PART I.
NOW I seem to see some of you Pansies skipping this article, because you think is a biographical sketch of the great musician Mozart, and possibly you “don’t like biographical sketches.” Or if you do, those of you who are members of the “P. S.” have read all about Mozart in your book—“Great Composers.” But let me assure you at the beginning that while this is a biographical sketch, and as true a one as ever was written, and about a person named Mozart, who was something of a musician, possibly you will not pass it by so scornfully when I tell you this Mozart is a cat!
MOZART.
He belonged to a family which is quite small, I believe, though its members are very large, so that when he was but two or three months old, he was as large as many ordinary cats, while his mother was positively colossal!
The way I came to get Mozart was this: his mother, brothers and sisters, and he, were owned by my auntie May, and this same auntie was, once upon a time, about to move from her home in New York, to New Jersey. Knowing how I loved cats, when my mother was visiting her, she proposed that one of the kittens should be taken home to me. So, on the morning of my father and mother’s start, one was procured, and imprisoned in a willow basket which was tied with strong cord. Just as the good-bys were being said, when the basket was reposing in the bottom of the sleigh, and as the driver was raising his reins preparatory to the start, my uncle called out, “Don’t step on the kitten!” To which the driver responded, “It ain’t here!” and grinned broadly, as the disappointing animal jumped to the ground, and sped across the snow to the stable. There was no time to recapture him, for they were then almost afraid they would miss the train, and the sleigh-bells jingled as the sleigh ran down the hill to the depot, the occupants thereof looking curiously at the empty basket in the bottom. “How did he get out?” was the question; and became the question for discussion on the train, as all day my mother and father whizzed along from New York into Pennsylvania. The basket had been found to be just as securely tied as it was when the kitten had first been placed therein, and the only explanation that could be given when my parents reached home was, that the kitten had been in the basket, and was not! Which explanation was, as you may not be surprised to hear, exceedingly unsatisfactory to me, for I dearly loved, and do dearly love all members of the feline kingdom. I never see one but I feel that I must stop and pat its soft fur.
But so far, instead of telling you how I did get Mozart, I have been telling you how I did not get him!
It was about a week after my father and mother had reached home, when, one morning, as we were seated at the breakfast table, the door-bell rang, and an expressman appeared, with a grin on his face that seemed literally to reach from one ear to the other! “’Ere’s a cat!” he exclaimed, and forthwith produced a box a foot or two square, the top of which was decorated, in good-sized letters, with this injunction:
“THIS SIDE UP WITH CARE!”
As the official brought it into the hall, the listeners and lookers-on heard a prolonged “Waa-a-a-a-a-a!” which seemed to echo and re-echo, and at last died away into silence.
“It is the kitten that we didn’t bring!” said my mother, while I ran for a hammer and chisel with which to open the box. When the operation was performed, there jumped out a large, yellow, cat-like kitten, which escaped as far as possible from us, as we tried to grasp it, repeating its mournful, yet decisive cry of—“Waa-a-a-a-a-a!”
Strange to say, he did not recognize us as friends, immediately, but preferred to wait until he formed a closer acquaintance before he was victimized by our embraces or pettings, so he was consigned to the cellar, where he spent much of his time. When we would try to get him up, unless we succeeded in finding him asleep, he would climb a beam, and with great agility elude our efforts to capture him.
Having heard many stories of cats returning to their former homes, and having had some experience in that line ourselves, we were careful to keep Mozart in the house, lest he should make his escape and be seen no more. If he did manage to get out of the kitchen door in a clandestine manner, a ridiculous procession was formed of the bareheaded members of our family, and no peace was given the poor animal, until, after racing around the yard once or twice, he surrendered to our clutches. Truly our anxious efforts to capture the unwilling prisoner must have been a ludicrous sight to any unsympathizing spectator.
We let Mozart sleep in the kitchen, and this gave him the chance he apparently coveted, of sleeping on the table, which he did so obstinately, that we were finally compelled to resort to the expedient of turning the table on its side every night, so that if he slept on it, it would have to be in direct resistance to the law of gravitation!
Mozart also showed a great desire to make the table his dining-room, though this freak was explained on the arrival of my auntie May, who said that he had eaten on an old table in the barn at home. He also probably slept there. But with us he was obliged to make his couch on some old pieces of carpeting.
