CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A VISITING LADY
T
THE first day on the train Weejums sat up in Eunice’s lap like any other traveller, enjoying the view, and spitting at the engines that passed. And when the sleeping-car conductor came along, she was smuggled under the seat in the hopes that he might not guess what that innocent-looking lunch-basket contained. But he did, because while he was examining the tickets, Weejums got out of the basket, and sharpened her claws on his leg. He jumped a little, and said, “I am sorry, madam, but that cat will have to go into the baggage-car to-night. We never allow animals on a sleeper.”
“Then I’ll go, too,” said Eunice, promptly.
“We don’t allow little girls in a baggage-car,” he said with a smile.
“But she’ll be so afraid,” said Eunice, in distress; “she hates men—dearly.”
“I think she can defend herself,” said the conductor, rubbing his leg. And in spite of all that Eunice could say, he carried Weejums off to the baggage-car, where she was much disappointed at seeing so many locked trunks, when they might so easily have been nice open ones, with pink silk shirt-waists in the top tray for her to lie on.
In the morning Eunice had scarcely finished dressing when the train conductor came along, and before Mrs. Wood could stop her, she had seized him by the coat-tails, asking, “Oh, have you seen my kitty?”
Now the train conductor is a very important person, and as he has the charge of all the cars, and all the passengers that are in them, it was not at all likely that he would know anything about a little girl’s kitty. But to Mrs. Wood’s surprise, he laughed and said, “Yes, we juststole some milk for her out of some cans that were put on at the last station. Pretty cat, isn’t she?”
“I think that you must have a little girl,” said Mrs. Wood, gratefully.
“Two, madam,” he answered. “Tickets, please.”
After breakfast Weejums was brought back, and spent a happy day with Eunice and another little girl, who was allowed, as a great favor, to help put on the crimson flannel tailor-blanket, stitched with pink, while the other passengers offered compliments and sweet crackers. That night they had to change cars, and this time there was no friendly conductor to steal milk for Weejums, but a savage-eyed expressman, who charged seventy-five cents, and did not seem to love cats. In New York, Mrs. Wood was met by her sister-in-law, who had to follow her into a crowded baggage-room, filled with tumbling trunks and dozens of men, to ask for “A cat, please.”
“What will you do next, Amy?” said AuntMaude, with a comical look. “I believe that Eunice will be utterly spoiled.”
“A VISITING LADY”
“A VISITING LADY”
Aunt Maude had no children of her own, but loved the little Woods very dearly, and explained to their mother quite often how they ought to be brought up.
They were to stay a day or two with Mrs. Wood’s brother, and then go to a boarding-house in Montrose, to wait until their owncottage was ready, for Mrs. Wood did not believe in making long visits, with a family of children.
Weejums was more than glad when they left New York, for of course she had not gone to any of the theatre and Eden Musée parties with Uncle Rob, or been invited to have an ice-cream soda. And it was not interesting, either, to walk in a tiny brick yard crowded with clothes-lines, or feel one’s way along a fence so narrow that if another cat came along, you either had to back away, or stay and fight it out.
But the boarding-house in Montrose attracted her because it had so large a yard, and she thought it would be pleasant to lie always on red velvet chairs, and walk through swinging bead portieres that tickled one’s tail. But this was before she had met Mrs. Winslow.
“I don’t care for tortoise-shell cats,—do you?” asked one of the old ladies who did fancy-work on the piazza.
“No, Mrs. Winslow is white,” said another.
“And a cat that won’t purr for strangers, either,” added the first old lady, with a reproachful glance at Weejums, who sat “back-to” on the steps.
“MRS. WINSLOW”
“MRS. WINSLOW”
“Mrs. Winslow will purr for any one,” said the other.
In addition to this, it turned out that one of Mrs. Winslow’s eyes was green and the other blue, while both of Weejums’ were hopelesslyalike. It also appeared that Mrs. Winslow had nerves, and could not eat her chop-bone in the dining-room with Weejums’ commonplace eyes upon her; so Weejums had to be banished to the kitchen. But she afterwards fought Mrs. Winslow in the pansy bed, and when Mrs. Winslow returned to the house, her blue eye was closed so tight that no one could possibly have guessed it was not green.
“Theysaythat’s a bright cat,” said Kenneth, scornfully, “but the other day after she’d eaten a mouse, she went around calling it to come back, just as if ’t was a kitten.”
“They all sit in a row and admire her, while she scratches her ribbon,” said Franklin. “They like to watch the bow go round under her chin, and up behind the other ear.”
“Then they say, ‛Oh, isn’t it cunning!’” said Eunice.
“Children, don’t laugh at the people in the house. We’ll see lots of beautiful pussies at the Cat Show to-morrow, so you can afford to stop insulting Mrs. Winslow.”
But that very afternoon came another mortification for Weejums, and a triumph for the enemy.
old lady chasing Weejums
It happened that Mrs. Wood’s room was supposed to be heated in winter from the room below, and one day when the register was taken out to be mended, she had folded a shawl across the hole; because, as the hole looked straight down into the room of the queerest of the old ladies, it would naturally be very hard for Eunice and Kenneth to keep from trying to see what the old lady was doing.
But she had reckoned without Weejums, who thought of course that the nice warm shawl was placed there for her to lie on, and, as Fate would have it, chose a time when the old lady was sitting directly under the hole.
Shrieks of terror from below sent everybody rushing to the old lady’s room, and as her door opened, Weejums shot out with a swelling tail, and her enraged victim in pursuit.
