his master said, when told of Tom's wickedness, was, "Pay for it." And to Tom he would say, "If you go on this way, you bad boy, we shall end our days in the poorhouse."

Tom looked as if he did not care where we ended our days, if we took him with us. And he was very sure his master would never go without him.

Tom carried the old felt hat up into his den in the attic, and when any unusual noise was heard, his master would say, "Tom is rehearsing his play of 'Valerian, or The Old Felt Hat.'"

I thought the story of Cousin Robert very nice, and when I lie on the lounge, looking in the fire, I can see all these scenes, and I do enjoy it. Miss Eleanor says she thinks I have a great deal of imagination. I suppose it is something nice, so I guess I have. I don't feel a bit jealous, for Miss Milly was a child then, and Tom was not her special pet, as I am; for I know that I am the "very apple of her eye," as I have heard people say, and it sounds big because I don't know what it means.

Miss Milly said she would tell more about Tom some day, for the young lady was very much pleased with his story. She looked warm and happy, and drank lots of tea, and ate crackers and had a good time generally.

Some time after, a friend called who had known them from childhood and knew Tom. Such nice reminiscences I never heard before. When she noticed me, she began talking about cats, and I thought she would never stop.

They invited her to take tea, though they laughingly said, "We have no two dishes alike, and very humble fare."

She enjoyed it, however, though she had a lovely home, servants and carriages at her command. This little bit of Bohemianism, as they called it, was a delight to her. She made them promise to spend the day with her, saying, "You can bring Daisy, for I will send a carriage for you, and my Priggy will be delighted with him."

I was pleased with the invitation, but took a dislike to Priggy at once.

Such a name! Just think of it! To be called Priggy, when there are beautiful flowers and places that cats can be named for. To call a poor creature Priggy was weakness personified. I was disgusted, and refused to believe in Priggy.

As we never went to see him, my mistress not being well enough to visit, I never had the chance to express my indignation to him. Perhaps it is just as well. Poor little fool! He may think Priggy is a lovely name.

Some time after, when it stormed very hard, and the young lady upstairs was cold and low-spirited, my mistress invited her down and entertained us with more of Tom's history.

She said Tom was very fastidious in regard to dress. He despised anything ragged, and a dirty swill man (waste merchants they are called now) aroused his deepest anger. Beggars of all ages and s.e.x he ignored.

The children's dresses he looked over with a critical eye, and if he detected a rag, he would make mending impossible.

What he would have done in these days of sewing machines cannot be imagined, for he was frantic over a thread of cotton or silk, and only a knot kept the whole work from being torn to pieces by his sharp teeth.

They had one of the best-natured Pats to do their outdoor work that could be found. Pat Ryan was a faithful soul. His one great fault was his love of the bottle.

He very soon gave up the attempt of making friends with Tom, for he answered all his advances with hisses and growls, loud and deep. His tail would swell up, and he would bristle all over when Pat tried to pet him; just as human beings do when they are presumed upon by those they think beneath them in the social scale.

Pat had truly to earn his living by "the sweat of his brow." No modern helps for him. His whole stock in trade consisted of two large firkins on a rough wheel-barrow, to transport the waste that he went from house to house collecting.

He would have thought the millennium had come could he have looked forward to the progress of to-day,--the strong blue carts, with their well-fed high-steppers, and the Patricks of the period, seated with pipes in their mouths, and leather lap-robes, in imitation of their employers, going their rounds, pounding back gates, and bullying the servants if they were not prompt to greet them.

This improvement in the swill business might have made Pat give up his bottle and take to the nearly as demoralizing vice of smoking all the time. But his heavy wheel-barrow had no horse but himself, and the overflowing firkins were a load for him, particularly when, as was often the case, he was as full as his firkins.

It was then that Tom saw his opportunity. When Pat's gait was unsteady, his vision oblique, when he magnified his load by double firkins, double barrow, double people, and double street, Tom would swoop down upon him, and by some dexterous movement, known only to himself, cross Pat's path and overthrow his load. Then, reaching the highest place on the fence, he would look down, as if to say: "Well, you have come to grief. How did you do it?"

Pat was not deceived. Drunk or sober, he recognized his enemy, and gave him the full measure of his wrath. "Ye limb of Satan," he would say, "ye'll get it yet!" Such promises were never realized. Old Cloven-foot only could compete with this clever cat.

One unlucky day Pat came earlier than usual, and finding the gate closed, had to reach his arm over to unfasten it. It was quite a stretch over the top of the fence, and Pat's head did not come even with the top, so that he could not look over.

