The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe CatThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: The CatAuthor: Violet HuntIllustrator: Adolphe BirkenruthRelease date: April 6, 2022 [eBook #67785]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024Language: EnglishOriginal publication: United Kingdom: Adam & Charles Black, 1905Credits: Charlene Taylor, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CAT ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: The CatAuthor: Violet HuntIllustrator: Adolphe BirkenruthRelease date: April 6, 2022 [eBook #67785]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024Language: EnglishOriginal publication: United Kingdom: Adam & Charles Black, 1905Credits: Charlene Taylor, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
Title: The Cat
Author: Violet HuntIllustrator: Adolphe Birkenruth
Author: Violet Hunt
Illustrator: Adolphe Birkenruth
Release date: April 6, 2022 [eBook #67785]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024
Language: English
Original publication: United Kingdom: Adam & Charles Black, 1905
Credits: Charlene Taylor, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CAT ***
ANIMAL AUTOBIOGRAPHIESTHE CATBY VIOLET HUNTLONDONADAM & CHARLES BLACK1905'I had rather be a kitten and cry—Mew!'Shakespeare.AGENTS IN AMERICATHE MACMILLAN COMPANY64 & 66 Fifth Avenue, New YorkUNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME.PRICE 6s. EACH.THE DOG.ByG. E. MITTON.THE BLACK BEAR.ByPERRY ROBINSON.THE RAT.ByG. M. A. HEWETT.
ANIMAL AUTOBIOGRAPHIES
LONDONADAM & CHARLES BLACK1905
'I had rather be a kitten and cry—Mew!'Shakespeare.
AGENTS IN AMERICATHE MACMILLAN COMPANY64 & 66 Fifth Avenue, New York
UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME.PRICE 6s. EACH.THE DOG.ByG. E. MITTON.THE BLACK BEAR.ByPERRY ROBINSON.THE RAT.ByG. M. A. HEWETT.
TOANNE CHILD
LOKI.
LOKI.
LOKI.
A cat is of all animals the most difficult to know; it is so intimate, but so detached; so dependent on human beings for its comfort, so loftily indifferent to their wishes. It requires one who has lived with cats and seen their idiosyncrasies, their whims and their strong individuality, to write about them, and in the present author they have found a spokeswoman who knows them through and through. A sense of humour is necessary in dealing with the subject—and the humour is not lacking. Loki is a real cat in more senses than one, and those who follow his life story will find themselves better able to understand their own cats than they have ever been before.
THE EDITOR.
I first saw the light—at least I did not exactly see the light, for I was blind, so they tell me, for about a week after I was born—on the twenty-third of April 19—. There were five of us, three boys and two girls. Our mother was a pure-blooded Persian; so was our father, and it was, I believe, considered by Them a very good match. They arrange all our matches for us in this country, and indeed manage most of our affairs, but then it must be remembered that we are strangers, as the title Persian denotes. Moreover, we belong to that division of the race that is called 'Blue Smokes,' which means, not that our fur is blue, for that would be ugly and loud, but that if you part it and look carefully at the roots you will see that it is exactly the shade of blue that smoke is when you get a lot of it together. Papa's name is 'Blue Boy II.,' and he is excessively handsome, and has taken prizes at cat-shows all over the country. His mistress, Miss Goddard, who lives at West Dulwich, is always travelling about with him to show him, and mother is very proud of that.
The first sound that I heard—for I wasn't born deaf as well as blind—was the voice of Rosamond, a little girl who lives in our house sometimes, screeching at the top of her voice, 'Oh, Auntie, Auntie May! Petronilla has got her kittens! Hooray! Hooray!'
My mistress came running upstairs two steps at a time, and put her foot through her dress—I heard it rip. Then she leaned over us, for I felt her breath on my face, and said in a voice quite gurgly with pleasure, 'Brava, Petronilla!'
Then another voice—I learnt afterwards that it was the voice of the parlour-maid, a good soul and as fond of cats as Auntie May—said, 'They look just like so many grey boiled rags, don't they, Miss?'
'Oh, p-p-please, Auntie May,' began Rosamond, stuttering in her eagerness, 'mayn't I take one out to look at it?'
