Yet this loss of the wonderful stone was the very making of Tip Pul’s pets. As for the cat, she became the most industrious kitty ever known. She at once began to ransack every rat’s quarters known, not only in her master’s home, but in every house in the village, in search of the missing stone. The racket which that cat kept up at night, among the rafters and beams under the roof, nearly drove some people crazy. They declared that Tokgabi had got drunk by tasting Tip Pul’s drams. Yet it was Mee Yow all the time. The cat knocked over tobacco boxes, scratched among hat covers hung on the wall, tipped up the hanging shelves and upset the crockery in the closet over the kitchen stove. In a word, this four-footed creature [[74]]played every kind of mischief that people usually ascribe to Tokgabi, the sooty imp.
Yet, when any one climbed up to the attic, looked among the rafters, and peered into the darkness, all he could see was a pair of green eyes that shone like the moon. Poking the uncanny thing with fishing poles, or throwing shoes or sticks at it, only caused spitting or snarling. So they knew it was a cat, and not Tokgabi, and betook themselves to bed again. Laying their topknots on their wooden pillows and their bodies on their oiled-paper carpet, they soon fell asleep again. The Koreans do not swear, but the way some good folks hurled bad words on all the ancestors of that cat, clear back to the time of Kija, was dreadful to think of. Indeed, some of their remarks are still preserved in tradition and proverbs. Nevertheless, with all his pains taken, Mee Yow could not find the magic wine-stone. As for Tip Pul, he got poorer and poorer.
The dog could not climb like Puss among the rafters and the roofs, but being able to run fast and having a nose that could smell a tiger a mile off, he made excursions all over the country, even crossing the ice of the frozen river. Although he fought many another dog, chased many a rat into its hole, and worried about a hundred cats, even jumping into wood-sheds and running in and out among the cows and horses, he found nothing. [[75]]Once, while in a stall where the pony, tied up with a belly-band by ropes to the ceiling, was enjoying its supper of bean soup, the poor dog was nearly kicked to death. The vicious brute, thinking that Snap was trying to steal some beans from its feed box, gave the dog a blow with its hoofs that made Snap go on three legs for a week afterward.
The long winter passed away and the ice melted, but the river water was still cold. One day Pussy, while chasing a rat among the rafters of a house of a Yang-ban or gentleman, brushed its whiskers against a greenish soapstone box, such as the king often sends as a present to those whom he likes. Recognizing the smell of something inside as that of his master’s long-lost gem, he tried hard by tooth and claw to open it.
All Pussy’s scratching, biting and clawing, however, were in vain. Nor could the dog help in the least. So a bargain was struck with the rats to gnaw open the box and get the magic stone. Both Su Nap and Mee Yow promised to let all rats and mice entirely alone for six months, if one of them would agree to gnaw open the box.
Delighted at the prospect of peace and quiet for half a year, and especially while the grain should be ripening, both rats and mice worked together, until out of a hole gnawed in the box, polished and hard on their teeth as it was, they got the magic stone. Carrying it in their paws, they [[76]]dropped it where their former enemies, now so peaceful, could get it. At once the dog took the gem in his mouth and ran to the river, Mee Yow following after.
“Now, Kit,” said Snap, “get on my back and hold tight to my neck-hair with your claws, while I swim across. As I must breathe hard, put the gem in your mouth. Mind that you don’t open your jaws, or yawn, or laugh, till we get across. Do you hear?”
Mee Yow wagged her tail and took the wine-stone firmly in her mouth in token of determination to deliver that precious gem safely to her master. All the time Mee Yow intended to jump ashore and run to her master, while the dog would be shaking off the water from his hair, and thus get the credit for first finding where the stone had been.
It was a long, hard swim and the dog’s strength was nearly used up when only two-thirds across the river, but the cat was happy, for she had only to hold on and keep her feet dry. All went well until near the opposite shore.
