CHAPTER III.
“Well, where did you come from, I should like to know?” asked the barn-cat sharply; for the little gray kitten didn’t present a very respectable appearance, and she was very particular about the company her family kept.
“Oh! I’ve come a long, long way,” said the gray kitten in a sad little voice, “all the way from the other side of the town, and I am very tired.”
“Why didn’t you stay at home?” said the barn-cat. “Home’s the best place for young people.”
“I haven’t got any home,” sighed the gray kitten.
“That’s a likely story,” said the barn-cat shortly. “Where’s your mother? She must be a nice kind of a mother not to provide a home for her children. Every cat can do that.”
“I haven’t got any mother,” said the little gray kitten sadly.
The barn-cat gave her nose a sharp rub with her paw,—a habit she had when her feelings were touched.
“Well, you live somewhere, I suppose. Who gives you food? You can’t live on air.”
“Last night I slept in a hollow tree,” said the gray kitten, “and I assure you I don’t get much to eat. If it hadn’t been for a little girl sharing her food with me, I should have starved long ago, for I am ’most blind and can’t see well enough to make my own living.”
“I should like to hear your story,” said the barn-cat, “and then we’ll see what can be done for you. Let me see—” and she rubbed her ear in a contemplative way. “I think we’d better let Mrs. Polly and the canary hear your story, too. They are both pretty wise, and three heads are better than one any day. There comes that house-cat; she’s nobody.”
So the barn-cat led the way to the open window where the parrot’s and canary’s cages were hanging.
“What under the sun have you got there?” asked Mrs. Polly, eying the poor little gray kitten shrewdly.
The barn-cat had jumped on the window-seat, but the gray kitten had modestly seated herself on the ground under the window. The house-cat, too, had joined the group, and placed herself where she could watch the little gray kitten. She stared at the poor little thing so scornfully that she didn’t know which way to look; so she looked on the ground and presented a very miserable appearance indeed, with her soiled and rumpled fur and her poor half-blind eyes.
“Where did you pick her up?” asked Mrs. Polly.
“I don’t know much more about her than you do,” answered the barn-cat. “I found her a few minutes ago on the door-step of the barn, and she tells me she has come from the other side of the town, and that she hasn’t any mother. I thought you’d better see her and hear her story, and perhaps you’d think of something that could be done for her.”
Mrs. Polly put on her wise look and gave a little Ahem! for it always gratified her to be looked up to and asked for advice.
Meanwhile the house-cat sat staring the poor gray kitten out of countenance. “My advice is to send her back where she came from,” she said. “Anybody can see that she’s only a tramp. I won’t have my children taught any of her common ways. Besides, there are too many cats around already,” she added, eying the barn-cat so scornfully that it was very evident she referred to her and her kittens.
“Whoever she is and wherever she comes from, it’s as plain as the nose on your face that she’s been well brought up,” answered the barn-cat quickly. “She’s quiet and lady-like in her manners, and that’s more than can be said of some who’ve had the best of advantages.”
“She’s a common kitten, probably brought up in a barn,” said the house-cat contemptuously, “and has no style whatever.”
This was too much for the barn-cat’s endurance, and she gave an angry spit, when the canary, who was always the peace-maker, interposed.
“Whatever she may be,” said the canary gently, “she’s neglected and unfortunate; so, if Mrs. Polly will find out her story, I’m sure she will find a way to help her out of her troubles. If her wise head can’t, I don’t know whose can.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Polly, “I should have done so long ago if our friends here hadn’t taken up so much time in disputing. Now, little gray kitten, tell us all you know about yourself,—where you were born, and how it happens that you are left alone in this big world to take care of yourself.”
“I can’t remember very much about myself,” began the little gray kitten in a plaintive voice, “but I know we were always poor. My mother worked very hard to support us, for the woman who kept us was very mean and never gave us anything to eat. I have heard my mother say she was the meanest woman she ever knew. She said she had heard her say that she kept a cat to get rid of the rats and mice, and that she expected her to earn her own living.”
“Well,” interrupted the barn-cat, “that is all very well for a single cat; but when a cat has a young family it comes pretty hard to keep them supplied with food. I never let my children eat mice; it doesn’t agree with them,—gives ’em the stomach-ache and makes ’em fitty.”
“It’s no harm to give ’em a mouse to play with,” said the house-cat; “I often do mine.”
“When you catch one, which isn’t often,” said the barn-cat in an undertone.
“What was that you said?” asked the house-cat sharply; “be kind enough to say it a little louder.”
“Oh, come, come,” put in the canary, “do let the gray kitten go on with her story. You were telling us that your mother had to catch all the food for you.”
“Yes,” continued the little gray kitten, “so she did. She often brought us mice, and sometimes a bird,—birds agreed best with us, she said.”
