CHAPTER TWO
THE BLIND SEE
In addition to Big, who was striped, there were five other kittens in the litter: a black, a white, a grey, and a red—besides an indescribable little production about the size of a man’s thumb, with fur whose colouring resembled patches of all the others put together.
Tiny lay always half smothered under the heap of kittens, and had to be content with the worst nipple, which, although nearest the mother’s heart, nevertheless flowed weakly. That he had not long ago been crushed to death by the others must remain an insoluble mystery!
The little, blind creatures were just developing their sight. The faint, subdued light here inside the willow stump made this trying period unusually agreeable. Even when the sun was shining strongly outside they could lie staring about them without discomfort. Each of the tiny eyes was covered with a curious bluish film, through the damp, glazed surface of which the slanting pupils began to push their way. The eyes appeared extraordinarily large in comparison with the head, and gave the impression that the kittens were in a state of perpetual surprise.
On the whole, the babies had grown. True, their coats were not quite in order, for the fur still stuck out patchily all over their bodies; but the hair was there right enough, and the colours too ... the white was as white as day, and the black as black as night; even the cross stripes on the grey kitten showed up plainly.
Their hindquarters alone remained noticeably undeveloped; they were still quite conical and stunted, and jerked up stiffly and clumsily with every movement of the body. It would be a long time before that part attained perfection.
The imps were still far from being active and graceful! They reeled and rolled as they crawled over the lumps of touchwood; they could not jump at all, indeed they could scarcely walk. It seemed as if, once having acquired eyes, they had neglected everything else. They used them incessantly ... and were never tired of looking and looking!
They had no opportunity to gormandize. They drank greedily, and soon sucked old Grey Puss dry. Then she shook them off and closed the milk-spring. This she effected by rolling herself into a ball and pressing her forepaws tightly to her breasts—and however much the little ones exerted themselves to widen the opening with their snouts so as to get inside and continue drinking, they never succeeded.
Then they had revenge by clambering up and nestling on her back and neck; where they lay licking their chops.
This sort of thing didn’t upset her in the least. In fact, she was delighted at being mauled about by her offspring; she stretched herself at full length, purring and humming the while—she knew now that they had settled down for a while.
Occasionally she blinked her tight-shut eyelids, twisted her head round, and fastened her keen, brassy orbs on the long row of funny little patches of colour on her back. There was every imaginable feline colour-scheme there, and she studied each one separately, noticing any peculiarity of colouring or divergence from type....
Extraordinary.... It seemed to her that she had seen all these little fellows before!
THE FATHER
One afternoon very early in spring a small, snow-white he-cat came strolling carelessly along the road. His ears were thrust forward, betraying his interest in something ahead: he meant to take a walk round the farm, whither the road led ... there was a grey puss there who attracted him!
He ought to have been more cautious, the little white dwarf! A giant cat, a coloured rival, with the demon of passion seething in his blood and hate flaming from his eyes, caught sight of the hare-brained fellow from afar off and straight-way guessed his errand.
With rigid legs, lowered head, and loins held high, he comes rushing from behind ... runs noiselessly over the soft grass at the side of the road and overhauls the other unperceived.
With one spring he plants all his foreclaws deep in the flesh of the smaller cat, who utters a loud wail and collapses on the ground.
The big one maintains his grip on his defeated foe’s shoulder, crushing him ruthlessly in the dust. Then he presses back his torn ears, giving an even more hateful expression to the evil eyes, and lowering his muzzle, gloatingly he howls his song of victory straight into his fallen rival’s face.
For a good quarter of an hour he continues to martyr his victim, who is too terrified to move a muscle; he tears the last shred of self-respect and honour from the coward—then releases him and stalks before him to the farm, without deigning to throw him another glance. He was too despicable a rival, the little white mongrel! The big, spotted he-cat considered it beneath his dignity even to thrash him.
But the little grey puss had other suitors still.... There was the squire’s ginger cat and the bailiff’s wicked old black one; so that both daring and cunning were necessary if one’s courtship was to be a success. At sunset they invaded the farm from every direction, stealing silently through corn or kitchen garden until they reached the garden path by the hedge.
The black ruffian, who considered himself the favourite suitor, arrived, as he imagined, first at the rendezvous. But simultaneously his ginger rival stuck his head through the hedge bordering the path. At sight of each other both halted abruptly, thrusting up their backs and blowing out their scarred, battle-torn cheeks.
