Part 4

“I understand now,” said the little mouse, quite gently. “I can see what has happened. A fine friend you have been to deceive me in this manner! When you told me you were going to stand godfather to the three little kittens, you never visited your relations at all; but, instead of that, you went to the church three times, and ate up all the meat in the jar. I know, now, what you meant by Top-Off, Half-Gone,--”

[Illustration: “I UNDERSTAND NOW,” SAID THE LITTLE MOUSE, QUITE GENTLY.

_Page 136._ ]

“Will you be quiet?” cried the cat, in a rage. “If you say another word, I will eat you.”

But the poor little mouse had got the name on the tip of her tongue when Tom interrupted her, and she could not stop herself. Out it came--“All-Gone!”

Tom, who only wanted an excuse to eat up his poor little wife, sprang upon her the minute she uttered the word, broke her back with his paw, and ate her up!

* * * * *

“Oh, Impty,” cried Dolly, as the story ended, “what a wicked cat! I hope you would never, never do such a thing! You _wouldn’t_ would you?”

“No,” answered the kitten, yawning again, “I never should. In the first place, I’d not dream of marrying a mouse. _I_ always eat ’em.”

THE FIFTH NIGHT

“I’m a little late this evening,” purred Impty, as he rubbed up against Dolly the next night. “But the large yellow cat across the street is giving a Catnip Tea, and I simply _had_ to stay for one cup.”

“I do hope that you’re going to tell me a pleasanter story this time,” said the little girl. “I dreamed all night long about that poor mouse.”

“To-night,” said the black kitten, “I am going to tell you of Mother Michel, and the wonderful adventures of her cat, Moumouth. It is _very_ exciting, and it turns out beautifully in the end.”

[Illustration:

Mother Michel And Her Cat ]

More than a hundred years ago there lived in Paris an old countess, Madame de la Grenouillière, a widow who had no children and who loved animals very dearly. But she was quite unfortunate, for none of her pets, no matter how much she loved or cared for them, ever lived. One by one they died, and, at last, the Countess decided that she would have no more. However, one day, as she was riding home in her chariot, she saw a crowd of children tormenting a poor street-cat. They had tied a sauce-pan to its tail, and goodness knows what would have happened if Madame had not put her head out of the window and called to them that whoever should bring the cat to her would be rewarded with a piece of gold.

The crowd of children all ran after the cat, not to torment him now, but to bring him safely to the rich lady and gain the reward; and he was nearly as much in danger from kindness as he had been from cruelty. At last he was caught, and brought safely to the Countess. Once she had him safe in the chariot, she took a good look at him, and then said: “Poor pussy! What a very ugly little cat you really are!” But when the cat turned to look reproachfully at her, she exclaimed: “Well, he may be ugly, but he certainly has very fine eyes. Here,” she added, turning to her companion, “once more I will have a pet. Let us take this poor pussy with us, and see what a comfortable, happy life at my fireside will do for him.”

So saying, she placed him in the arms of her friend, Mother Michel, and together they all three rode home.

Besides her companion, there was another one of her household upon whom the Countess greatly relied, and this was her steward, whom the old lady had nicknamed Lustucru. Now Lustucru was as bad as Mother Michel was good; he hated all animals as much as the Countess and her companion loved them; and, when he saw them bringing home another cat, he was very angry, although he pretended to be pleased, and called the cat “pretty puss” more than once. And this the cat seemed to know, for he walked away from Master Lustucru whenever he saw him coming.

At the end of four or five weeks you would never have known Moumouth. They had given him this name because, so an old scholar told the Countess, that Moumouth, in Hebrew, meant “saved from the sauce-pans.” And, in a second month, Moumouth had grown fat, and his fur shone as if it were satin.

But something, which always does turn up, even in the happiest cat’s life, came to disturb Moumouth’s peace of mind. Madame de la Grenouillière was called to Normandy by the sickness of her sister, and, alas, Moumouth could not go with her because the sick lady did not like cats.

“Come here, Mother Michel,” said the Countess; “I am going to trust my precious cat to you. Take care of him well, and if, on my return, he is alive and thriving, I will leave you a pension of three hundred dollars a year.”

“But, Madame,” replied her companion, “I will take care of Moumouth because I love him as if he were my own.”

