Miss Elliot's Girls Part 5

"I never knew till the other day," said Florence Austin, "that cats scatter crumbs to attract the birds, and then watch for them and spring out on the poor things when they are feeding."

"What a shame! I wouldn't keep a cat who played such a cruel trick,"

Mollie said.

"My Dinah Spot doesn't catch birds or chickens," said Nellie Dimock; "only mice."

Mrs. Elliot had come in with a message to her sister while this talk went on, and had lingered to hear Eliza's story of old Jane.

"Girls," she said, "with your President's permission, I will tell you a story about a cat. It is curious, because it proves that a cat remembers and reasons much as a man or woman would in similar circ.u.mstances. Susie and Mollie, I have told it to you before, but you will not mind hearing it again.

"When my brother Charles was a young man he kept a bachelor establishment in the country, and with other pets owned a beautiful gray cat he had; brought with him from Germany. She was very intelligent and docile, a great favorite with her master, and was allowed many privileges in the house. She came in and out through a small door cut in the side of the house which she opened and closed for herself. A chair was regularly placed for her at the table; she slept at the foot of my brother's bed, and perched herself on his shoulder when he took a stroll in the garden. She could distinguish the sound of his bell from any other in the house, and was greatly disturbed if the servant delayed in answering his call.

"One summer my sister Helen and her two boys were staying with Charles, and in the midst of the visit he was called away on business, and was absent for several weeks. Now, Carl and Teddy were dear little fellows, but full of mischief; and in their uncle's absence they so teased and tormented poor Miess, taking advantage of her amiable disposition, that she was forced at length to keep out of their way. About a week before Charles came home she had kittens, which she carefully hid behind a heavy book-case in the library.

"The morning of his return he had the cat in his lap petting and caressing her as usual, and then went out for an hour. As soon as he was gone, p.u.s.s.y brought her kittens one by one from their hiding-place and laid them on the rug in the corner of the room where she had nursed and tended all her young families before. Now she must have reasoned in this way: 'My good, kind master has come home, and those dreadful boys who have pinched my ears and tied things to my tail, and teased and frightened me almost to death, will be made to behave themselves. All danger to me and to my babies is over. Why must the pretty dears be hidden away in that musty place? Of course master wants to see them, and they are well worth looking at. The thing for me to do is to bring them out of that dark hole and put them where I always have put my kittens before.'"

"Wise old Miess!" said Mollie. "Mamma, please tell the girls how she saved uncle's pet canary from a strange cat."

"Yes, dear. Miess was so obedient and well trained that her master often trusted her in the room while he gave the bird his airing, and Bobby became so accustomed to the cat's presence that he hopped fearlessly about the floor close to p.u.s.s.y's rug, and more than once lighted on her back; but one day your uncle discovered Miess on the table with the bird in her mouth. For an instant he thought her cat nature had got the upper hand, and that Bobby's last moment had come; then he discovered a strange cat in the room and knew that his good cat had saved the canary's life. As soon as the intruder was driven out, Bobby fluttered away safe and sound."

"Wasn't that nice of Miess, Auntie?" said Susie. "I have thought of a story for you to tell us this afternoon--the story of the barn-cat that wanted so much to become a house-cat. Don't you remember that story you used to tell us long ago?"

"Oh, yes!" Mollie said; "her name was Furry-Purry, and she lived with Granny Barebones, and there was Tom--Tom--some thing; what _was_ his name? Tell us that, Aunt Ruth, do!"

"Isn't it open to the objection you made to Mollie's choice a while ago, Susie?" she asked. "I remember it went with 'The Three Bears' and 'Old Mother Pig' and 'The Little Red Hen.'"

"No, Auntie, I think not; it's different, somehow."

"Very well, then, if you are sure you haven't outgrown it."

"Is it a true story?" Nellie Dimock wanted to know.

"It is made out of a true story, Nellie. A young cat which was born and brought up in a barn became dissatisfied with her condition in life, and made up her mind to change it. She chose the house of a friend of mine for her future home, and presented herself every morning at the door, asking in a very earnest and humble way to be taken in. When driven away she went sadly and reluctantly, but in a few moments was back again waiting patiently, quietly, hour after hour, day after day. If noticed or spoken to, she gave a plaintive mew, looked cold and hungry, but showed no signs of discouragement. She didn't once try to steal into the house, as she might have done, but waited patiently for an invitation.

"And when one morning she brought a mouse and laid it on the door-step, and looking up, seemed to say: 'Kind lady, if you will take me for your cat, see what I will do for you,' my friend could no longer refuse. The door was opened, the long-wished-for invitation was given, and very soon the little barn-cat became the pet and plaything of the family. She proved a valuable family cat, and her descendants, to the fourth generation, are living in my friend's family to-day.

"Out of these materials I have dressed up the story of

HOW FURRY-PURRY BECAME GOLD ELSIE.

"The door of the great house stood open and Furry-Purry looked in.

"Furry-Purry was a small yellow cat striped down the back with a darker shade of the same color. Her paws, the lower part of her body, and the spot on her breast were white.

"This is what the little cat saw, looking through the open door into the great house:--

"A pleasant room hung with pictures, the floor covered with a soft carpet, where all kinds of bright-colored flowers seemed to be growing, and, in the sunniest corner, lying in an arm-chair piled with cus.h.i.+ons, a large tabby cat.

"Just then a gust of wind closed the door, and Furry-Purry ran round the house to the barn and remained all day hidden in her hole under the boards.

