Jack then told me of some of his experiences. He said that his ability to catch rats used to be quite as good as that of his early ancestor, but that since he lived in his present home, he had not much practice, there being no rats in the neighborhood, except an occasional one around the ash barrel.
I asked him where he learned the business, and he told me that he used to live in a down-town boarding-house, where he sometimes killed as many as twenty rats in one day. But the cook caught one alive one day, and tied a string around his neck with a little bell attached, and let him go back to his hole; and the ringing of the bell so frightened the other rats that they all went away. Said Jack: “My occupation was gone, and as the boarding-house keeper had no further use for me, she got some boys to chase me away.” And then he added with some bitterness: “That was the way she rewarded me for my services.”
I told Jack that I thought the treatment he received was very cruel. Indeed, I think a dose of chloroform administered to a cat one has no further use for, is much more humane than chasing him away, especially in cold weather. Of course, I didn’t tell Jack so; and indeed I am glad it was not done in his case. But not every cat is so fortunate as to be picked up by a kind-hearted person and taken to a good home.
Continuing our conversation I said to Jack: “Don’t you think your present beautiful home and kind mistress came to you as a reward for your industry in the boarding-house?”
He said he had never thought of it in that light before, but that he believed it must be so, and that he would forgive his former mistress for her unkindness.
At this time Jack’s mistress called him into the house, and I returned to my home, thankful that I had such a genial fellow as Jack for a neighbor.
XIV
CHRISTMAS
I shall never forget the delightful time we had on Christmas Day.
Imagine my surprise when on a beautiful winter morning we were decked out the first thing with bright new ribbons. I knew it was not Sunday, so I thought it must be Christmas, having heard Guy say that Christmas was just like Sunday.
After we had our ribbons tied, we were called into the library, and there on our bay-window seat was a beautiful lily plant with seven snow white bells on it, which filled the entire house with their fragrant odor. On the table stood a tree, like some I have seen in the country, and under the tree were three beautiful new pads, one orange, one blue and one pink, and a large willow basket with a soft cushion in it. Hanging on the branches of the tree, instead of apples or cherries as in grandpa’s orchard, were rubber balls, spools, and white muslin bags filled with popcorn. The spools had little tufts of bright colored worsted sticking out at each end, and they were suspended on narrow ribbon long enough to reach nearly to the table, which made it handy to play with them. The balls had something inside, which, when we squeezed them, would come out and tickle our noses, but we could never see the thing that came out. We used to try to catch it, but how could we catch a thing we couldn’t see?