Tom, who was looking on, at once took in the situation. He crawled on his belly on the ledge of the fence just below the top, and every time Pat would reach over his hand, Tom would grab it with his open paws, his claws as sharp as needles.

Yelling with rage and pain, realizing that it was his enemy, Tom, poor Pat, unwilling to give up, tried and tried again, only to be served in the same manner.

At last he mounted on the barrow, bringing his head on a level with the fence. Before he could gain advantage from this move Tom had grabbed with both paws Pat's old straw hat, rus.h.i.+ng like mad up to the house.

Pat had by this time forced an entrance, and ran after him, in pursuit of his old hat, calling on all the saints to demolish Tom. Bareheaded, with torn and bleeding hands, witnesses of his wrongs, Pat poured forth his tale of woe to his friends in the kitchen, where he found sympathy, for Tom was feared by all the servants. Of course the culprit was nowhere to be seen.

Their mistress soon healed the breach, if not the wound, by giving Pat an old hat. To be sure, it was rather too respectable looking for his calling, but then, he was satisfied even if it did not accord with the rest of his outfit. No salve for his wound would have equalled that hat.

Miss Milly said as she watched him from her window, walking off with his new hat on, Tom crawled out from under the sofa, and, mounting the arm of her chair, said in cat language, "Don't he look just like Cousin Robert?"

Miss Milly said that when her father came home, Tom ran to meet him; then he took his master's slippers, and carried them to his chair.

"What means this unusual demonstration?" asked his master. Tom hung his head and walked under the chair. Then, when his master was seated, he crawled out, and, mounting to the arm of his chair, rubbed against his shoulder. Secure of his position, he looked around on them, as if to say, "Now tell all you know." With his large eyes fixed on their faces, he enjoyed over again his adventures, wagging his tail in recognition of the telling points in the story they related to their father.

His master said: "Tom's ancestors must have been in the hat trade, he is so fond of hats. We shall have to establish a branch of the business, and make Tom the head. If he goes on in this way, we cannot find hats enough to pay his debts."

Tom enjoyed it, looking at Miss Milly as if to say, "Don't I do it to keep up her spirits?"

He did not come in contact with Pat for some time, for Pat prudently kept out of his way. His cunning only slumbered, however. They called it turning over a new leaf; but one day he came out with a new joke on Pat.

"Looking from my window," Miss Milly said, "one morning, I saw quite an army of cats a.s.sembled around the plank walk leading to the swill house.

Tom, seated on the highest post in the yard, surveyed them with great satisfaction, which was shown by the proud elevation of his head.

"His most gracious manner was explained when Pat, coming in, dispersed them, and a long array of bones was exposed to view--the remains of the feast Tom had invited them to partake of.

"Pat could not do justice to the subject. Shaking his fist at Tom, who never winked, but gazed with solemn eyes at him, he said: 'Ye mane crathur, ye are a human for spite, picking out the best for the old alley cats ye hates. I will get a dog.' Tom only yawned, and said as plain as cat could say, 'How tiresome!' After he had watched poor Pat picking up the leavings, muttering all the time hatred of his enemy, he came to me for approval. My mother being in the room, she put him in the attic, telling him he ought to be punished by solitary confinement.

"He soon procured his release by making such a racket over my head, running about, upsetting marbles, then chasing them about, that I was very glad to open the door and say, 'You bad cat, come down.' He came when he got ready, very slowly, and was quite cool to me, though I told him he had made my head ache with his racket.

"He was not a neighborly cat, never visiting, as cats often do, the neighbors' houses, and he treated their cats with the greatest disdain.

He often fed them. I have seen him pick open the waste-house door, claw out a lot of bread and bones for the benefit of the hungry crowd. Then he would mount the fence and look on. 'With them, but not of them,' was his motto.

"Though he did not visit around, he knew everything going on in the street. He overlooked the butcher, baker, and grocer, and knew every grain of provision carried into the houses, even going so far as smelling of the meat; but when offered anything, he refused with such contempt that one and all came to look upon him as a very aristocratic cat.

"Every carriage that came to the street was received by him. He always waited till the trunks were carried in, the driver paid, and then he would come home satisfied.

"A friend of ours, who boarded in the next house, had just returned from her country home. Tom, being a favorite of hers, received her, and superintended the removal of her trunks with great interest. He followed her into the house and remained some time. When my mother called him home, he came very unwillingly.

"The next morning after breakfast he disappeared. This was nothing unusual, as my father said, 'Probably Tom had some business needing his attention daily.'