“I know that,” said the old Countess, “but be very, very careful, and I will reward your zeal.”

When the steward heard this promise, he was wild with wrath. “Mother Michel will have everything,” he said, “and there will be nothing left for me. Well, Moumouth, once the Countess is out of the way, we’ll see about your precious life.”

The Countess set out on her journey, and Mother Michel, worthy of the confidence that had been shown her, now took the greatest care of Moumouth. She petted him, she patted him, and fed him so well that he grew even handsomer. All this time Lustucru was looking on, waiting for a chance to kill Moumouth when his faithful guardian should not be on the watch. One evening, when the cat was asleep before the fire, Lustucru came to Mother Michel, and begged her to go down and see one of the servants who was very ill with rheumatism. As soon as she had left the room, he seized Moumouth, who had not even time to mew, and threw him head over heels into a large bag. Then the wicked man ran swiftly across the garden, and out into the street toward the Seine, and, the river once reached, he opened the bag and tossed Moumouth into the water. He was in such haste to get home that he did not wait to see the poor cat struggling for his life in the river; nor did he see, a moment later, Moumouth crawling to a little ledge just at the foot of one of the arches of the bridge.

Instead, he ran home quickly, for fear Mother Michel would have finished her visit, and come to look for Moumouth. He slipped quietly into bed, and when, in a little while, she came and knocked at his door, he pretended to have just waked up from a sound sleep.

[Illustration: HE OPENED THE BAG, AND TOSSED MOUMOUTH INTO THE WATER.

_Page 149._]

“Moumouth lost!” he cried, pretending to be very sorry indeed. “Oh, I’ll get up immediately and help you look for him. Such a fine fellow! It would be a thousand pities if anything happened to him.” And so, at the head of all the servants of the house, Lustucru helped Mother Michel search from garret to cellar.

But was Moumouth shivering all this time just above the cold waters of the Seine? Oh, no, although there for a number of hours he sat all huddled up, not daring to take his life in his paws and swim to shore. But at daybreak, about five o’clock in the morning, two fishermen came to the bridge to try their luck. What good-fortune for Moumouth! As soon as the lines were let down he seized them, and the fishermen, imagining from his weight that he must be some splendid fish, hauled him quickly in. But when, instead of a fish, a cat bounded off on the bridge, they stood in astonishment for a moment, and then ran after him as fast as they could. Moumouth redoubled his speed, and escaped his pursuers by jumping through the open windows of a bakery. Here he found some bags of flour, and, tired out, he went to sleep at once. But he was so hungry that he soon woke up, and remembering his old habit of catching mice and rats when he was a gutter-cat, he sprang at the first mouse that popped its head out of a hole. Round and round the room he chased his prey, and the baker’s boy, seeing the hunt, lifted a broom to hit him as he passed, but the baker forbade him to strike Moumouth. “He is a good mouser,” he said; “he shall stay here and rid the bakery of all the rats and mice that are eating us out of house and home.”

When Moumouth heard these words he grew so frightened--believing that he would never see Mother Michel again--that he sprang through the nearest window, and so escaped into the street. Here he wandered among the back-alleys until nightfall, and then he scurried home as fast as he could scamper. He hid in the garret and timidly crept behind some boxes to wait until he should hear Mother Michel moving about downstairs the next morning.

All this time the household was searching still for Moumouth. The wicked Lustucru pretended to hear him crying in the garden; then, after they had vainly searched in every thicket and hedge, he would cry: “No. I’m sure that I heard him mewing in the cellar.” At last, laughing to himself, he said, “Do you know, I think he must be in the garret.” Up the long stairway Mother Michel ran, and who should come out and rub affectionately against her skirts but Moumouth!

Never was any one so glad to see a cat before; and Lustucru pretended to be as happy as the old lady herself. After this Mother Michel never let Moumouth go out of her sight; she petted him nearly to death and made him sleep in her room. There was no chance for Lustucru to catch the cat alone again.

“But he shall not escape me,” thought the wicked steward, and keeping this idea always in his mind, he bought a package of rat-poison, and, as he hid it safely away, he cried to himself, “This ‘Death to Rats’ shall soon be ‘Death to Cats!’” The next day, when Mother Michel brought up Moumouth’s dinner,--good chicken patties,--Lustucru sprinkled poison all over them. Moumouth, hungry as he was, refused to eat, and Mother Michel, vexed at last with the whims of her charge, said: “Well! If you don’t eat those patties, Sir, you’ll get nothing else for dinner! Why, I’ve a good mind to eat them myself.”