“Dear me!” exclaimed the canary with a shudder, “what a very bloodthirsty cat your mother must have been!”
“Excuse me, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” said the little gray kitten, so politely that Mrs. Polly said to herself with a little nod of satisfaction,—
“Very well brought up, indeed!”
“Go on, my dear, with your story,” said Mrs. Polly, aloud. “How many were there of you?”
“There were only my brother and myself,” answered the little gray kitten. “My mother said there were two others, but they died very young,—before they had their eyes open. She said she thought they didn’t have enough to eat.”
“Well, how about your mother? I’m anxious to hear about her,” said the barn-cat.
“It makes me very sad to think about it,” continued the little gray kitten, almost crying. “One day my mother told me and my brother that she was going to teach us how to hunt. It was the first time we had been out of doors; we lived in an old shed. It was a very pleasant day, and the air was so fresh, and the birds did look so tempting— I beg your pardon,” she added, as the canary began to flutter nervously.
“Never mind; go on with your story,” said the canary good-naturedly. “It’s your nature; you aren’t to blame.”
The little gray kitten was so embarrassed by this interruption that she forgot where she had left off in her story; but then she was so very little!
“You were saying,” said Mrs. Polly, “that your mother took you out of doors to teach you to hunt.”
“Oh yes,” answered the gray kitten, “so I was. Well, it was very pleasant, and we enjoyed ourselves very much, and I caught a little field-mouse, and so did my brother; and our mother praised us, and said that after all perhaps we would turn out smarter cats than if we had been brought up to have everything we wanted, for then we might have become lazy.”
“Very true, indeed,” interrupted the barn-cat, with a triumphant glance at the house-cat. “Your mother must have been a very sensible cat!”
“Well, then what happened, little one?” asked Mrs. Polly; for the gray kitten was again thrown off her balance by the interruption.
“The next is very sad, indeed,” said the gray kitten. “We were going home, so happy to think our dear mother was so pleased with us, when all at once we heard a dreadful noise. My brother and I were frightened half to death, for we had never heard a noise like it. My mother said it was a dog, and there was a boy with it,—a bad boy; my mother said all boys were bad—”
“Not all boys,” said the barn-cat. “Tom isn’t a bad boy; he wouldn’t hurt a kitten for the world. I’d trust him anywhere with my kittens.”
“He isn’t so mischievous as Posy is,” said the house-cat.
“Posy isn’t mischievous,” said the barn-cat warmly; “she doesn’t mean to do mischief. You can’t call it mischief when she thinks she’s doing something to help you all the time.”
“Please don’t interrupt so often,” said the canary; “you said, little kitten, that a big dog and a boy came up.”
“Yes,” continued the little gray kitten; “and as soon as the boy saw us he said, ‘Hie, Rover, seize ’em, sir!’ and the big dog, looking, oh, so fierce and angry, rushed at us with his mouth wide open, and making that dreadful noise. There was a tree near us, and my mother told my brother and me to climb up the tree as quickly as we could. My poor mother gave us the first chance, for she knew we couldn’t climb as well as she could, and she stood at the foot of the tree with her fur all bristling up and spitting at the big dog. We got up to the first branches where the dog couldn’t reach us; but before my poor mother had time to follow us the big dog seized her, and gave her one shake and killed her.”
Her hearers were very quiet as the little gray kitten ceased and sat crying softly to herself. The barn-cat gave her nose a sharp rub with her paw, and then jumped down and examined very carefully a hole under the window, as if she expected to find a mouse there. Her feelings were very much touched, for she couldn’t help thinking how dreadful it would be if her little kittens were left without a mother to care for them.
“Well,” she said, after a pause, coming back to her place on the window-sill, “what did your brother and you do then?”
“We waited till the boy and the big dog were gone,” said the little gray kitten, “and then we climbed down from the tree and went home. It was very lonely in the old shed, and we almost starved to death, for we were too small to catch mice enough to satisfy our appetites. My brother got tired of living so, and said he was going to try to find a better home where they would feed him, but I stayed where I was.”
“How about that girl you said used to feed you?” asked the house-cat.
“She was a poor little girl who didn’t have any mother either, and the woman I belonged to made her work hard and gave her very little to eat; but she pitied me, and often went hungry herself to share her food with me.”
“What made your eyes so bad, my dear?” asked Mrs. Polly kindly.
“I think it must have been the cold; it was very cold in the shed.”
There was a few minutes’ silence, and then Mrs. Polly said,—
“I have been thinking the matter over, and I believe the best thing to do is to get Posy to help us. You put yourself in the way where she’ll see you,” she said to the little gray kitten, “and all will be well.”
The poor little girl and the blind kitten.—Page [45.]