The Cat

by Violet Hunt

'I should be very sorry,' mother said, 'if any of you turned out to have green eyes. That would defeat all poor Auntie May's plans. I have green eyes myself, alas! and she is most good to overlook it in me, but your father has the most beautiful golden eyes in the world, or in any cat-show, and let us hope that you will have the luck to take after him!'

Fred began, the others followed. My eyes were the last to open. I suppose I had caught cold; I am sure I was not delicate. They took warm milk and mopped the place where the eyes ought to be. Mother licked me. They raced to cure me. Mother always said that she backed her licking, but I fancy the warm milk did it, myself. And pretty soon I saw. We all saw, and so when we quarrelled we managed to aim better.

I really saw very little besides untidy spiky bits of hay sticking up all round me, and beyond that, a wall of wicker. I sometimes saw great moonfaces bending over me, and Rosamond's long golden fur tickled me as she put her head right into the basket. She had blue eyes, but then she was still a child. I wondered if they would be green or orange when she grew up? Auntie May's were brown, shot with green; she had quite dark fur too, and tied up, not hanging down like Rosamond's.

If I chose to keep my eyes inside the basket, I saw my mother's green eyes, and they were so pretty and mournful. Auntie May used to call them Burne-Jones eyes. She meant it as a compliment, and mother always purred. She loved being praised.

Though Freddy's eyes were open, he could not scratch himself with his hind leg without falling over, and I could. Then I found that I could do something else Freddy could not, that is, make a queer rolling, rumbling, useless sound in my throat. I don't see much good in it myself, but it gives Them pleasure. They take it as if we were saying 'Thank you' when we are given food or stroked. But no one, not even the vet,—that is the cat doctor—know how it is done. I heard him say so. I have not the slightest idea how I do it. I just listened to mother, and brooded over the thought for days, and all of a sudden I woke up, as Rosamond was tickling my stomach, and found myself r-r-ring away somewhere inside me like anything! Mother even started when she heard me; I am not sure she was altogether glad.

'Poor child!' she said, 'he is taking up his burden early. They mostly don't expect recognition from us until we are older. Don't, don't purr too easily, my son; be chary of your gift: it is wiser.' But Rosamond buried her face in me and mother, so as to hear better, and presently she raised it and called out to Auntie May, who was sitting writing at her little table:

'Oh, Auntie May'—(all her sentences began like that)—'this kitten, who was so late with his eyes, is at any rate the first to purr! Purr, darling, purr!'

I purred till my throat was sore, and she stroked my back and tickled my stomach till I had to curl up and bring my hind legs and my head together. They think you do it because you like being tickled, not because you can't help it. I purred so much that day that I had to take a rest the next, and then They said I was sulky!

And Freddy was jealous. He could not purr, though he could spit. Mother reproves him, for she says that spitting, though a useful weapon and a protection against intrusive aliens, is not to be used in private life between cat and cat. It is good for dogs, if I ever see one. Mother uses it but rarely for Them. I asked her why she didn't spit at the people in the house, who, though well-meaning, irritated her by coming and lifting us out and looking us all over, and talking about our points, and preventing us from growing? She said, 'I don't do it to Them, however annoying they are, because, when all is said and done, I am well bred and Persian.'

I knew mother never said a thing like that without being able to prove it, so I was a little surprised one day at what one of Auntie May's friends said. This man took Fred up and handled him as if he didn't know much about kittens. I watched him. His moonface had a queer little smile much too small for it—a sly smile.