For many minutes the two ugly fellows stood glaring silently at one another.... Then their whiskers bristled, their tattered ears disappeared, and their eyes became mere slits in their heads; hymns of hate wailed from their throats, and their tails writhed and squirmed like newly-flayed eels.
Suddenly the big, spotted cat appears in the garden. Tiger-like, with body almost brushing the ground, he glides silently past them.
They hate him, the low brute!... He is their common enemy! The sight of him caught in the act makes them allies in a flash.... They tear after him and surround him. Then they go for him tooth and nail.
All thoughts of the fair one have gone from their minds. War-cries cease; gasps and grunts of exertion punctuate the struggle; chests heave and ribs dilate with compressed air; whilst naked claws are plunged into skin and flesh. They are one to look at, one circular mass, as they whirl round inextricably interlocked, puffing their reeking breath into one another’s faces.
The spotted devil’s powerful hind legs are wedged in under the red cat’s body. With his forepaws he grips him as if in a vice—and now thrusting the needle-pointed, razor-edged horn daggers from their sheaths, he straightens his hind legs simultaneously to a terrible, resistless, lacerating lunge....
With a stifled hiss of fury the squire’s cat falls back. It limps moaning from the battlefield, with blood pouring from its stomach.
Now comes the old black thief’s turn! First the hair flies ... it literally steams from the two rivals as they rush at each other. Their incredible activity is expressed in every movement.... After lying interlocked for some time on the ground they suddenly break away, and, as if by witchcraft, stand on all fours again.
The piebald is winning!
His claws comb like steel rakes. They tear the hair from the bailiff-cat’s flanks, leaving them bare and shining. The latter often succeeds in parrying, and returns kick for kick, but his hind legs lack strength, and he cannot complete a full thrust.
Madness gleams in their eyes; they are beside themselves with frenzy; fear flies from their minds; they are exalted ... for now they are fighting!
Until a sudden scuffle advertises that the bailiff-cat has had enough. He tears himself loose and bolts for his life.
The big piebald has won. He shakes himself and rolls over, gives a couple of energetic licks to his paws, and carefully brushes his whiskers; then he hastens through the garden up to the farmyard, where a little later he is to be seen promenading the pigsty roof.
With alert expression and nervously vibrating tail he looks inquiringly at all trap-doors and open windows. Suddenly he gives a start; there is Grey Puss on the manure-heap beneath him.
Without a moment’s hesitation he leaps down.... It was the decisive meeting!
She had always been true to this one lover.... And yet there had been times when all the gentlemen of the neighbourhood had paid court to her. Often she had reclined on the planking with one in front of her, one behind, and three or four in the elder tree above her head.... She had been literally besieged.
But however many suitors might appear—even though they came right up from the seacoast and the fishing village—she still loved him and him alone, the great piebald hero!
He was an exceptional cat: the ears, far apart and noticeably short, were set far back on the broad head; the neck was thick and powerful, the body long and heavy. When he ran, he moved with such swiftness that he seemed to glide, and he could leap two yards without effort.
He was all possible colours—black, red, yellow, and white. A tinge of green shone in the wicked golden eyes; they sat deep in his head, so that his cheeks stuck out each side like dumplings.... And in the middle of his bristly moustache protruded a small lacerated nose, which was always bright red and covered with half-healed wounds. He was always at war....
Once he received a deep, horrid bite just under the throat, where he could not lick it. So he went to his sweetheart; she helped him....
She was faithful and true to him ... but she did not trust him beyond the threshold.
THE PIEBALD DEVIL
Had she reason to doubt him? He was chock-full of lust and vice, and great in merit as in fault; nevertheless—had she actual proof for doubting him?
One night her eyes were opened in the most sinister manner. The last rays of the setting sun had departed from the fields, leaving them wrapped in the summer evening’s mist and obscurity. Only some horses greeted the solitary nocturnal marauder with warm, friendly neighing.
They knew him well, although he was only a cat, whose many-coloured body seemed grey, like all other cats, in the twilight. In doorway, at the pump, in yard, and in stable he was their daily companion. How nice to see him here on the meadow too! “Ehehehe,” they neighed ... welcome to the tethering-ground!
He ignored them completely, neither breaking his stride, nor wagging his tail, nor giving a single miauw. Past nuisances like foals which greeted him boisterously he went unresponsive and bored. He was out hunting now—nothing else mattered!
With gliding step he passes from clover field to seed ground, jumping with noiseless, tense spring over brook and ditch. His progress roused the lark from heavy slumber.