“Oh, don’t!” cried Lustucru, jumping up in alarm. “A Christian should not eat food that’s been prepared for an animal.”

“Well,” replied Mother Michel, “either the cat eats those patties, or he goes hungry.”

And hungry poor Moumouth did go, all that day and all the next, living on scraps which the cook threw to him. But eat the poisoned food the clever cat would not. So the patties stayed locked up in Mother Michel’s cupboard, and they were soon forgotten, except by Lustucru. He had failed so often to kill Moumouth himself, that he knew he must try some other means.

And Fate, which isn’t always kind to cats, threw just such a chance, he thought, in his way. One morning, as he was returning early from market, he saw a little ragged boy gazing hungrily at the open kitchen, and, no doubt, wishing himself well inside.

“What is your name?” asked Lustucru.

“Faribole, Monsieur,” answered the little boy, making a low bow.

“And what are you doing here, spying in my mistress’s windows? Are you thinking that you would like to be one of her household?”

“I was, indeed, Monsieur,” answered Faribole. “Could you tell me if there is any need of a scullion, for I would willingly do any work, I am so hungry and homeless.”

“I am the steward,” said Monsieur Lustucru, proudly, “and I alone have the power to engage you. This I will do if you will promise to obey me in all things.”

“Oh, I will do your bidding in everything,” the little fellow pleaded.

“Then,” said the steward, “follow me, and I will instruct you in your duties.”

When they were safely in the house, Lustucru turned to Faribole and said, “Do you see that cat?”--pointing to the sleeping Moumouth. “You must try to make that creature your friend, for he is the chief pet of our mistress, Madame de la Grenouillière. Make him love you, make him your friend, and all will be well.”

For a month Faribole played with Moumouth; he coaxed him, he petted him, and, at last, completely won the cat’s heart. Moumouth would have followed him anywhere.

At the end of a month’s time, Lustucru called the boy to him.

“You have done all I told you to,” he said, as if he were very much pleased.

“And now shall I stay here always, Monsieur?” Faribole asked eagerly.

“That depends upon your being willing to do what I tell you, my lad,” answered the steward. “You must, to-night, call Moumouth out into the garden. There you and I will put him into a large sack, and together we will beat him to death.”

“Never! Never!” cried Faribole, who loved the cat very much. “I could never do such a dreadful thing as that!”

For answer Lustucru went to the closet where the boy’s ragged garments, that he had worn upon first entering the house, were hanging.

“Take off the clothes I gave you, and go away instantly in these rags, if you are not willing to obey me!” said Lustucru, savagely.

In vain poor Faribole wept and begged for Moumouth’s life to be spared, but the wicked steward refused to listen to another word; and, at last, Faribole, growing less and less brave as he thought of his hungry days and wet nights on the pavements of Paris, promised that he would help Lustucru do this cruel deed.

The next day, as the afternoon was drawing to a close, Mother Michel called Faribole to her and said: “I am going out on an errand, now, and I am going to leave Moumouth with you. Be kind to him, and the Countess will reward your kindness when she returns.”

Alas! No sooner had she started than Faribole, the tears running down his face, coaxed Moumouth into the garden. There, at the end of a long alley, stood Lustucru waiting, sack in hand. He seized the cat, thrust him in the sack, and, in spite of all his struggles, tied the cord in a tight knot. He raised his club, and was about to strike when back came Mother Michel, out of breath from running so fast.

“Our dear mistress is returning, Lustucru,” she cried, panting. “Come, let us go to meet her with all the rest of the household.”

She turned, and was soon out of sight.

“Here!” cried Lustucru, out of patience at the delay. “Here, Faribole! Take this wretched cat, beat him until he can’t stir, and then throw him into the Seine.” And he, too, ran away to welcome the Countess home again. When he returned, there was Faribole, his face all wet with tears, but no Moumouth!

“Have you done as I told you?” asked the wicked man, and the boy nodded his head, too sad to speak.

But here they heard the voice of Mother Michel calling Faribole.