“Catch her—catch her!” screamed the old lady, as Weejums bounded through the hallinto the dining-room, and between the feet of a frightened servant, into the kitchen.
“Scat, now—scat!” said the cook, cuffing her off a basket of clean linen into which she had jumped,—without even giving her time to explain that she had stopped there merely to get her breath.
It was against rules for the boarders to come into the kitchen, so Weejums heard the voice of the old lady grow fainter and die away; but she was still angry with the cook for cuffing her, and, spying Mrs. Winslow behind the stove, slapped her soundly on the closed eye. This was too much for Hannah, who loved Mrs. Winslow, and a little dipper of water from the dishpan descended on Weejums’ nose. She stopped to hurl an insult at boarding-houses in general, and bolted for the pantry door.
“Come out of there!” called Hannah, angrily, and in her haste to reach the window, Weejums skipped wildly through a pan of cranberry sauce, terrifying the old rooster in theyard by appearing suddenly before him with red legs. As Weejums had never cared for cranberry sauce, and always refused it on her turkey, it was very trying to have to lap so much of it off her paws, and she had scarcely polished one toe, when for no reason whatever, a boarder upstairs put her head out of the window and called “Scat!” This was entirely uncalled for, as Weejums had done and said nothing; but the lack of sympathy in it disgusted her so much that she slanted back her eyes and ears in the most Chinese of “dignities,” and jerking her tail stiffly, walked out of the place.
She did not know, of course, that the boys across the street were getting up a circus, or she would not have ventured into their yard. But they had always seemed like kind boys, so she was not particularly alarmed when one of them pounced on her and, holding her up, called to the others, “Hi, come and see the red-legged cat!”
“Red-legged cat! Red-legged cat!” theyexclaimed in delight, and the biggest one said, “We’ll have her for the side-show. Ten pins admission. Make the sign, Bob.”
So Weejums was carried into a kind of tent made of sheets, where several freshly washed guinea-pigs were whining in their box, and a goat, with a cocked hat on, bore the label of “Only Genuine Bearded Wanderoo—Fresh from Africa.”
“Chain up the Duck-bill Platypus, quick there!” called Bob, as a wretched little street dog jumped and bit vainly at Weejums’ tail.
“Now then, big letters—” he ordered, as the boys began to make the sign, “Like this, I’ll show you: COME AND SEE THE RED-LEGGED—”
But at this point Weejums escaped from under his arm, and having stopped an instant to claw the “Duck-bill Platypus,” departed in great haste from the scene. The boys dropped their sign and followed, but she soon left them behind, and no one who came to the circus ever found out who it was that had red legs.
Weejums visited no more yards after that, but skirted along the edges of lawns, and when any one looked at her, shot up a tree. But as most of the people who appeared to be looking at her were really looking at something else, it is quite likely that she went up more trees than were necessary.
Soon after she had washed off the cranberry sauce, a little girl drove along in a dog-cart with a lady beside her and a groom behind. And this time Weejums did not run up a tree, because the little girl’s curls reminded her of Eunice.
“Why, Auntie, it’s Octavia!” she said, pulling up her horse; “it’s Mrs. Slocum’s Octavia! Some one must have stolen her and brought her way out here.”
“My dear, are you sure?” asked the lady, as the child scrambled out of the cart.
“Sure? Why every marking is the same! The white nose, orange cape, and bronze lights on the paws. Come, Octavia, come, dear kitty—I’ll take you home!”
“I’m not Octavia,” mewed Weejums; “but I’m tired of boarding-house life, and will be glad to visit with you until my family gets settled.”
“See, I believe she knows me!” said the child whom the lady called “Marian.” “We’ll take her right in on the train with us,—won’t we, Auntie? And won’t Mrs. Slocum be pleased?”
“Yes, she was terribly distressed last night,” said Marian’s aunt. “You know she said that Octavia had never run away before, and was afraid she had been stolen. I suppose she must have escaped from the people who carried her off. Dear me, it’s fortunate we found her! And the Cat Show beginning to-morrow!”
“Mrs. Slocum will think it’s pretty dreadful that they carried her out of town,” said Marian.
“It’s natural that they should. She’s too valuable to exhibit near home,” said the Aunt.
Now Weejums had not listened to any ofthis, because she was watching the view from the dog-cart, and wishing that Torn-nose might see her; but when they stopped at a grocer’s, and she was bundled into a covered basket, she began to think that something might be wrong. A little later she smelled engine-smoke, and knew by the rattle and noise that they were on the train, going she knew not where.
After this came the jingle of street-cars, and then a long, smooth ride in a queer kind of carriage driven by some one up in the air.
“Number —, Fifth Avenue, Ma’am,” called the man over their heads, and Weejums felt herself being carried up steps to a door which opened almost before the bell was rung.
“Oh, Fennels!” said Marian. “Is Mrs. Slocum in? We’ve found Octavia! Only think!”
“Very good, Miss. But the cat come home last night, Miss. They’ve been bathing her to-day for the show.”
“Octavia is back—is here? But she can’tbe, Fennels, because I’ve got her in my basket.”
“Beg pardon, Miss Marian, but I don’t see how that could be, as I just saw the cat in the hall. But if you and Mrs. Armstrong would come in, Miss, while I speak to Mrs. Slocum.”
“Then if Octavia is here,” said Marian, in despair, “Auntie,whatcat is it that we have in the basket?”