'Certainly not. How dare you propose such a thing! Go and do your health exercises. Petronilla is to be left entirely alone and not bothered.'
'Quite right, Miss Rosamond!' said Mary; 'I've heard say that if you watch her she'll do them a mischief. I knew a cat what ate all her kittens—'
'Ssh, Mary, I am sure Petronilla would not do such a thing. She isn't a common cat. But I tell you what she will certainly do if she thinks we are going to touch them or take them away from her—she will hide them. She knows it isn't good for them to be handled. You have no idea of the amount cats know, and though Petronilla is only four years old, she knows as much as the best nurse ever did. Now be off, all of you, and leave her alone!'
All very well, but Mary the maid simply couldn't keep away, and about three days after this she came in to dust the room (although she had been forbidden to do that just yet, for fear of blowing the germy dust into our eyes and down our throats); and when she had done dusting, she bent down and took us all out one by one, and examined us till she was sure to know us again. Mother looked at her reproachfully, but did not lift a paw to her, for she knew Mary was a dear good creature, and, though silly, would sacrifice her life for a single grey hair off mother's head, or indeed a hair of anywhere off her, and she once said so. But when Mary had gone she took a decided line, and said that she was determined to make an end of all this fingering and pawing of young limbs, which would certainly prevent them from growing and developing properly.
There was a large press with low flat shelves in a corner of the room, full of Auntie May's clothes, that just suited her purpose. She took us all up, one by one, carefully, in her mouth, keeping her teeth back somehow or other not to hurt us, though she could not help making us most disagreeably wet, and carried us along to the cupboard, bumping us as little as she could help on the floor, but still she did bump us. Then with one of us in her mouth, she jumped up to the shelf she had chosen—having first opened the folding doors of the cupboard with her paws—and laid him or her carefully down in the corner, and so with us all.
When Auntie May came up to find her clothes for going out, she discovered us. Mother purred at once to disarm her, for it was known that Auntie May could not manage to be really cross with dear Pet for long,IFshe purred.
'Oh, youbeast—darling, I mean! Right on the top of my best white wuffy hat! Come out of it at once, angel—pet! And here is another on my ermine boa! And another on my best paintedcrèpe de chineblouse! Oh, this is too much, Petronilla, my lamb—'
And she took us all out quite gently, not hurting us half so much as mother did in bumping us along the floor, and put us back into our bed of fresh hay, that we have to lie in so as to make us smell sweet. Auntie May always says that very young infant kittens are like babies, and need beautiful accessories, such as blue bows, and green hay, and white powder puffs.
They fastened the wardrobe door very tight and strictly forbade Mary to touch us, and for many days after this we just lay still and ate—ate—ate! Mother, however greedy we were, never pushed us away. She was like a soft hill of wool that we had leave to lie up against and browse upon. Every now and then she spread out her paws, which were like silver streaks, wide and square, all over us, not heavily, so as to weigh us down, but lightly, like a sort of lattice that kept the cold draughts off us, and that we might fancy to be a wall or a hedge between us and the world if we liked.
It was the great advantage of mother's being a pet cat that she and her family lived in the house, not in a cattery, as they are called. Mother knew very well what a cattery was like—she had been in one before a man bought her and gave her to Auntie May as a present. She cost three guineas, she said. It was a very nice cattery, as catteries go—she admits that—and she will always look upon it with affection as being her first home, but still there was a lot of difference between it and Auntie May's house. A cattery has generally hard trodden-in earth for a floor, without a carpet, except for a few unhemmed bits spread here and there. There's generally an old chair—wooden—to scrape your claws on: now velvet, such as is kept here, mother says, is much more interesting and efficacious. The bed is inside, under cover—I grant you that—but only made out of a few old packing cases, and there is generally a horrid smelly oil-lamp to warm the whole place. Now Auntie May had us in her own bedroom for the first week of our lives, and when she did move us, it was only into her study. She was an authoress and had to have a study; at least her father, who was a distinguished painter and R.A., and adores his daughter, thought she had as much right as he to have a studio—same word as study. 'She sells her books, and I don't sell my pictures!' he said. (I call her Auntie May because Rosamond does, and because it sounds more respectful, and mother said I ought.) Her study was quite nicely furnished and full of bureaus and manuscript cupboards and high things to perch on. Mother says it is advisable when choosing a perch to get as high as possible, because of the draughts that run along the floors of even the best rooms.
