CHAPTER II.
When Posy caught up the kittens to carry them back to their nest in the barn, it was no wonder that the barn-cat followed her with a distressed and anxious countenance. Posy had been in such a hurry that she had taken one of the barn-kittens and one of the house-kittens!
The barn-cat tried very hard to make the little girl understand her mistake, and ran about her with her tail in the air and crying dismally; but Posy didn’t understand, and ran back to the house after putting the kittens in their nest. How the barn-cat did wish she could speak! She looked at the kitten that belonged to the house-cat. It was very pretty,—maltese, with a little white on the breast and about the nose, very like its mother.
“It’s rather a good-looking kitten, there’s no doubt about that,” said the barn-cat, “but to my mind not half so pretty and cunning as my little tiger-kitten that Posy left in the kitchen. That house-cat doesn’t know how to bring up a family; she’ll spoil this one just as she has all of her others. It’ll grow up as vain and indolent as she is herself. I’m sure I don’t want it here. Come,” she said, poking the kitten with her paw, “you just run home again, will you?”
The house-kitten didn’t seem to understand what the barn-cat said, for she evidently thought the cat wanted to play with her, and she tried to catch the big paw in both of her little ones.
“Well, you are cunning,” said the barn-cat. “It’s too bad to have you grow up a spoilt child. You’ll never be as smart as my kittens, of course, but I’ve a great mind to keep you and see what you’ll make if you are properly brought up.”
She didn’t like to show the kitten that she was watching her, for it might make her vain; so she pretended to be looking very intently at something out in the yard and gently moved the tip of her tail, but she looked out of the corners of her eyes and saw the little house-kitten at once try to catch it.
“Pretty well,” she said to herself, “considering you’ve never had any instruction. When you’re a little older I’ll teach you how to crouch and spring, the way I do my own kittens.”
Now that the barn-cat had decided to keep the house-kitten, she set about washing it; for Posy had dipped its head so far into the milk-pitcher that it presented a very untidy appearance.
She washed it in a most thorough manner; but the barn-cat was not so gentle in her ways as the house-cat, and the little house-kitten thought her pretty rough.
“You mustn’t be a baby and cry for nothing,” said the barn-cat, when the kitten gave a mew as the rough tongue lifted her off her feet; “I see you’ve been coddled too much already.”
Just then a plaintive cry was heard from the kitchen, and with one leap the barn-cat was out of her nest and running up to the kitchen door. She didn’t dare go in; for there was Hannah, and she knew by experience that she would be driven out if she attempted to enter. What was to be done?
The barn-cat jumped on the window-sill and looked in. There was her darling in the box by the stove and crying helplessly for her. The mother cat gave a low mew, which the baby kitten heard and understood just as a human baby understands when its mother speaks soothingly to it.
“Oh dear!” exclaimed the barn-cat, “if I could only get into that kitchen! I know what I’ll do. I’ll tell Mrs. Polly about it, and see what she advises; she’s very wise.”
So the barn-cat jumped down from the kitchen window and on the sill of the dining-room window, which stood open. Posy was in the room, and so was Mrs. Winton; but they couldn’t understand the language animals converse in.
“Why, there is the barn-cat,” cried Posy, “right on the window-seat!”
“Don’t frighten her away, but watch her quietly,” said Mamma; “I like to have her come about the house;” and Posy was very careful not to make any noise.
“I do believe that barn-cat is telling Polly something, Mamma,” said Posy in a low tone; “her keeps mewing, and Polly looks just as if her was listening.”
“Polly is certainly very talkative this morning,” answered Mamma; “it really does seem as if they were talking together.”
“I wish I knew what they were saying,” said Posy.
This is what they said:—
“I’m in trouble, Mrs. Polly,” began the barn-cat, “and I want you to help me out of it.”
“Well,” answered Polly, with her very wisest expression, “what’s the matter?”
Then the barn-cat told about Posy’s mistake, and how anxious it made her to have her kitten away from her.
“It’s just like Posy,” answered Polly; “she’s a very mischievous child. She always tweaks my tail whenever she gets a chance.”
“But she’s a dear, loving child,” said the barn-cat warmly. “How she did cry when they gave away my last kittens!”
