"Oh, Norken, a real live kitty! Oh! oh! oh! My vely own kitty?"
"Yes, you little goose," laughed Nelly; she could not comprehend what a wonderful and delightful treasure the kitten was to her little sister.
Polypod was not lonely any more; she hugged her precious kitty with all the tender passion of her warm little heart, she paddled out to the barn in all weathers to get it new milk, she taught it all sorts of tricks, it slept on her bed at nights, played hide-and-seek with her in the day-time, knocked Rosalinda Squires down from her silent state every time it found that neglected lady anywhere, and made things lively generally in the Dyer house. Even Pob and Jinky, solemn as they were with age and learning, could not help laughing at kit's tricks, and father Dyer, tired, and wet, and hungry as he might be when he came in from doing the chores, owned gruffly that, "That 'ere kitty's the spryest of all the critters I ever did see."
This was great praise from father, the most silent of men generally, and so little given to expressing his feelings that Polypod could not remember that he ever kissed her but once, and that was the day grandpa died.
Great was his mistress's joy when kit caught his first mouse; she did not like mice; but oh! how she cried and scolded when he fetched in a young robin panting, quivering, bleeding, its beautiful eyes dark with death. Polypod was almost ready not to love kit any more, but the tender little heart soon forgave her darling on the wistful plea that he was "only a kitty."
When Polypod's treasure was only a year old, one day he was missing; nobody could find him. He had taken to sleeping in the shed under the floor, and Jinky had made a bed there for him, to please his little sister, by taking up a board of the floor, and putting down an armful of hay and a bit of carpet. Kit liked this much; he had become a great hunter, and he could range the woods on moonlit nights after squirrels and winter birds, and then seek his retreat for a morning nap, going in from the outside through a hole in the rough stone foundation of the wood-shed. But he always came in for his breakfast; and to-day when Polypod called, there was no answer. Bobbin, as she had named him, did not come running to the step, his tail high in air, the end curved like a fish-hook, his ears forward, and his yellow eyes shining; nor did he come all day. It had snowed very hard the night before, and perhaps he had gone into a neighbor's barn, they thought; when it cleared up he would come trotting in as usual. But he did not. Day after day went by; somebody asked the neighbors, to no purpose, if they had seen the cat; somebody else trudged over to the lonely barn, two miles away, where they stored the surplus hay, but Bobbin was not there. Polypod cried till her eyes ached.
"Mercy me! don't take on so, child," said mother; "there's cats enough, dear knows. Pa'll fetch ye another kitty the next time he goes to the 'ville."
"Muvver! I want my kitty!" Polypod indignantly answered.
In about two weeks from Bobbin's disappearance a heavy rain and thaw set in: drifts disappeared, the earth was brown again, and out from that hole in the stones crept—who but Bobbin! thin as a shingle cat, eyes big as saucers, feeble, staggering, rough: but Bobbin! Now Polypod sobbed for joy; she would not let anybody touch him; she made him a flannel bed, and fed him with a tea-spoon till his voice came back, and he purred a faint song of gratitude. Polypod loved him now better than ever; and as his loose skin filled out, and his beautiful dark gray coat, dashed and striped with black, regained its gloss and depth, his attachment to the child seemed to increase; he followed her everywhere, into the woods after the first shy blossoms that laid off their gray furs and smiled up at the sun, down into the swamp edge to pick cowslip greens for dinner, into the lots for wild strawberries, and even up on the ledge for red raspberries; if anybody wanted Polypod, they said, "Where's the cat?" Mother looked on him with much favor now, for he not only rid the house of mice and rats as well as ever Whittington's cat could have done it, but he also caught all the little green or striped snakes that lurked in and about the old garden, which mother "could not a-bear!" It was very pretty to see him toss the coiling, squirming creatures high up in air, and then watch them with his handsome head cocked aside, and his paw held up ready for a pat as soon as they moved, or another toss. He never ate them, which pleased Polypod, for she felt as if she never could kiss him again after he had swallowed a snake.
It was in the late autumn that Bobbin most distinguished himself, however. Polypod had been quite ill; a touch of fever, the doctor said. She had been taken out of her tiny bedroom opening from mother's into the spare chamber up stairs, and put into that big old-fashioned bed that had a tester and white dimity curtains at the corners. One night Nelly had given her her medicine, and set down the tallow candle on the light stand, drawing the curtain to keep the light out of Polypod's eyes, when she was called down stairs to see one of the neighbors.