Mother told us many things as we lay there, but I can't say I took much notice of them till my eyes opened. It was just a nice sleepy sound she made that sent us off to bye-bye one after another. I suppose she slept herself, but I never remember being awake when she wasn't. She was a very good mother; she hardly ever left us. Of course she got out of the bed to eat her meals; she detested crumbs in the bed, and so on. If she went away she always came back with a kind sort of speech—Rosamond called it a mew—something like 'Here we are again!' or 'Well, how goes it, infants?' and then lay down right on the top of us. Rosamond used to scold her and pull her off us, thinking she would hurt us; she didn't know that we were always able to ooze away from under mother quite easily when once she had turned round three times and got settled.
Till my eyes opened I did not know how many brothers and sisters I had, except for mother's telling me. I fought them all without having the slightest idea of the sort of thing I was fighting. I knew it had claws, though. I knew that Fred B. Nicholson, as they called him afterwards, after Auntie May's American cousin, was a regular bully from the beginning, always putting himself forward, and shoving us away from the best places. After all, eating is everything in those first days, and mother was singularly weak where Fred was concerned, and let him batter us as much as he liked, and never took our side against him. She only said 'First come, first served!' and 'Heaven helps those that help themselves!' and certainly he did grow a great strong boy.
Perhaps that was the reason why his eyes opened first!
Rosamond gave us a great deal of attention when her own lessons were over, and before, and hung over us till she got all the blood to her head, she said. She called herself cat-maid. One day when she was leaning over our bed, she suddenly jumped up and screamed:
'Oh, Auntie May, one of them—I don't even know which, but I think it is Fred B. Nicholson—has got a tiny, tiny slit where his eyes ought to be! Do you suppose he can see?'
I felt the first grief of my life. Iknewthere was no slit wheremyeyes ought to be, and I felt sure itwas, as Rosamond guessed, that horrid boy Fred, who always got first in everything. Next day the slit in his face was bigger. That evening they said with certainty, 'Yes, Fred can see!' In the daylight Rosamond discovered that his eyes were blue. By that timeIsaw what looked like a streak of light, and guessed that my eyes were going to open soon, and wondered if they would be blue too! I asked mother, and she laughed at Rosamond and at me, saying that all kittens' eyes are blue at first. Even Rosamond ought to have known that. The question was, would they be green or orange afterwards?
'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.Shehad 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 eyesinsidethe 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 thatIcould 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 hecouldspit. 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.
'Touch of Persian about this cat, I should say!' he observed quietly.
'Why, theyarePersian, Mr. Blake!' Rosamond cried out; but Auntie May said nothing, but simply hoofed him out of her room and ours. His little smile had grown bigger.
After he had gone, mother boiled with rage.
'I won't stand this!' she exclaimed. 'Come along, my traduced darlings, with me, and we will hide you, lest you be again exposed to insolent criticism of that kind. Touch of Persian indeed! Perhaps he thinks Persians haven't claws! Perhaps he thinks we cannot resent injuries adequately! Come, my pure-bred doves! Come, my prize darlings, my pedigree'd angels!'
The door into Auntie May's bedroom next door was left open. Mother carried us in one by one and laid us on the ground under the famous cupboard we had been in before, while she leaned up and, with her paw, turned the handle of the cupboard door. Then she seized me and jumped with me on to the bottom shelf and stowed me in one corner, pulling the clothes and what not that was there all over me, so as to hide me completely. She then left me, recommending me to silence, or I should get 'what for' with her hind feet, and fetched the others one by one. She placed them all on different shelves—I saw her leap past me each time—and stayed herself with Fred, for I did not see her go past again. That was a long jump, for it took her right up to the fifth shelf.