He reaches a copse—and soon afterward is heard the death-shriek of a captured blackbird. With covetous grasp he seizes his victim, buries his sharp teeth in its breast, and sucks with long sniffs the warm, odorous bird-smell....
It was not hunger which drove him to the crime: he has just made a full meal off a couple of fat mice. But when coming unexpectedly upon the bird in the copse, he could not control his murderous impulse.
He sits with the booty in his jaws, purring contentedly, and ponders frowningly where he shall conceal his capture.
The summer moon shines big and round from the pale blue, starless sky—and white, pink-underlined layers of cloud hover like feathers far out on the horizon. Warm puffs of wind come and go, enveloping him in the meadow’s silver mist, making the dim shelter of the hedge seem hot and oppressive.
His eyes fall on the three ancient willow stumps at the far end of the field! He, too, knows how rotten and hollow they are, and how well adapted for a hiding-place. True, it is rather a long way there ... through the soaking wet rye—but that can’t be helped!
The night is absolutely silent, broken only by the rasping song of the little reed-warbler from a swampy hole among the rye. The din of the farm has long since died down; not even the bark of a dog is heard, and neither water-pump nor wind-motor can summon up another note. How splendid to have ears, to be able to listen! Now he hears only the play of the grasshoppers, the love-song of the cock-chafer, and the high-pitched music of the ant-hills.
Here, behind a knotted root at the base of the largest of the old willow trees, he conceals the blackbird, afterwards covering it carefully with earth and moss. Then he reaches his forepaws up to the trunk to stretch his limbs and sharpen his claws.
He gives a violent start! The scarred, rugged skin on his head wrinkles thoughtfully, as it always does when something attracts his attention. His multicoloured tail jerks uneasily, as he peers about him with uplifted ears.
The subdued rustling and squeaking noises from inside the tree trunk continue....
Now there is no longer room for doubt....
With a giant leap he springs up the tree, and next moment he is down in the bole.
Grey Puss is not at home....
The little kittens swarm up to him. Tiny seeks to drink, while Black and Big make a joyful assault on his swiftly wagging tail. He lowers his nose to each of the little fellows in turn as if tasting their smell. Then, as if suddenly gone mad, he begins clawing about in all directions at the defenceless kittens. Mewing and squealing, they roll away to all sides like lumps of earth—but the he-cat’s frenzy increases.
He seizes Tiny by the mouth, fixes an eyetooth in his scruff and hurtles out of the willow with him. The little tot hangs limp and apparently lifeless in the jaw of his brutal sire; but, fortunately for him, the old cat is not hungry, and so is content with burying the kitten at the foot of the willow, by the side of the dead blackbird.
In justice to the criminal it must be stated that he has no conception of the enormity of his crime; only when he is on his way up the willow for the second time is he enlightened—and that in a most ruthless manner. Two rows of gimlet-pointed claws descend from nowhere and almost nail him to the bark.... Furious, he turns his visage ... and the next second all his old half-healed wounds are torn open again!
Grey Puss has surprised him—and recognizes him instantly. So it is he who comes wrecking her maternal happiness; yes, she thought as much! And like a vice she clings to his back, biting and scratching and tearing as he flees panic-stricken along the hedge.
Away, away, home, anywhere!
He is more afraid of Grey Puss’ mother-claws than of the raven’s beak or the blade of the reaping-machine; he has learnt to his cost that a she-cat knows not the word mercy when her swollen udders are carrying milk for her young.
He lacked a conscience, this big, piebald he-cat—and he respected nothing except his own skin! The egg of the lark, the chick of the partridge, the young of the hare, were each and all grist to his mill; he took everything he could find, catch, or steal.
On the rafter at home in the farmyard, where Grey Puss used to lie, he had been allowed free passage, until the very moment when some small bundles lay shivering on the hay in the corner. Then the fascination of his black face and shining coat seemed to vanish; she would not allow him to approach; he was not even admitted to the barn. If he just showed himself at the trap-door she would become seized with frenzy, spring up, and fly at him as if he were a dog! He had always to beat a hurried retreat!
Did she read his character; did she know that the feeling of paternal love was foreign to his nature? In any case, she took no risks; she never trusted him over the threshold....
THE RESCUE OF TINY
Grey Puss’ milk tasted sour for a whole day following the adventure; she was frightfully restless and upset. Several of the young ones had wounds and had to be licked. Time after time she ran her glance over the small, rolled-up patches of colour; greedily her eyes devoured each little furry coat; but it was with no trace of the sweetness of recollection or the joy of recognition.
