“It was comin’ out of church, I was,” she said; “and there he was waitin’ for me on the shteps as gintlemanly as you plaze. And Father Malone, who’d been so kind as to pass the time of day wid me as I came out, says, ‛Shure, Miss Donnahue, is that your little dog?’ and sez I, ‛Faith he is! Just watch and see how swate he looks at me.’ And then if he didn’t turn his head away, and pretind he was another dog! The shame of it, mum! And before the praste too! I never lived with folks before to be so treated.”
But at home Cyclone was quite a different person. He became tenderly attached to Weejums’ kittens, and allowed them to sharpen their claws on his legs.
One day when Mrs. Wood was in the kitchen, she saw Cyclone and two other dogs trot around the house in single file, and enter the woodshed. Cyclone led his guests to the box where the kittens lay heaped in a downy pile, with one little pansy face turned upward, and wagged his tail. Then the two other dogs also wagged their tails, for they saw that it was the thing to do.
“Did you ever see anything so sweet in all your life?” Cyclone asked.
“No, never,” they replied, and, turning around, they all trotted off in solemn style.
“Oh, Mother!” said Eunice, flying into the parlor one day, “Clytie got out of the box, and Cyclone put her back again.”
Clytie was the smartest of Weejums’ family, and the first to stagger around on the soft little paws that double up so uncomfortably when one tries to hurry! But the others soon followed, and came along behind with high continual mews, and trembling tails held straight up in the air.
Minoose was the black one, and his name was supposed to be the Indian word for “kitty.” Fan-baby, the third, was remarkable for not knowing what color she was supposed to be, or how to purr. She never found out the color, and did not learn how to purr until she was nearly three months old; then she began to purr, and purred every minute for two weeks. Strangers passing the house heard her purring on the porch, and the family was often amused by hearing the purr coming through the halls after dark.
She adapted it to meal-times, and invented a lovely tremolopurr for drinking milk, and a fierce staccatopurr for meat and other chewed things. Finally Mrs. Wood grew so tired of Fan-baby’s purr that she gave her away to a nice little girl who owned a pug dog, and it was the sight of this dog that first taught Fan-baby how to stop purring.
Cyclone took great care of the kittens when they were young, and brought them back from all kinds of dangerous places. Minoose would follow strangers down the street, and then forget how to come home; and Clytie would scramble up a tree in the back yard, and not know how to get down. Cyclone would sit under the tree, and bark sympathetically, while Clytie tried first one front paw and then the other, with no success, until Weejums would come to the rescue, and explain that, of course, you have to come down back-to. Cyclone saved Weejums a great deal of trouble in this way, by letting her know when the children needed her.