The Cat

by Violet Hunt

'The question is, not your need of affection,' said mother severely, 'but the danger of Auntie May's getting measles. As your fur—excuse me—is not very long, perhaps you cannot carry infection like, for instance, Freddy here. We won't worry.'

I looked every day after that to see if Auntie May was coming out in red spots like little Teddy, but there was not a single measle that I could see. It was, however, a nasty scare, and mother said Charlie was little better than an adventurer, and ought not to have come in like that without any references at all.

He was a battered old thing, too; very shabby and ailing, and seemed to have been very much knocked about in general. The skin of both his ears showed bare and furless where another cat had taken hold of him. His long mean tail was broken off sharp at the end, where it had been caught in a trap, out hunting for rabbits on the sly. And he had had an awful adventure once in France, where he had been taken by some English people and left on the farm which they hired for the summer. There some French child had had the bright idea of putting him on a smart collar of twisted rushes plaited up into a string. The child made it a little too big, not big enough for him to be able to get it off, but big enough for him to get his paw through and nearly his whole front-leg. He said he thought himself very clever to do this, but he bitterly regretted it, for he could not get the leg back and had to walk on three. Nobody on the French farm noticed it, and as it was they never fed him. French people never do feed dogs hardly, and cats never. They are not nice to animals. He says he never saw a dog or cat properly covered with flesh the whole time he was there; they were all wretched scrags. Well, the trouble with poor Charlie was that he couldn't catch any mice or birds to speak of, and he was nearly starving. He thought that he grew rather light-headed, for one day, in his extreme misery, he ran away into the woods and made up his mind to die. The place where his leg was pressing on his neck got sore—the collar rubbed it, I suppose—and he couldn't reach up to lick it, and so the paw got stuck to his body and began to fester, and caused him great pain.

After about a week of starvation he happened to see a lady bathing in the river, who, when she had come out and dried herself, pulled a little bread and meat out of a napkin, and ate something and drank something on the edge of the stream. He went up to her, and she noticed him and called him, but he was too wild and shy to dare to go near her. He was ashamed of himself and the figure he cut.

However, she left half her luncheon and rolled it out on the grass for him, and he came down from a sort of perch he had in a tree and ate it.

Next day the lady came and bathed again, and again he did not dare to go near her, although she again left the remains of her luncheon for him. This went on for about a week. She at last brought another lady with her, and the other lady said she was sure that there was something wrong with that black cat, if only he would come near enough for them to see. She hinted that perhaps if she could find out the damage she might be able to do something for him. He heard, still he dared not go near them, for he had a stupid notion that if they once got hold of him they might tie up his other leg. You see, since a mere child had done such a cruel thing to him he distrusted everybody. The other lady said nothing, but one day when he had ventured a little nearer to her than usual, she was very quick and threw a large napkin all over him. He got all mixed up in it, not being as nimble as he would have liked to be, with his arm tied up, and thus he found himself a prisoner.

And glad he was that he had fallen into her hands, although, indeed, at first, he gave himself up for lost. The lady had a pair of scissors hanging to her girdle, and she held him firmly by the scruff of the neck while her companion gripped him by the hind legs to prevent his scratching her, which in his excitement and nervousness he would have been sure to do, and the band of rushes was cut and thrown aside. Then he said their exclamations completely reassured him and he ceased to struggle.

'Oh, poor creature! His paw has grown right on to his neck! What an awful sore! I can hardly bear to look at it!'

They did look at it, however, and washed it with fresh water from the stream, and cut all the matted bobbedy hair away from the part; still he could not put his paw to the ground. He was quite good and patient, and he tried to show gratitude in his eyes.

'He is a rare ugly beast!' one of them said. 'I feel like St. Vincent de Paul! Do you think he would go in the luncheon basket, and could we make him a bed of rushes and grass in it and take him home?'