The Story of a China Cat Part 7

CHAPTER VI

A TERRIBLE STORM

Jeff was not going to let his China Cat be taken from him in this fas.h.i.+on. With a yell he darted up the bas.e.m.e.nt steps and ran after his sister.

"Come back heah! Bring back mah cat!" yelled the colored boy.

"No! No!" screamed his sister. "I done got her, an' she's mine now! She suah is mine!"

Faster and faster the little colored girl raced down the street, but of course she could not run as fast as Jeff, who soon caught up to her.

Reaching forth his hands, which were now dirtier than before, Jeff caught hold of his sister's kinky hair.

"Ouch! Oh, yo' stop dat, Jeff!" she wailed.

"Gib me back mah white cat!" he demanded, and he took the toy roughly from his sister. Arabella began to cry, and a man who was pa.s.sing stopped and looked at the colored children.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Oh, we's only playin'," answered Jeff. "She took mah cat, an' I wanted it back."

"Hum!" mused the man. "That's a queer kind of play, I think. And if you drop that cat on the sidewalk you won't be able to play with her, for she'll be broken to pieces."

"What a dreadful thing! Oh, if that should happen!" thought the China Cat, who heard all that was said.

"I ain't gwine to drop her," declared Jeff, as he turned away with the China Cat in his dirty hands. With tears on her black cheeks, Arabella followed her brother back to the tenement.

Jeff put his toy down on the table again. On one wall of the room was a looking gla.s.s. It was cracked and not very clean, but as a ray of suns.h.i.+ne entered the dingy bas.e.m.e.nt the China Cat, by the gleam of it, saw her reflection.

"Why, I hardly know myself!" she whispered, not daring, of course, to speak aloud or to move and make believe come to life. There were too many colored children looking at her. "Oh, what a fright I am!" thought the China Cat and sighed.

Well might she think that. On her nose was a big speck of dirt, and there were other specks on her back and sides. Her tail, too, that was always so spotless, was now daubed with mola.s.ses and smoke grime from the fire. The China Cat was white now only in spots.

"The Nodding Donkey would hardly speak to me if he saw me now," she thought. "I'm glad he isn't here."

"Now don't yo' touch my cat!" warned Jeff, as he got up from the table, where he had been playing with the toy.

"Whut yo' gwine do?" asked Arabella, who had got over her crying spell.

"I's gwine make a stable fo' my cat," answered the colored lad.

"Cat's don't live in stables! Dey lives in under de back porch," said Arabella. "In a box."

"Cats do so live in stables, 'cause I done seen 'em!" declared Jeff.

"An' dey catches rats an' mice. I's gwine make a stable fo' my cat whut I done got at de fire an' de p'liceman didn't see me!" and he laughed as he thought of how he had fooled the officer.

Jeff hunted around in the woodpile until he found what he wanted. This was a large cigar box, and with a knife Jeff soon cut a hole in one side, large enough to slip the China Cat through.

"Dere's her stable!" he declared with satisfaction.

As for the China Cat, when she was shut up in the cigar box, she wanted, most dreadfully, to sneeze. For the box smelled very strongly of tobacco, and it made her nose tickle. But she dared not so much as utter a faint _aker-choo_ for fear she would be heard. So the China Cat held back the sneeze, though it made her nose ache, and she was very glad when Jeff took her out of the cigar box stable.

During the remainder of that day the colored boy and his sisters and brothers took turns playing with the China Cat. For, after a while, Jeff allowed the others to handle his toy. And the China Cat was pa.s.sed around among the colored children so often that she kept getting more and more dirty. And on account of having spots of mola.s.ses on her, every bit of dirt and grime that touched her stuck right there. Jeff and his brothers and sisters did not think of was.h.i.+ng themselves, much less of was.h.i.+ng the China Cat.

At last, after having been much handled and pa.s.sed from one to another, the China Cat was set on a shelf in the kitchen of the bas.e.m.e.nt tenement where the colored family lived. Many other colored folk lived in the same house, and in adjoining houses.

"At last I have time to breathe, but I am so dirty I do not know what to do," said the China Cat to herself. "I do not believe that any of the other toys that came from the workshop of Santa Claus ever had such an unpleasant adventure as I am having."

But if the China Cat had only known it, the Lamb on Wheels, about whom one of these Make Believe books has been written, had an adventure almost as sad. The Lamb went down into a coal bin, which was a great deal blacker than the negro tenement.

"I wonder what will happen to me next?" thought the China Cat, as she found herself perched on the kitchen shelf. She could look down and see Jeff, his brothers and his sisters, and his father and mother, eating supper. They did not offer the China Cat anything to eat, of course.

Toys don't have to eat, which is very lucky sometimes.

"Come now, chilluns! Off to bed wif yo' all!" called Jeff's mother, when supper was finished. "Yo' was up early, an' yo' mus' git to bed early."

"Can't I play with my China Cat?" asked Jeff.

"No, indeedy!" declared the colored woman, shaking her head. "Yo' leave dat cat alone, an' git to bed!"

So to bed went Jeff and the other children. Their beds were down in the bas.e.m.e.nt, in a room just off the kitchen. It was not a very nice home, but it was the best they could get.

Soon it began to grow dark, but there was a street lamp that shone in one of the bas.e.m.e.nt windows, so the China Cat, who could see pretty well in the dark anyhow, managed to look about her.

On the same shelf where she sat, and not far away, was a little Cloth Dog.

"Dear me!" said the China Cat, speaking out loud now, for there was no one in the kitchen, all the family having gone to bed. "Dear me, I didn't know you were here!"

"Oh, yes, I'm here!" barked the Cloth Dog. "That is, what's left of me."

He and the China Cat did not quarrel, though in real life very few dogs and cats are friends. But it is much different with toys.

"Why, has anything happened to you?" asked the China Cat.

"Gracious, yes!" exclaimed the Cloth Dog. "Can't you see that my tail is pulled off?"

The China Cat stretched her neck and looked at the Cloth Dog. Surely enough, in the gleam from the street light she saw that he had no tail.

"Oh, how dreadful!" mewed the Cat. "How did it happen? It must pain you?"

"Not so much as at first," said the Dog. "I'm used to it now. One of the colored children pulled my tail off. I think it was the one they call Arabella. She's always grabbing things away from the others."

"Yes, she grabbed me," said the China Cat. "But I'm glad she didn't pull off my tail. I'm dirty and sticky, and I hardly know myself, but, thank goodness, I'm _all_ here."

"That's more than I can say of myself," said the Cloth Dog sadly. "And I'm afraid you will not be all there after a few days in this house.

It's a dreadful place, and the children are so rough!"

"How did you come to be here?" asked the China Cat. "Were you brought here from the workshop of Santa Claus?"

"Bless your whiskers, no!" barked the Cloth Dog. "Of course I _once_ came from North Pole Land, but that was years ago. I was a good-looking toy then, and I had a fine tail. But after a while the children with whom I lived grew tired of me. I was tossed about, thrown into corners, and at last put out in the ashes. There one of these colored children found me, and brought me here. And the very first day there was a scrabble and a fight over me, and my tail was pulled off."