I began to settle down into a calm middle age, happy and contented; my working days were over and I felt that I had earned a rest.
Lord Roberts' people went to the same seashore resort that ours did and, to my delight, I was to go also, leaving Tom with the caretaker to protect the house from rats and mice in our absence. I enjoyed myself every summer by going down to the beach and watching the children in bathing and then sunning myself on the piazza. I did not have much to do, but an occasional mouse would find to his sorrow that I slept with one eye open. We did not remain very late in the fall, but one summer, as Lord Roberts' family wished to make a longer season, we stayed also. I had noticed that after the houses were closed there were many cats about. Some would come to the back door and our cook, who was tender-hearted, would throw food out to them. I did not understand this at first but soon found out what it meant. Their owners had returned to the city and had left them to look out for themselves; the only excuse was that it was too much trouble to carry them back or, very possibly they were forgotten in the moving. Oh, what a hungry horde we saw them become as we stayed through October! Their gaunt bodies and hollow eyes which glowed like coals of fire, would have been a reproach to the ones who had left them.
Our people finally began to pack up and word was given that the next day we should all go back to the city. I was pleased for it did seem good to think of returning to my beautiful home. Lord Roberts announced that his people were going the same day, and was as pleased over it as I was. While the things were being put on express teams I went out to say good-by to some of my friends, as I had made the acquaintance of a number of cats during my stay at the shore. It astonished me to find them in such a pitiable condition, and to find that they had given up hopes that their people would ever return for them. I could not understand this state of things and spent some time trying to console and cheer them. They paced wildly up and down, their thin bodies and hungry faces revealing their inward sufferings and they now began to realize that cold weather was approaching. Their plight was a serious thing to me and the time passed on for I hated to leave them to their misery, going back as I was to a comfortable home. When at last I hurried back, what was my horror to find that the family had gone and that the house was boarded up.
I walked around the house several times but no one was there. I became frenzied with fear. The wind was North and it was getting colder with the approach of night. I thought of Lord Roberts and proceeded to his house where I found that not only had his people gone but that he had been left locked up in the house.
CHAPTER VII
I tried to be brave, but when I heard the pitiful cries of Lord Roberts, I broke down and almost gave up in despair. This, then, was the end of my dreams of a happy life during my old age. Oh, human beings! Could you realize how dependent we are upon your kindness, you would never forget us in a time like this. I wished that I was a human being possessed of a soul, and could pray to God for deliverance from such misery as I had witnessed, when suddenly I remembered that I had heard a teacher in one of the class-rooms read from the Bible one morning that not even a sparrow could fall to the ground and He not heed. It gave me courage for I thought if He could care for a sparrow, He would surely protect us from harm. I felt better and saying words of encouragement to Lord Roberts, went back to the house where I crawled under the piazza and remained there throughout the dreary night.
What a cruel awakening, no fire and nothing to eat. I dragged myself to Lord Roberts and found that he had fared somewhat better, for he had discovered a pan of water under the ice-chest, and (he hated to admit it) had caught and eaten a mouse (I thought again of his liver for breakfast). He said that he knew they would come back for us and I really thought myself that they would as soon as they found that we were missing. It had not rained for some time and, as I walked down to the beach, I saw some of the cats who had been left go down and try to lap up the salt water. It seemed to make them more frantic and miserable than ever.
Some of these cats had been kept alive by eating such things as they could find in the refuse left by the summer people. A few rats and mice had helped to keep them alive, and one poor creature had been so hungry that he had pushed his head into an empty tomato can, and as he could not get it out was rushing wildly about, shaking the can with much violence. He got to be a horror to us all, but we could not help him and he finally smothered to death. Oh, peaceful release from torture! Such maddening thirst and not a drop of water to be had. I went around to see how Lord Roberts was getting along and found him discouraged and heart broken. He said, "It can not be possible that our people have abandoned us, it must be some horrible mistake." I went every day to the main road and watched for motor cars, which never came. I grew thinner and thinner. There were no city streets to get a living from, no milk jars; nothing but a barren waste, over which the wind howled like a lost soul, and the cruel sea, with its waste of water, but none to drink. What torments we all suffered! Yet it was all so needless. How could our people eat, drink, and be merry while we were starving? I got so hungry that I became delirious with fever. In the long watches of the quiet nights I dreamed of my mother and my childhood. Soon in my vision I was wandering without a home, then came to my new people and my bountiful home. I awoke with parched mouth, weak from hunger and thirst.