All the afternoon we lay there, mother visiting us all in turn. Unfortunately, she had not been able to succeed in closing the wardrobe door after her. It yawned in the most suspicious manner, and so Auntie May thought when she came back from Pinner, where she had gone to dine and sleep, as soon as Mr. Blake had departed. About eleven o'clock the next morning she came bouncing in in her hat and jacket, and the moment her eye fell on the open door she cried out:
'Oh, my prophetic soul! Come here at once, Rosamond, or you will be sorry!'
She opened the door wider and looked in, but, naturally, could see nothing.
'Itlooksall right!' she said to Rosamond. 'But all the same I feel sure that Petronilla is somewhere inside. Isn't mycrèpe de chineblouse in that corner rucked up rather suspiciously? Gently! Don't let us spoil poor Petronilla's game of "Hide-and-Seek." We mustn't find them too soon.'
Fred was under thecrèpe de chineblouse, and they found him. Then they found the other boy, with some artificial violets she wears pinned on to the front of her dress in the evening on top of him. On the top story one of the girls was curled into the crown of a hat, and mother was in the lowest shelf with the other, mixed up with an ermine boa. The play lasted quite ten minutes, and Rosamond was delighted. Very little damage was done; in fact, as mother said, a clean, well-licked-every-day cat, if you don't frighten him and drive him to desperation, rarely spoils clothes, or breaks ornaments, or leaves any trace of his presence. But if you chivy him or make him nervous, he doesn't choose to hold himself accountable for any harm he may happen to do, naturally!
There were five of us, and, so far, only Fred B. Nicholson had been christened. Rosamond, who is a child who loves putting things into their right places and calling them by their proper names, pointed this out to her Aunt.
'There are certain royalties,' said Auntie May, 'whose religion cannot be chosen till they have grown up and it is decided whom they are to marry. The same with kittens' names. The naming ought to be left to the people with whom they are eventually going to live. I can't keep more than one of them, you know. We should be what they callcat-ridden.'
This was the first I heard of it. From that day the thought hung over me that our pleasant little party would have to be broken up. I wondered if I could possibly contrive to be the one They kept. I could not bear the idea of moving to a new home. But mother said it was the law of nature. Her motto was from a poem of Miss Jean Ingelow that Auntie May had once quoted—
To hear, to nurse, to rear,To love and then to lose....
To hear, to nurse, to rear,To love and then to lose....
To hear, to nurse, to rear,
To love and then to lose....
She never worried—much, though she confessed at first it was rather trying, and that she caught herself wandering about looking into corners, searching for what she knew went away in a basket the day before. It was just a habit mothers got into, and when a few weeks had elapsed she just shook herself and thought no more of the kitten that had gone to make its mark on some one else's chair cushions. 'Dear me!' she used to say, 'I have on an average five kittens a year. What should I do with them all hanging about, getting in my way at every turn? I should become irritable, I should snap at them, I should positively hate them as soon as they became independent and I could do nothing for them. It is best as it is.'
After that speech of mother's, I was not so sure that I wanted to be the kitten They chose to keep, that is, if mother meant to turn round and bully me as soon as I could stand up for myself. It seemed strange to hear her talk like that, and yet one likes to be forewarned.
Rosamond gave us temporary names—reach-me-down names, she called them. Fred B. Nicholson was allowed to stand; the boy Auntie May called Admiral Togo, a Japanese name, I understand. The two girls were Zobeide and Blanch. I was called Loki, after the devil.
They did not know, but we all had one name already, a traditional one in our family. It was Pasht. Our ancestors lived at a place called Bubastis. For convenience' sake, however, we stuck to the names They gave us. They seemed to have an idea that we should answer to them and come when we were called, but mother told us on no account ever to do so, it would be false to every tradition of our class. We might go as far as to twitch an ear when we heard our name spoken pleasantly, but only on the very rarest occasions were we to stir a paw. Then, if we decided to go to Them, it was at least manners to stop half-way and scratch. If the name was spoken in an unfriendly tone, the thing to do was just to stare the impertinent creature down. At Bubastis, in the olden time, our ancestors had been worshipped and prayed to. In the studio downstairs, where mother had been a constant visitor in the days when she was free of domestic cares, there is one of our ancestors under a glass case just as he was buried when he died thousands of years ago. He is all wrapped in a sort of brown greased cloth, so mother says, many hundred folds of it, but still you can perfectly well see the original shape of our many-hundreds-of-times-over great-uncle. Nobody has ever unwrapped him; it would be very wicked to do it, and might bring misfortune on the house. Altogether he is treated with the greatest respect, and mother is quite content to have it so. We are taught to look on that room not as the studio as They do, but as the Family Tomb, and mother says that when we grow up and are permitted to sit there sometimes, we must all keep very quiet and behave seriously and do no romping.
