CHAPTER VI
MRS. BRINDLE BRINGS STARTLING NEWS
The twenty cats broke into a run at the sound of that weak mew. Although it was not repeated, with their keen eyes, made to see in the dark, and their keen noses, made to smell out all kinds of the micest secrets, they had no trouble in finding poor little Nugget. There he lay on the bank, hardly beyond the reach of the water, wet, cold, too exhausted to mew again, although he could hear with his failing senses the voices of the Purrers come to secure him.
Kiku-san saw him first, and gently pointed him out to Bidelia, afraid as he did so that they had come too late, that Nugget was already dead. The delicate legs hung limp, the head had fallen forward, the eyes, still half-blue in colour, were glazed, and the mouth that had called them was open.
Bidelia stiffened with dread as she saw her kitten, but instantly darted forward, calling: “M-m-m-mmmmm!” That coaxing mother-note in which all cats call their kittens so lovingly. As she cooed to Nugget, she bent over him, nosing him, licking him frantically, yet with the wisest, strongest strokes, for, young as she was, and without having taken a course of First Aids to the Injured, her mother-love taught her how best to bring Nugget back.
“Licking him frantically.”
Her friends stood by watching the little mother, herself scarcely more than a kitten, anxiously hoping that she would warm Nugget into life. And she did. Though a few minutes longer delay and the rescuers would have come too late, Nugget was still on the right side of the line between life and death when he was found, and he rewarded his mother’s rapid work on his limp little body by moving a paw and uttering another plaintive little mew.
“Let us help you,” cried Daisy Bell and Mrs. Blotch, while the other cats heaved a sigh of relief, well knowing that if Nugget turned to come back to them the battle was as good as won. Daisy Bell and Mrs. Blotch, experienced in the care of kittens, fell to licking with Bidelia, and did it with so much good-will that the soft, wet little form rocked back and forth on the grass, and the kitten soon opened both eyes as the grateful warmth of the busy tongues dried his yellow fur and set his chilled blood in motion.