The Great Small Cat, and Others: Seven Tales

by May E. Southworth

In what seemed to him but a moment later, it was the next morning, and throwing aside the blankets he was up and out in the chill gray dawn without disturbing any of the household. As the eastern sky lightened the purple mists, he trudged cheerily along under the frosty twinkle of the receding stars, his back to the dusty little hamlet and a triumphant smile of contented satisfaction beaming on his happy face, turned toward the gleaming snow peaks of to-morrow. No one would have suspected this big happy tramp of having an infamous secret on his conscience or have surmised that he harbored a wee felony snuggled closely inside of his outer flannel shirt. As he had been in somewhat of a hurry in committing this crime, he had not been over-scrupulous in selecting any particular kind of a cat. Still, as he was at last in possession of a live kitten, a something he felt he could not have faced the solitude and silence of his lonely camp life without, in sweet content he would never be critical. This victory in the small matter of a small cat, attested well for his future, showing that he had resources and skillful ways of his own in circumventing an adverse fate, and that he was made of the stuff that wins in the end.

Just as the white mountain peaks, far above the timber line, caught the first pink glory of the coming sun, the man with the light of hope in his dark eyes, reached the foothills. He crossed the first low divide, and in the sheltered ravine beyond stopped beside a tiny trickle of snow water, flashing gently down among the boulders, and made camp for breaking his fast. Here for the first time he took from his bosom the scraggy little treasure for which he had risked his honest reputation, and which had safely slept, curled in its snug quarters, all the way.

The very first act of the astonished small tenderfoot on this rather rude awakening and introduction, was to make a wild dash for liberty, which came near being a total eclipse of their acquaintance. It was only after a very lively chase, in which the man had to hide his terrible anxiety and to use the utmost patient cunning, that the frightened little animal was captured by his more than frightened mate. In the quiet moments that followed, when they were sizing each other up by the comfort of their little friendship fire, their intimacy began. In admonition his baby highness was given a serious and profound lecture on the futility of having such independent ideas as he seemed to possess. The poor little motherless captive looked meek and helpless enough beside the big man, and in this big unknown world, his great baby eyes glancing and searching about in vague apprehension; but although he was terribly puzzled over the situation, he was finally brought to reason and to the straight and narrow path of obedience.

With a firm and tender touch, electric with love and sympathy, the man stroked his prize, answering the questioning, luminous yellow eyes so steadily fixed on his own dark ones, with a gaze of such mysterious power and assurance that the kitten sat charmed, with curling paws, the wonder-stare melting into one of understanding and implicit trust, that was to be lifelong. So comforting was the man's trick of hand and voice, that this trying moment ended forever all controversy as to doctrine or discipline between them. From that momentous time on, as long as they lived together, they fought out the grim battle in moments of importance, as of one mind. Already the touch of his master hand and the sound of his commanding voice had taken tight hold of the baby heart and held it like magic, and as the kitten grew in wisdom and caution he learned to trust this big man more and more, as one who understood and sympathized.

In resuming their tramp, the rougher country began and the trail was a puzzle. The man could not find even a ghost of a track, as he worked his way through the thick masses of underbrush, for it had been years since anybody had traveled this way. But mile after mile, crossing cañons, over small mountains, up and down, in and out, the hardy pioneer picked his difficult way across the trackless country, going straight, guided by a miner's mysterious sixth sense, which is an instinct enabling him to see things and read things to which others are blind.

Toward the last of the daylight, on the second day, these tired tramps, the man footsore but with unwearied spirits came upon the small clearing of the old mining camp of the halcyon days of '49. Once it had swarmed with eager, buoyant men, but now it lay deserted and wrapped in solitude. In great exhilaration they took possession of the one and only remaining dilapidated shack, standing, dark and doorless, silhouetted against the fading light. Nobody had been in this forsaken place or probably thought of it for years and years. In its prime it had been a rather pretentious cabin of the regulation kind built of logs but was now only a suggestion of its former grandeur. Hordes of small furry tribes were "holding down the claim" and using its shelter to rear generations of their kind. The fireplace, with its great outside chimney, built of mud and rocks, was standing intact, the smut of the old log fires still clinging inside where myriads of bats had hung their nests against its sooty walls.

The new arrivals took possession of this old-timer under a torrent of abusive, squeaky protest that sounded very much like "cussing," this intrusion into their domain being highly resented by the present tenants. But the strangers had come with a purpose, and to stay, so took possession of the hut as with a flourish of trumpets, making preparations for the night, scattering the scolding families to temporary hiding, and anticipating no end of fun in banishing them forever to their own territory. In time the miner settled down into a daily routine of business and pleasure, with only the cat and the solemn and magnificent trees for company. He was wholly happy in getting the cabin into living order, delightfully systematic in regulating the primitive housekeeping arrangements, and shamefully contented with the homely result, but always on the lookout for golden possibilities. He was not conscious of a dull or lonesome moment in the heavenly largeness of the pure mountain air, but every day was one of stirring fascination to him in the thought of what might come with the next turn of the shovel.

The great peace and majesty of the California mountains, glowing in their summer fulness, was marvelous to the city man, who had been aching for these exuberant heights so long. The crisp keen air was like wine in his veins and made his blood tingle. As he bared his arms with cheerful determination his whole being thrilled and he struck and dug into the flinty rock with a strength born of a faith, that however he might blunder, the gods would be kind and he would come to his own in the end.

Each wonderful day was followed by another as wonderful, the weeks speeding as lightly as homing birds. If there were troubles that sometimes seemed dark and dreadful, and difficulties hard to overcome, the two were happy, the cat being the very heart of the camp life and living on the most intimate terms of love and equality with his devoted master in the leveling process of their primitive life. The kitten had grown into the utmost splendid stature of his race, going from strength to strength, being all muscle and nerve, unusually broad of chest, looking as if bred to the mountain fastness and able to endure all sorts of pioneer hardships. His baby coat was now thick and silky fur and was growing more glossy and beautiful every day, so that the man in his pride gazed upon him with an eye of rapture in the possession, and felt sure that in his successful raid into the enemy's camp, he had unwittingly stumbled on something beyond the common kind. Handsome, shining and saucy, he was wonderfully wise and cunning for a cat, having no equal in the chase. The vain little creatures of the forest, grown bold and reckless and almost fearless during the years that they had been unmolested, did not have half a chance, and learned that they must exert their utmost to escape this cruel forager.