Boney was not his whole name. A lovely romance could be written, I’ve no doubt, out of the adventures of this cat, before Fannie found him, one cold morning, in the summer-house. He was covered with dust and leaves, and moaning piteously. Fannie said,—“Pussy, pussy,” to him; and he tried to get up and come to her, but he couldn’t make any progress, and John Henry came up at that moment, and taking up the cat by the back of the neck, looked at it critically, and said,—“That cat ain’t a-going to die—he’ll come out all right in a few days; he’s been pelted with stones by those children that live at the cross-roads, I think.”
Fannie followed her brother into the house with the cat, and he gave it some warm milk, and Fannie covered it up, snug, by the kitchen stove.
It was surprising how soon that pussy got well; and John Henry chose to call him Boneset. The name took in the household, and though Fannie called him “Boney,” Boneset was his real name. John Henry bought him a collar, and Fannie would tie a beautiful scarlet ribbon on this, and away they’d go together, down the road to the village post-office. He’d look very sharply at the meadow-birds flitting over the stone fences, and the yellow butterflies on the tall mullen stalks, as if he would say,—“I’ll get you any of those you’d like to have, my dear mistress.”
But Fannie would say, “Don’t think of it, Boney; I would like to have them, but it would be wicked to catch them you know.” Pussy did not want to give up the sport of hunting them, however, and Fannie would have to take him right up, and carry him until they had passed them.
He had such lovely coaxing ways; he knew to a minute when it was lunch time, and he had his in the kitchen, but he would steal up into the dining-room, and pass round softly to Fannie’s place, and pop up into her lap—or, if she were standing up, he’d get upon the table and rub his furry cheek against her shoulder, and shut one eye.
Then Fannie would turn round, and his comical appearance, sitting there with his little pink tongue sticking out between his lips, would make Fannie just jump up and down with laughing.
Of course, he wanted some of Fannie’s lunch, and he always got it, and this was the way he managed to get so fat and sleek.
One unfortunate time, Fannie was very sick; the room was darkened, and the doctor came. All the pets were not allowed to come near the room.
It was, oh, so lonesome for Boney. No one petted him like his little mistress, and they didn’t put up with his tricks, or laugh at his funny pranks.
The time went by heavily enough, he had not had on any of his ribbons, and he would go and stay away from home for days together, and when he came home just before dark, he had a wild look, as if he had been in rough company.