“Yes, she’s a good little thing,” said Polly. “If ’twas anybody else that pulled my tail, I’d give ’em such a nip that they wouldn’t try it again in a hurry; but nobody could hurt Posy. She does fish some of my peanuts out of my cage and eat ’em up sometimes, but then she doesn’t mean any harm.”
“What I want to know is whether you can think of any way for me to get my kitten back,” said the barn-cat. “I tried to make Posy understand what a dreadful mistake she’d made, but she was in such a hurry she didn’t see it.”
Mrs. Polly put her head on one side in a very knowing and contemplative manner. After a few moments’ reflection she said, “The thing to do is to get Hannah out of the kitchen for a while.”
“That’s very evident,” said the canary, who had been listening attentively and didn’t like to be left out of the conversation.
“If it’s so very evident,” said Mrs. Polly, bristling up, “why don’t you do it?”
“I didn’t say I could do it; but if I could talk as you can, I would,” answered the canary good-naturedly.
“How would you do it, pray?” asked Mrs. Polly in an irritable tone.
“Why, I’d call Hannah the way Mrs. Winton does. I heard you call her the other day, and I declare I wouldn’t have believed it wasn’t she. I never knew a bird that could talk as plainly as you do.”
The canary was so good-natured that Mrs. Polly was rather ashamed of her ill-temper, and gave a sneeze and cough to hide her embarrassment.
“Well,” she said, after a pause, “perhaps that’s as good a way as any other. I did think of yelling to make her think I’d got my head caught between the wires, but Posy doesn’t like to hear such a noise. You go ’round to the kitchen door,” she said to the barn-cat; “and when Hannah leaves the kitchen you just dart in, seize your kitten, and run off with it.”
The barn-cat hardly waited to hear the last words, and ran around to the kitchen door. She had hardly arrived there when she heard Polly call “Hannah!” so exactly like Mrs. Winton that Hannah dropped the broom with which she was sweeping the floor, and answering, “Yes, ma’am,” hurried into the dining-room.
In darted the barn-cat, caught up her darling in her mouth, and had it back in her own nest in the barn before Hannah had discovered how Polly had “fooled” her, as she called it.
But when the house-cat came home from her visit, imagine what was her surprise and grief to find one of her babies gone!
“That barn-cat!” she exclaimed, “I believe she has stolen it because it’s so much prettier than her common-looking babies. She was always as jealous as she could be of them!” and out to the barn went the house-cat.
“I never visited her before,” she said to herself, “she’s so countrified in her ways and lives in a barn; but I must see if she’s got my baby.”
The barn-cat knew what she was coming for as soon as she caught sight of her.
“I want my kitten,” said the house-cat, going up to the box; and she stepped very daintily and held her head very high, as if she were afraid of soiling her shining fur. “I should think you’d be ashamed of yourself to slink into the house and steal my kitten! But I don’t suppose you know any better, as you’ve never been used to good society.”
“I didn’t steal your kitten! I don’t want your old kitten; it isn’t half so smart or pretty as mine are.”
“Indeed!” answered the house-cat with a toss of her head. “Your common-looking tiger-kittens! Look at my baby’s soft skin and her gentle little ways!”
“I’ll leave it to Posy if mine are not the smartest and handsomest,” answered the barn-cat angrily. “They had hard work to get anybody to take your kittens the last time, and mine were spoken for before they had their eyes open!”
The house-cat was very angry, but she knew there was truth in what the barn-cat said; so she only repeated, “Indeed!” in a very scornful manner, and tossed her head.
“You coddle your children too much,” continued the barn-cat. “You keep them by the warm stove, and don’t take them out doors often enough. That makes them tender.”
“When I want your advice I’ll ask for it,” answered the house-cat loftily, as she took up her kitten and went home with it.
“It was a pretty enough kitten, though I wasn’t going to tell her so,” said the barn-cat to herself. “I think I could have made a smart kitten of it, but it will only be spoiled now;” and the barn-cat sighed as she lapped a rough spot on one of her kitten’s ears.
“Meaw! meaw!” was heard in plaintive tones just outside the barn-door. It was a new voice, and the barn-cat quickly sprang up to see what was the matter. On the step of the barn-door sat a little gray kitten with a rough and muddy fur, who looked as if she had travelled a long way. She kept uttering sad little mews; and as she turned her head towards the barn-cat the latter saw that she was blind.