Were they all there ... all? Their villain of a father she had already forgotten; not until she was giving suck did she become suddenly nervous. She felt that one of the swollen udders remained swollen, and now she nuzzled with her nose along the row. Big, Red, White, Grey ... yes, she found them all! But where was the little piebald one?...
The kittens buried their noses deep in her fur to get a good hold of the small, sprouting milk-springs. All was quiet inside the willow trunk; only now and again was heard the sucking of the eager little lips....
Yes, to be sure, she missed a colour ... missed just that one which—in spite of all—she unconsciously preferred to all the rest; that seemed made up of bits of colour from all the other colours.... Then suddenly a thin, feeble crying reached her ever-listening ears. It seemed to her to come from under the willow bole. Perhaps there was a crevice in the nursery?
Cautiously getting up, she begins to scratch a little with her forepaws in the floor; but finds no hole.
She dismisses the thought that one of the young ones is really missing, and lies down again and resumes her maternal duties. For a time all is peace, and she abandons herself completely to the pleasure of being at the mercy of her kitten flock, but again comes the faint cry for help. This time it is so heart-rending that she springs up, and then, half crouching, listens breathlessly.
“Mew, mew!” it tinkles to her from the distant depths. And now she begins to answer in anxious, encouraging tones, meanwhile pushing her snout among the young ones to count them. The tinkling from below upsets and worries her; but presently she stifles her anxiety by rolling right under the heap of kittens and congratulating herself that she has so many dear children safe and sound.
Meanwhile from his living tomb by the side of the dead blackbird, Tiny continues foghornlike, to emit at regular intervals his ceaseless signals for assistance. He has lain for a long time buried alive; but, accustomed as he is to having his brothers and sisters on top of him, the thin layer of moss and earth over him does not embarrass him particularly. Now he has recovered so much that he can not only squeal but wriggle also—a fact which serves to increase the air supply in his lungs, so that his weak cries gain momentarily in strength and resonance.
Suddenly the heap of earth is swept from him, and he hears his mother’s soft voice right in his ear. Oh, what a stream of happiness flows through him! He stretches his tiny body towards the strong, comforting miauw, and like a freezing man making for the fire, he puts his wet, earth-cold head against the mother-cat’s soft neck and feels her warm breath ripple over him.
Grey Puss’ eyes shine green and evil; they speak plainly of surprise and emotion. She begins purring angrily, so that the young ones inside the tree lift their ears anxiously and wonder, “What’s happening down there at the foot of the tree?”
Tiny’s wound is licked, and the mother prepares to return. He must be carried, of course, ... and the problem is to find a hold which will not destroy the creature. She tries to grasp him by the scruff, but here he is so sore that time after time the attempt fails. Cautiously she presses her teeth into his back and shoulder; but cannot find a hold, although he seeks instinctively to help her by stiffening his body as she lifts.
However, it must be done somehow; there is not the slightest doubt that he is to be carried up! So she opens her mouth wide and puts her jaws round his neck. Then, disregarding his lively protests, she cautiously closes her mouth.
He becomes suddenly quite quiet. She needs all her presence of mind to judge how tightly she may grip him without making it his last journey.
He hangs there in his mother’s jaws and closes his earth-clogged eyes, clutching her body tightly with his little legs. But he surrenders himself to her without complaint and without movement, bearing the pain in blind faith in her omnipotence.
In two jumps she reaches the top, slides down into the bole, and a moment later deposits him carefully on the ground among the others. A healing warmth envelops him—and, as the kittens are already satisfied, he secures an unusually large share of milk.
THE FLIGHT FROM THE WILLOW
Truly that morning the kittens had trembled in the shadow of death!
And Grey Puss always regarded the he-cat as the first betrayer, the cause of all her subsequent sorrows and misfortunes.
Only a week later a farm hand saw her as she sneaked into the willow. Putting his ear against the trunk, he heard the kittens stirring, and so, hanging his hat and coat on a branch, he ran home to the farm to fetch the dog....
Box was not to be found; and not till the midday meal did he get hold of him—and when at last the fellow returned to stamp out the “vermin,” the trunk was deserted and empty.
He explored the neighbouring fields. The dog found the scent at once and gave tongue—then deep among the corn was fought a terrific battle. The dog’s barks turned to howls, and soon afterwards Box returned as if shot from a cannon, with his tail-stump curled between his legs.