I asked what she meant by “fun,” and she said that when there was any kind of a public gathering, the young cats would often have wrestling matches.
So Slyboots, Aunt Tabby, and I, crept quietly away from the house, and trotted up behind the barn. Mona saw us going, and gave me an intelligent look, but she did not offer to follow us.
I did not think the back of the barn a very good place for a gathering, but Aunt Tabby pointed out to me the piles of old boards near by, where the cats could take shelter in case of fright.
I wanted to get up on the top of a hogshead that was standing there, but Aunt Tabby would not let me, for she said that place was reserved for the lecturer. She guided me to a nice spot, where a plank had been laid across some fence posts. We three sat on it near the hogshead, and there was, of course, room for many more cats beside us.
Soon they came trooping along. My! what a number of cats. I soon got confused among so many, and asked Aunt Tabby why the neighborhood was so alive with cats.
“There is a great deal of grain raised in this valley,” she said, “and the mice bother the farmers almost to death. In summer it is not quite so bad, for the mice take to the fields, but in winter it is dreadful. The barns are alive with them and sparrows, and we cats have to work pretty hard, not to clear out the mice and sparrows altogether, for we can't do that, but to keep them down.” Then she added, after a time: “These are not all neighborhood cats. Some have come as far as three miles. You see, we don't often have a chance to hear a lecturer from Boston.”
“Who is that big white cat with a yellow patch over his eye?” I asked, “that one who is coming along under the apple trees quite alone?”
“That is old Circumnavigation,” she replied, “a cat belonging to a retired sea-captain who lives a quarter of a mile from here. He has been round the world six times with his master and is a fine cat. Those Tibbetses I don't like quite as much. See, they are walking behind him, two twin Tibbet cats. Neighbors of his, but low-down creatures. We don't associate with them.”
I looked at Aunt Tabby in surprise. I had never heard her speak so sharply about any cat before.
It was getting dusk now, but, of course, we could all see quite well. The arriving cats were arranging themselves in groups or rows on the piles of boards. Soon one young Maltese cat sprang down to the square of grass in front of the hogshead, and began to walk up and down, and lash his tail.