One morning we woke up, and found mother had left us. The window was open, and mother had suddenly felt tired of nursing and as if she must have a breath of fresh air. She was outside on a kind of coping there was all round the house. Nobody was worrying at all when in came Mary and Rosamond. They called to mother to come in at once, for it was blowing a cold east wind, and then suddenly they discovered that she was in difficulties. She had jumped off the coping to another piece that stuck out at the side, and now, though she wanted to come back, her resolution had deserted her, and she thought she should never be able to do it. She told us all this, but Mary and Rosamond only thought she was crying out piteously.
'She can do it quite easily, Miss, if she will only face it,' said Mary. 'It stands to reason that if she could jump there, she can jump back!'
'Of course, Mary,' said Rosamond. 'What you can do once you can do again. Come, you silly-billy! Jump! Don't be a coward!'
Mother explained that the more she thought about it, the more she couldn't do it, and that perhaps if they would go away and leave her to herself, she would feel differently, but of course they couldn't understand her. They took a small chair and held it out of the window with one hand. Mother knew that if she were to leap upon that, her weight would make them drop it, and, sure enough, they did drop it all the same, and it went clattering down into the garden below. Then they said 'Ow! Whatever'll Miss May say?' and shut the window. Mother was glad of that, for the wind was really too cold for us as we lay inside, and as a matter of fact she was not in the slightest danger if only they would go away, go downstairs and pick up the pieces of the chair in the garden. She mildly suggested it to them, but they did not even begin to understand.
'Aw, poor thing, don't her mew come faint-like through the window!' said that silly Mary. 'You and me can't both leave her, Miss. Shall one of us go and fetch Miss May?'
'Do, do go away!' implored mother, 'and then I shall be able to make my jump!'
'I have an idea!' said Rosamond, and she came to our basket and picked up Zobeide, and carried her to the window and held her out to mother. Of course Zobeide screamed, and poor mother couldn't stand that and her legs obeyed her unconsciously and brought her in at once. She said 'Thank you' to Rosamond as she crossed the sill and walloped back into her bed and begged them to shut the window, which of course they didn't do, and it was open half-an-hour later when Auntie May came up from her singing lesson and Rosamond told her with pride what she had done. Auntie May knows a great deal about cats. She said at once that it wasn't necessary, that Petronilla would have known quite enough to come in of her own accord, and that it was too cold a day to hold a young kitten out in the raw air; still, as far as she could see, we were all perfectly well, and feeding away busily, so probably no harm was done.
Mother said to us that she wasn't quite so sure of that, for the wind was very cold, and she took particular care of Zobeide, and gave her the best place, and cuddled her till Zobeide squealed and said she didn't like affection if it meant being held so tight.
Next morning, when Auntie May came and stood over the basket, she seemed very grave.
'Rosamond, come here,' she said. 'Which kitten did you hold out of the window?'
'I am afraid I don't quite know which,' Rosamond said, very much puzzled and upset, as I could tell by her voice. 'It wasoneof the girls, Blanch or Zobeide, but I am sure I could not say which of them. Why? What is the matter?'
'Come and look!' said Auntie May.
Then I myself noticed for the first time that Blanch was lying a little way off mother, and breathing very funnily. Her body seemed to break in half under the skin with every breath she took, and she gave a great shake right across her. She was flattened out and her legs parted wide so that her chest was spread along the floor of the basket. She made a rushing noise with her breathing like what one hears when the bath is filling.
'She looks just like a frog!' said Rosamond. 'Oh, Auntie May, is she ill, and is it my fault?'
'Do you think it was Blanch you held over the window?'
'I said before I don't know, but perhaps it was.'
