“Weejums, you’re a grandmother! You’re a grandmother! Weejums,—do you understand?” she whispered. And Weejums looked up with what Eunice called “fumes” over her eyes, and smiled.
“I want to go, too!” Kenneth said, as Eunice and Biddy started for the barn.
“Me too,” Mrs. Wood added. So everybody joined the procession, and Clytie led them proudly across the yard to the barn, up the steps to the barn chamber, and over some old mattresses to an empty nest! There was the little bed that Clytie had made for her babies, but not one kitten was to be seen.
“Perhaps they’ve crawled under the mattress,” said Franklin, lifting it up; but there was no sign of a kitten anywhere in the room, and Clytie’s surprise was at first greater than her sorrow. Then, “Ow!” she remarked in a melancholy voice, and “Wow!” came in echoing tones from her mother on the stairs. “Yow!” said Clytie again, and “Row!” answered Weejums, sympathetically. “Come, let’s hunt for them! Pur-r? Wur-r?” So all day long, and all of the next day, the two cats hunted for the missing kittens, calling them high and low. But neither they nor any one else ever discovered what had become of them. Some members of the family thought it was rats,—others that a certain morose neighbor who rented a part of the barn for his horse, objected to having so many cats on the premises. In any case, Weejums’ grandchildren never turned up, and after a two-days’ search Clytie decided that she must have been mistaken about them, and that Weejums’ kittens were hers. So she walked in and took possession, and Weejums, who had always disliked the confinement of nursing, was very thankful to be rid of them. She resumed her social evenings with the family, attended midnight concerts, and chased boot-buttons around the kitchen floor.
Meanwhile, poor Clytie became pale and wan with anxiety, from trying to make month-old kittens behave as if they were new. Of course they liked to climb out of the box, but, as fast as they reached the floor, she would jump after them, and bring them back. She also carried them all over the house, and they became quite lazy from being carried, so long after their own little legs should have done the work. Their names were Paul Jones and Proserpine,—Paul Jones, black, with white nose, shirt, and slippers; and Proserpine, pure white, except for two inky ears and one black tail, most charming to behold. Proserpine’s ears and tail did not show at all after dark, so it looked as if she had none.
Both kittens grew up, thinking that Weejums was their grandmother, and once, when Torn-nose inquired whose they were, she replied that they belonged to a yellow-and-white cat living in the same house.
“To be sure,” Torn-nose said, “I might have known that you could not have kittens of so advanced an age.”
But this was only his way, for he knew perfectly well that Clytie was Weejums’ daughter, and even paid her compliments when her mother was not looking.
The only times that Weejums showed any interest in her children, was when a dog entered the yard. Then both cats would fly at him, and send him off, ki-yi-ing down the street. They discovered so many new ways of scratching a dog, that it became a kind of fancy-work with them, and all the friends that Cyclone invited to dinner, sent polite but firm regrets.
One day two strange-looking animals trotted down the road, from some distant shanties, and began nosing around the back door after food. Weejums and Clytie decided that they must be dogs, although they were stouter than any dogs that they had ever chased, and made astonishing remarks, in a language that they failed to understand.