I now remember that I have not yet given a thorough description of my hero, and as that is properly one of the first things to do in a sketch of this kind, I must hasten to it. Mozart was clothed with a stationary garment of brownish-yellow fur—I do not know whether the artists would call it chrome yellow, yellow ochre, Naples yellow, or what. This garment was at regular intervals striped with rings of a darker shade, and these went completely around his body.
These rings reached their abrupt termination at the tip of the wearer’s tail. It is quite proper to insert just here the fact that once upon a time one of them fell off, and was found, a little wad of dark yellow fur, on the floor of the dining-room.
Mozart had eyes of a rather uncertain color (a peculiarity of his family, which you perhaps have observed), but they were probably nearer the color of his fur than any other of which I think. His head was shapely, and his ears and caudal appendage were graceful. Thus endeth the description of his personal appearance.
The reason for naming Mozart as I did, will be obvious when I state that he had unmistakable musical talent. As I cannot conscientiously praise his voice, I will remain silent about it, simply saying that it was very expressive, and that is more than can be said of some of the so-called fine singers of this country. His vocal organs seemed exceedingly devoid of elasticity, for their use was always confined to the one syllable and note—“Waa-a-a-a-a-a!” differing only in pitch and the length of time it was prolonged.
This difficulty prevented us from always comprehending Mozart’s language, save by his accompanying gestures and actions, and by the surrounding circumstances. But I have said more about his voice than I intended. As I said before, he had unmistakable musical talent. If he had not a musical voice, he had a musical ear (two of them, indeed!) and would listen with rapturous delight to any music. If anyone was playing on my piano, he would come and sit by the side of it, and either listen intently or try to find out by his whiskers from whence the sound proceeded. But if, while he was making these investigations, the piano would play very loud for a moment, he would shrink away, much frightened by the noise. If it was a special friend of his who was playing, he would sometimes jump into the person’s lap, getting as near as possible to the keys. Any rational and unprejudiced persons giving heed to these statements, will believe what I said about Mozart’s ears, I am sure.
Unlike most of his sex, the second John Chrysostom Wolfgang Theophilus Mozart (for we had given him the full name of the great musician, calling him simply Mozart for short) seemed to take an interest in the art of sewing. I may record as a proof of this that when my aunt Julia would be sewing on her machine, my hero would jump up into the vacancy between her spinal column and the chair, and there remain until he was dismissed. If he had been allowed a longer time to stay there than was given him, he would, probably, not have left so soon, but as to that I cannot positively speak.
Before recording the following incident I will repeat the aforesaid statement that every word of this biographical sketch is strictly true, and unto that fact I will set my signature and seal, any time you wish. (Possibly that is one particular in which this differs from most biographical sketches.)
Mozart’s saucer from which he was in the habit of eating and drinking, stood out in the kitchen by the sink. On the day of which I speak, he came in and told in plaintive accents that something was the matter. As I have remarked heretofore, he always left us in uncertainty as to what, for a time, at least. When questioned, however, he earnestly smelled of his empty saucer, and then, jumping up on the sink, put his paw on the cold water faucet, and then, descending, repeated his summons for aid. The saucer was speedily filled with water, and he drank long and eagerly.
This same incident was repeated in every particular, at another time, with the faucet in the bath-room upstairs.
On one occasion Mr. Mozart did a most disgraceful thing—one that was enough to bring disrepute on any family—namely, he ran away. There were several cats living around our barn in those days, and whether he eloped with one of them or not, I never heard, but certain it was that he disappeared, and no trace of him could be found.
But after sin, remorse is sure to come, and conscience speaks earnestly to the sinner, so “in the stilly night,” when “slumber’s chains had bound” the inmates of our house, some of them were awakened by mournful and heart-rending sounds coming from the rear of the house. Under some circumstances, we might have thought we were being serenaded; one of the members of the household was despatched to the back door, to admit the runaway! The lost had returned! the prodigal had come home! And as he rested once more on his couch of carpeting, how sweet it must have smelled to him (in which respect he would have differed from us), and how soft it must have felt, because his conscience was at rest, and because he could once more sleep the sleep of the innocent! Some of his feline friends had returned to the door with him, and had uplifted their voices with his, but only the proper inhabitant of the house was admitted.
Paranete.