'It looks rather like it,' said Auntie May sadly, and put on her hat and jacket and fetched the doctor.
'Lor', for a kitten!' said Mary.
'It's worth three guineas if it lives, Mary,' said Rosamond through her tears. 'But it won't, and it will be my fault. I have murdered it!'
'Don't cry, pretty child!' mother said to her. 'It was Zobeide you held out of the window, and look at her sleeping so sweetly here under my paw! This is Blanch who is dying, and it is the will of Providence.'
Poor Rosamond couldn't understand her, and began to abuse her for her calmness.
'Youarea heartless old thing, Petronilla, you are! Look at you, calmly nursing four kittens, while one of them is too ill even to eat!'
'Of course it will not eat. It will die,' said mother gently, and as usual Rosamond didn't understand.
'Oh yes, you may mew, and try to palaver me, but that won't stop me thinking you a heartless beast!'
'Iama beast,' answered mother sweetly.
'Oh, please, please, make it eat! or else it will starve!'
'Itwillstarve,' said mother, but she made no opposition when Rosamond tried to make the poor little Blanch feed like the rest of us. We had never stopped eating; we knew we couldn't do anything for poor Blanch, and we knew, too, that it was Zobeide who had been held out of the window, and longed to tell May she was mistaken and put her out of her misery. When Dr. Hobday came twenty minutes later, we had to listen to Auntie May telling him the story, and asking him if that was what had made Blanch ill?
'It is very unlikely,' said he. 'This kitten was probably unhealthy from the first. It has pneumonia now, and I am afraid in such a young kitten the case is pretty well hopeless; but we will try to save it, if you think it worth while?'
'It isnotworth while,' said mother loudly and clearly, but, of course, no one took any notice of her—she wascalledthe Talking Cat, but they didn't really think it was talking, only general friendliness—and Auntie May said she meant to try and save Blanch's life.
First of all Blanch was put into a separate basket, lined with flannel; a piece of flannel was to be sewn round her with little holes for her front paws to go out of. She had to lie on a hot bottle. The temperature of the room had to be kept up to sixty-three degrees. She was to be fed every two hours, on a mixture of milk and sugar and hot water, about equal parts, so as to make something as like mother's milk as possible.
'I shall have to sit up with her,' said Auntie May, 'or buy an alarm clock to wake me up every two hours.'
'Oh, Auntie May, do letmesit up!' cried Rosamond.
'Why, you are but a kitten yourself!'
'Ah, but I'm over three years old,' said Rosamond. 'I am twelve years old. I suppose that represents a kitten's twelve weeks, doesn't it? So this kitten is three weeks, that is to say three years old.'
'It is a baby in arms,' said Auntie May, 'and is going to be fed with a bottle, like other babies.'
She had got a doll's feeding-bottle she had bought once at a bazaar, and she tried that, but it was defective and would not let the milk run through. Then she got her stylographic pen-filler and dipped that in the milk she had arranged and sucked some up, and squirted it out into Blanch's mouth, and really got some in that way; but it was a slow business, and poor Blanch used to hate being disturbed dreadfully. She was too young to talk, but she used to get into a regular temper sometimes and turn away her body with a scraping noise in her throat that meant how disgusted she was with life and people trying to cure her.
She was an awfully pretty kitten. 'Oh, youarea beauty,' Auntie May used to say, 'and I wish I could save you.'
Blanch had been much more forward in some ways than the rest of us; she had climbed all over Auntie May, and had a strong little back, and could sit up and look grown up, though she was only three. Her fur was nice too, a very much lighter grey than Zobeide's or mine, and her head very broad, and the distance between her small ears very great.
Her sick-basket was in a different part of the room from ours;wecould not, of course, get out to look at her, and I don't believe mother ever did. Auntie May did not seem to expect her to. She always told her how Blanch was, and mother used to say that Blanch was in good hands, and that Auntie May could do whatshecould not do for Blanch, feed her through stylographic pens, for instance. But she always said that though it was very good of Auntie May to devote herself so, she could not alter the result of Blanch's illness; no sick kitten as young as that could possibly recover. If only it had learned to feed itself, there would be a chance for it, and not much even then. She was glad for our sakes that Auntie May had parted us; she believed in the segregation of invalids. She had learned that hard long word in the cattery.
