“Oh, it’s always the same old song with you,” she grinned. “Any one would think you were being murdered. Rikki is really doing you a good turn, Poll. Too many nuts are bad for you. Evangeline said so.”
Ingratitood, thy name is cat! I fairly boiled over. I even called Evangeline such things that she came running in with a stick. And, of course, she never saw that cunning fox, Rikki. He sneaked out while she was beating me, but he took the letter with him, and I wouldn’t be the least bit astonished if he told Minkie he had done it off his own bat.
Exactly why Minkie brought the Guv’nor and Schwartz out of the dining-room in such a whirl I never discovered. She would have told me in a minute if I had thought of asking her, but things happened at such a rate during the next few days that I had plenty to do to keep track of current events without bothering my head over ancient history. I fancy she disturbed their conversation purposely. She knew Schwartz was in a desperate mood, and would endeavor to force her father to serve his ends. Mam’s statement, too, backed up by Dorothy’s hints and the plain tale she had read in the newspaper, gave her an all-round glimpse of the facts concerning Kwantus, and Dan was quite right when he said that Minkie had invoked the ju-ju’s aid in a plan for the undoing of Schwartz. She told us what it was when we all met in the stable on Boxing Day, but, of course, you will excuse me for not mentioning it yet. To be candid, I daren’t. We renewed the vow of the Gang in solemn state, and Rikki was sworn in as a new member at the same time. He was admitted thus promptly on account of his services with regard to that letter, which was a jolly sight more important than it sounded, and I must say he behaved rather handsomely, because he not only gave me full credit for the suggestion that he should nab it, but he told me privately he was sorry about those nuts.
Our vow is a jolly serious affair. We bind ourselves to be loyal to the Gang “by hoof and claw, by beak and tooth, in air, on earth, and in water.” Each member pledges himself or herself to “sink all private feud the instant any other member is threatened by an external enemy, whether with two, three, or four legs.” We also promise to be loyal to our leader Minkie, and to protect and help all inmates of Holly Lodge, and, in token of fealty and allegiance, each of us has to hold up a foot or claw.
Dan, naturally, tried to be clever, and suggested that the words “or itself” should be inserted after the word “herself,” on the ground that no one knew the sex of a zygodactyl; he could not meet my eye, and pretended to snigger, but Minkie told him not to be rude. It may surprise some people to hear that we made common cause against three-legged adversaries, but that is easily explained. One day last summer, while Jim was washing Bob in the yard, and Dan was routing among some plant pots for a rat, a travelling menagerie passed our house, and a kangaroo leaped over the garden wall and landed in the midst of us. My cage was slung to the walnut tree, and I was so scared that I fell from my perch. Dan, with all his faults, is certainly a courageous beast, because he sprang at the stranger, and received a kick that knocked him clean over the cucumber frame. Jim fell into the pail, but Bob whisked round and gave the kangaroo a postman’s double tap on the ribs that sent him flying back to his caravan. Dan, who was furious, alleged that the beast used his tail as a leg, and never touched the ground with his fore-legs at all. Jim bore out his statement, so the vow brought in the three-legged variety, to make sure.
I asked if Evangeline were included in the word “inmates,” and Minkie said it was a frivolous question. I quite agree with her. Holly Lodge isn’t a lunatic asylum.
Yet any outsider might be pardoned the mistake if he heard our light-headed housemaid telling Cookie the things she saw when she went to the post, just before she beat me with a cane. I know that post. It is a gate-post, and it has a young man leaning against it.
“Fust one nigger kem past, an’ his eyes rolled something ’orrible,” she said. “Then two kem from the hoppo-site direction, an’ their eyes rolled wuss nor the other’s. ‘Tell you wot, Lena,’ Bill said to me, ‘I don’t like this. I’m for ’ome,’ and he left me standin’ there, with all those orful blacks prowlin’ round like lions. Did you ever ’ear of such a thing? I’m finished with Bill; I wouldn’t look at him again not if he had twenty milk-walks. I ran for my life, an’ found Jim. He whistled Dan, an’ it did me good to see the way that dorg began to clear the road, but Jim called him orf, ’cause he says a nigger has as much right to live as any other sort of man, and those fellows were a-behavin’ of themselves. That’s as may be; if there’s much more of these goin’s on ’ere I give my month’s notice.”
What do you think of that for a School Board education? If I couldn’t talk better than Evangeline I’d borrow some black-lead and set up as a jack daw.
It seems that the Old Man and Schwartz did not come across any negroes. Probably Dan had frightened them, if Prince John had told his friends what sort of a Rugger tackle Dan could put up. But Minkie is sharp, dreadful sharp. The moment I mentioned Jim’s remark to Evangeline, she fastened on to it instantly. Jim was washing the victoria in the coach-house, and she went straight to him.