"That night there was a storm, and several cats in the neighborhood crept into the barn for safety. There was old Mrs. Barebones, a cat with a bad cough, which was thought to be in a decline; Tom Skip-an'-jump, a sprightly young fellow with a tenor voice which he was fond of using on moonlight nights; and Robber Grim, a fierce, one-eyed creature--the pest of the neighborhood--with a great head and neck and flabby, hanging cheeks and bare spots on his tawny coat where the fur had been torn out in his fierce battles.

"The thunder roared overhead and the lightning, s.h.i.+ning through the cracks, played on the barn floor and showed the cats sitting gravely in a circle. Only Tom Skip-an'-jump, who still kept his kittenish tricks, went frisking after his tail and turning somersaults in the hay.

Presently he tumbled over Furry-Purry and bit her ear.

"'Come, play!' said he: 'it's a jolly time for puss-in-the-corner.'

"'Tom,' said Furry-Purry, 'I never shall play again. I am very unhappy.

I have seen Mrs. Tabitha Velvetpaw lying on a silk cus.h.i.+on, while I make my bed in the hay. She walks on a lovely soft carpet, and I have only this barn floor. O Tom, I want to be a house-cat.'

"'A house-cat!' repeated Tom disdainfully. 'They sleep all day. They get their tails pulled and their ears pinched by horrid monsters with only two legs to walk on, and nights--beautiful moonlight nights when we barn-cats are roaming the alleys and singing on the roofs and having a good time generally--they are locked in cellars and garrets and made to watch rat-holes. Oh, no! not for Tom.'

"He was off with a whisk of his tail to the highest beam in the barn, looking down on them with the greenest of green eyes, and singing,--

'Some love the home Of a lazy drone, And a bed on a cus.h.i.+oned knee; But in wild free ways I will spend my days, And at night on the roofs I'll be.

Oh, 'tis my delight, On a moonlight night'--

"'Don't listen to him, my dear,' said Mrs. Barebones, the consumptive cat; 'he's a wild, thoughtless creature, quite inexperienced in the ways of the world. Heed the counsels of one whose sands of life are almost run and who, before she goes to the land of cats, would fain warn a youthful friend and, if possible, avert her from her own sad fate. This racking cough (ugh! ugh!) and this distressing _cat_-arrh, (snuff!

snuff!) with which you see me afflicted were brought on by the hards.h.i.+ps and exposure incident to the life of a barn-cat: midnight rambles, my dear (ugh!), in frost and snow; days when not so much as a mouse's tail has pa.s.sed my hungry jaws, and winter nights when my coat was too thin to keep out the cold. And all these sufferings, past and present, are in consequence of my being a barn-cat.'

"'Now, may the dogs get me, if I ever heard such a string of nonsense!'

said Robber Grim. 'Don't believe a word she says. She's an old granny.

She's got the fidgets. She wants a dose of catnip-tea. Don't believe Tom Skip-an'-jump, either. What does _he_ know about war? He never was shot at. Look at me! I'm Robber Grim! I'm an old one, I am! I've got good blood in my veins. My great-grandfather was a catamount and his grandmother was a tiger-cat. I've been in a hundred battles. I've had one eye knocked out and an ear bit off. I left a piece of my tail in a trap. I've been scalded with hot water and peppered all over with shot.

_I'll_ teach you how to get a living without being a house-cat. I hate houses and the people who live in them, and I do them all the mischief I can. I eat up their chickens and I suck their eggs. I climb in at the pantry window and skim their milk. Once when the cook left the kitchen door open I s.n.a.t.c.hed the beefsteak from the gridiron and made off with the family dinner. They hate me--they do. They've tried to kill me a dozen times; but I'm Robber Grim, ha! ha! and I've got nine lives!'

"At this instant there came a flash of lightning, followed by a peal of thunder that shook the barn to its foundations, and every cat fled in terror to its hole.

"The next morning Mrs. Tabitha Velvetpaw took a stroll round the garden and down the lane a little way, where the catnip grew. The ground was wet after the shower, and she was daintily picking her way along, very careful not to soil her beautiful feet, of which she was justly proud, when suddenly there glided from behind a tree and stood directly in her path a small yellow cat.

"'Oh, my paws and whiskers!' exclaimed Mrs. Tabitha, surprised out of her usual dignity.

"'If you please,' said Furry-Purry,--for it was she,--'I have made bold to come out and meet you to ask your advice. I am a poor little barn-cat, and I was contented with my lot till I saw you yesterday in your beautiful home; but now I feel that I was intended for a higher sphere. Tell me--oh, tell me, Mrs. Velvetpaw, how I may become a house-cat!'

"'Well, did I ever!' said Mrs. Velvetpaw. 'The idea!' and she moved a step or two away from poor Furry-Purry, her manner, as well as her words, expressing astonishment and disdain.

"'I know it seems presuming, Mrs. Velvetpaw, but'--

"'Presuming! I should say so. What is this generation of cats coming to, when a low creature reared in a barn--a paw-paw (pauper) cat, as I may say--dare lift her eyes to those so far above her?'

"'I have heard my mother say "a cat may look at a king,"' said Furry-Purry.

"'Go away, you low-born creature! How dare you quote your mother to me?

Go away, this instant! I am ashamed to be seen talking with you! What if my friend Mrs. Silvercoat or Major Mouser should happen to pa.s.s! Begone, I say! scat!'

"'O Mrs. Tabitha,' said the poor little cat, 'don't send me away! I can't go back to that barn. Indeed, indeed, after spending this short time in your company, I can never endure to live with Tom Skip-an'-jump and Mrs. Barebones and that horrid Robber Grim. If you refuse to help me I will go straight to Growler's kennel. When he has worried me to death, won't you be sorry you drove me to such a fate? Dear, dear Mrs.

Velvetpaw, your face is kinder than your words. Oh, pity the sorrows of a poor little cat!'