After two days the doctor came and looked at Blanch. He didn't take her up.
'This kitten is better!' he said in a surprised tone. 'It breathes more freely. You may save it yet. If you want to apply for the post of nurse for animals I'll recommend you, Miss Graham.'
The day after that Blanch was so much better that Auntie May went to a party which was given in a house near by. She was to be only two hours away. She fed Blanch at nine, after she was dressed, kneeling down beside her in her new pink dress. Having left Blanch quite comfortable, and pretty well, hardly coughing at all, she went away singing down the stairs. Rosamond was, of course, in bed. She went to bed at half-past eight, and made a great fuss about it every night. We four went to sleep. Mother liked the temperature kept at sixty degrees;à quelque chose malheur est bon, she said, which means bad-luck is good for something, and sent us to sleep with her soft purring.
Punctually at eleven I was awakened by the swish of Auntie May's dress on the stairs, and she came up followed by Mary, and the electric light was turned full on.
'Bring me my traps, Mary,' said Auntie May, and she sat down just as she was and began to mix the water and sweetened hot milk. When she had got it ready she leaned over the patient, and then called out.
'Come here, Mary,' she said in a queer voice. 'This kitten is dying!'
'The doctor said it was better, Miss.'
'So it is better—its breathing is better—but it is dying all the same. Look at its eyes!'
'Just like my old aunt's died last June! Well, Miss, it's only a kitten after all!'
Auntie May held Blanch up in her two hands and looked at her. She gave her her medicine and a little drop—a real drop, not what the cook here calls a drop—of brandy, but Blanch let it all roll out of her mouth and on to the pink gown. I knew that from what Mary said: 'Lor', Miss, your nice gown!'
'It's no good, Mary. Its eyes are glazing already. They look tormented. We mustn't plague her any more. Bring Petronilla!'
'How absurd!' said mother, as Mary lifted her out.
Auntie May showed her Blanch, whom she had laid back in her bed. Blanch's head had rolled quite uncomfortably back, and her eyes saw nothing. She was almost gone.
Mother didn't do at all what they expected, though; indeed, I don't know whether they expected her to bring Blanch back from the grave in some mysterious way that mothers ought to know of. Mother had no way. She knew it was no good. To satisfy them she did something. She licked and rolled Blanch over in her bed with her tongue—roughly, I suppose, from the way they spoke.
'She's killed it!' said Auntie May. 'Look, it's dead!'
She took Blanch up, and Blanch's head fell back over her hand and a film came over her eyes—so Auntie May said afterwards.
Poor Auntie May put Blanch down again, and cried as if her heart would break.
'I nursed it—I took such care—and he said I had saved it, and no, it's dead—oh!—oh!—'
'Don't cry, Miss May, don't cry so,' Mary begged. 'It's only a kitten at that. We'll bury it in the garden. It will be our first funeral; there's a nice little place back of them trees, I've often thought of it for that. Here, let me get you out of your dress. I'll put the corpse in the bathroom till the morning. What'll ever your father think if he hears you crying like this over a kitten, and wake Miss Rosamond, too!'
Then Auntie May stopped, because she wasn't selfish, and let Mary put her to bed, and went to sleep very soon after. I asked mother if she wouldn't mind telling me why she had licked Blanch so hard.
'My dear child,' mother said, 'I daresay you and Auntie May consider me very unfeeling, and think it very odd that she should do all the crying instead of me; but then you must realise that I was never in favour of nursing Blanch and trying to keep her alive. She was delicate and bound to die sooner or later. It is a great mistake to try to preserve the lives of kittens that are weak and feeble from the very beginning, and no sensible cat would ever countenance such a proceeding. They do as they choose with theirs, and a nice lot of invalids, cripples, and criminals They raise up to make difficulties afterwards for them! As a matter of fact, Blanchwascured of her illness, and I don't deny any of the credit to Auntie May of having done it—I couldn't have done it myself—but, as the doctor will tell her to-morrow, the child died of heart-failure. I knew it would go like that. When they called me in I had to do something for form's sake, and I licked her. Poor little dear, we must forget about this closing scene of her very short career, and try to grow up healthy ourselves. That I look upon as a cat's first duty. You ask why? In the battle of life the weaklings must go under. Now feed properly and don't choke, as you are sure to do if you are greedy and in too much of a hurry.'
