“How does she know? A little cat like her!” said Scamp. “Did she ever go there, then? You’re no good, Nugget. I don’t care; I’ll get some one else. I only wanted to give you first chance! ’Fore I’d stay home for my mother! If you was any good you’d get up and go, and tell her afterward! You could hide, and I’d bring you supper, and then we’d go. I don’t care, though! There’s plenty ain’t ’fraid-cats, if you are. Stay home, and let your mother lick your eyes open, if you want to!”
This was an unbearable taunt. No kitten can endure to have another say this to him. It means, among kittens, that you are a baby, not yet nine days old, and not bright enough to get your own eyes open.
Foolish little Nugget had not enough strength of character to treat these taunts with the contempt they deserved. He had not time to think, because they were standing in the schoolroom doorway, and were likely to be called to their places at any moment. So Nugget answered quickly, under the spur of this stinging taunt: “Who’s afraid? I didn’t want to go, but I will go, just to show you!”
He didn’t see the smirk which curled Scamp’s whiskers, and which he put up his paw to hide; but Nugget went to his seat a very sober kitten, and it was with a heavy heart that, after school was dismissed, instead of going home to Bidelia, as usual, he followed Scamp to the place where he was to await his coming to go fishing.
It was not at all exciting, either, to eat his supper, which Scamp brought him, under the trees, and then to follow his unfriendly friend along the line of the woods to the river, when it had grown too dark for them to be seen. Nugget had hoped that at least it would be thrilling to steal along this way, keeping out of sight, but the thrills were the wrong sort, for it was chilly, and dreadfully dark. If he had told the truth, Nugget would have said that he was afraid, and that the heart under his golden fur ached for the mother whom he was treating so badly.
Scamp had said that the fish would bite better at night than by daylight. Nugget had listened to this statement with the awe that a small kitten feels for the wisdom of a larger one. It did not prove to be such very wise wisdom after all. The fishes did not bite Scamp’s bait, not once, nor would they swim where Nugget could scoop them up in his little yellow paw, a trick at which he had become very skilful, thanks to Madam Laura’s teaching. It was too dark to see them plainly when they did swim up to the surface and near to the shore; even a kitten’s eyes were misled by the ripples of the water under the stars, and Nugget often dipped for the fish too soon, or too late, or when there was no fish there.
Nugget was so miserable that he had hard work to keep from mewing. Scamp was entirely changed in his manner to the poor little naughty thing that he had led astray. Now that he had got Nugget to do what he wanted him to, he seemed not to care for him in the least; he snubbed him, paid no attention to the younger kitten’s remarks, and often walked off to fish at some distance from Nugget, leaving the kitten to struggle with a fear that every moment was growing more unbearable—it was the first time in his short life that Nugget had ever been out after dark without a grown cat to look after him.
Scamp came back just in time to catch a whine which, in spite of himself, escaped Nugget, a sort of mew with his lips shut; but, so far from being sorry for Nugget, he fell into a great rage as he heard the kitten’s moan, and he walked up to him sidewise, with his fur bristling and his claws sticking out, ready for a scratch.
“What’s the matter with you, you cry-kitten?” he demanded, growlingly. “’fraid your mother’ll spank you when you get home?”
He spoke so roughly, so angrily, that Nugget lost heart altogether, and burst forth into open mewing. “I wouldn’t care if she did,” he wailed. “I wouldn’t care what she did, if only I was home again where she could do it.”