Rosamond was told about Blanch next day, and she cried too. Fresh from my mother's lecture I looked upon her almost with disgust. The silly child talked of going into mourning, and, sure enough, she found an old bit of black crape somewhere and sewed it on the arm of her frock. I had no patience with her. We relations were, on the contrary, forbidden to make any difference, and mother was even gay, though I noticed a tear in her eyes sometimes when nobody was looking. I heard Rosamond propose to bring poor Blanch, who by now, she said, had grown quite stiff, to show to her mother for a last look before she was buried; but, to mother's great relief, Mary had taken Blanch and buried her before breakfast by Auntie May's orders.
'Don't be morbid, my dear child!' Auntie May said, when Rosamond complained of what Mary had done. 'I don't like any one to gloat over funerals, much less children. You must forget Blanch, poor dear Blanch, who made such a brave fight for her life, and remember that there are four left.'
So you see in the main she said the same thing as mother, which convinces me, as I said before, that she knew a good deal about cats.
'It is time they were taught to lap!' said Auntie May.
'Oh, Auntie May,' cried Rosamond, 'how dreadfully exciting! I was wondering when you were going to begin that! Itwillbe dreadfully exciting, won't it?'
'It will be dreadfully messy,' answered Auntie May. 'I must do it in an old frock and my art pinafore.'
'Oh, Auntie May, I shall love to see you in a pinafore! You will look like a big French doll—that one of mine that Kitty spoiled.'
'Hush, don't speak ill of the absent. I daresay Kitty enjoyed the destruction of Wilhelmina very much, as much as Petronilla liked mumbling my white satin shoes last year. I forgave her. One must pay for one's pets.'
'And I forgave Kitty,' said Rosamond; 'besides, I am twelve now and past dolls. When shall we begin to feed the kittens?'
'Wait a bit!' mother said; but, of course, once having got the idea into Their heads, they took no notice. Auntie May got the big pinafore she had when she was an art student, out of a box, and put it on. Then she fetched a tiny china spoon with forget-me-nots all over it, and sent Rosamond down for some milk and some hot water. Then Rosamond and she squatted down on the floor beside our bed, and mother eyed them scornfully over the edge of it.
'Now, you silly old Petronilla, we are going to relieve you of some of your work. Four kittens are too much for you. You are beginning to look rather fagged in spite of Beef-tea and Kreochyle and Hovis food. Children, dear, you cost a pretty penny.'
These were the names of some of the messes They were continually bringing up in saucers and planting out by mother's bedside, and which she hopped out and licked up and came back again saying that Auntie May had a feeling heart and that she adored her, since, as every one ought to know, the way to a cat's heart is through its stomach, whatever may be the cause of affection afterwards. And mother did love Auntie May quite desperately much, and Auntie May could always see it in her eyes, though mother was not otherwise demonstrative.
Well, as I was saying, they managed to unhitch Fred's claws and mouth, and laid him in Auntie May's lap, and put the point of the little china spoon in between his teeth. He sputtered and choked, and he seemed to have a white beard when they let him alone again.
'He isn't taking any this time!' said Auntie May. There were white streams wandering through the rucks of her pinafore.
'Of course he is not taking any of your extraordinary preparation,' said mother. 'You are in too great a hurry to have him lap. He won't do it a moment before he is ready, and that will be when I decide to begin to wean him. You can try every day and you won't do him any harm, but you will only wet your pinafore.'
It was quite true. We none of us felt as if we could touch Auntie May's mixture, we so very much preferred mother's. Auntie May put us all back again, and stood up and shook herself, and the milk we hadn't taken ran down the creases of her pinafore on to the floor. They both went away, and Rosamond, as she went out of the door, recommended mother to tidy it by licking it up, partly in joke—at least mother took it that way, for, as she said, she was not a common cat, to eat up slops, and they would have to send Mary to wash it away with a cloth.