“Faribole! Faribole! Come hither! Our mistress, the dear Countess, wishes you to bring her dear cat to her immediately.”

Faribole went slowly, and with his head hanging.

“Oh, Mother Michel!” he cried, “while Moumouth and I were at play in the garden, he got frightened by some boys who were passing, and ran away to hide in the hedge.”

The Countess was very much grieved, and Mother Michel tried to console her. “Once he was lost for several days, and he came back unharmed,” she said.

But though they looked everywhere, and offered rewards, no Moumouth was to be found.

At last Mother Michel decided to go to the fortune-teller around the corner, hoping that there she might hear some news of her lost pet.

The fortune-teller turned over her pack of cards. “You are looking for something that is lost,” she said. “Ah, I see by the cards that it is a cat.” She turned over a few more, “My poor lady,” she said sorrowfully, “your cat has been sold to a butcher, and eaten for a rabbit!”

Mother Michel was just beginning to wring her hands with grief, when she heard a violent scratching at the door, and then, right through a pane of glass bounded Moumouth, and jumped straight into her friendly lap.

“You wicked woman!” cried Mother Michel, angrily; “first you steal our cat, and then you pretend that he is dead. Oh, this is a fine tale to tell my mistress, the Countess. She’ll have you put in prison for this!”

“Mercy! Mercy!” begged the fortune-teller, falling on her knees. “I did not know the cat was yours. It was brought to me by a little lad named Faribole, who knew I wanted one. Forgive me! Do not have me punished for a thing that I did not know was wrong.”

Mother Michel was so happy at finding Moumouth that she readily forgave the poor woman, and hurried home to show the dear pet to the Countess. Madame de la Grenouillière was as delighted to see Moumouth as her companion had been to find him. When they had petted him and fed him and, at last, left him asleep on a down cushion, they sent for Faribole, and asked him why he had done so wicked a thing.

“Oh,” cried the poor boy, “I wanted to save him from Monsieur Lustucru, and that seemed to be the only way. He wanted me to beat him to death.”

No one believed him, of course. The steward indignantly denied such intentions, and poor Faribole was sent away in disgrace.

But Lustucru’s wickedness could not always remain hidden. Some days after Moumouth’s return, while looking through her cupboard, Mother Michel found three dead rats and the remains of the chicken patties that Moumouth had refused to eat. She carried them to the Countess, and they sent for the steward.

“Oh, Lustucru,” said his mistress, “the rats are troubling me so in here that I wanted to know if you had any rat-poison.”

“Certainly, Madame,” he replied, bowing. “Wait one moment, and I will bring it to you.”

The Countess soon found that the two poisons were exactly the same, and, besides, there began to be people who said that they had seen Lustucru throw Moumouth from the bridge into the Seine. The steward, who feared that he would receive his just reward, ran away suddenly one night, and took service shortly after on a ship that was wrecked on the Sandwich Islands. And so all his sins were punished, for it is said that the cannibals ate him for dinner the next day!

As for Faribole, he was taken again into the Countess’s service, where, so willingly did he work, and so earnestly did he repent of his misdoing, that Mother Michel adopted him as her own son. When the old Countess died, she left in her will, as she had promised, an annuity of three hundred dollars to Moumouth and Mother Michel, to be shared between them, and when one died, the other was to receive the whole legacy. So these three--Mother Michel, Moumouth, and Faribole--lived together happy and contented all their days. And when Moumouth died,--for all cats must, you know,--he had a grand funeral, and a fine monument with the story of his life written on it in Latin, so that all might know how good and wise a cat he had been.

* * * * *

“There!” purred Impty. “Isn’t that a fine tale? And, you see, it did turn out well, didn’t it? Why, Moumouth became so famous that people made a nursery rhyme out of his story. French children sing it to this day, and know it as well as you do ‘Three Little Kittens.’”

“Oh, Impty! What lovely stories the King of the Cats does tell you! I wish I could go to Cat-Land some night. Couldn’t I?” Dolly coaxed.

“I’ll see,” said Impty, settling himself for his sleep-journey. “To-night I’ll ask my grandfather, and _maybe_ he’ll let you come.”

THE SIXTH NIGHT

“Can I go to Cat-Land, Impty dear?” asked Dolly, sitting up eagerly, as soon as the black kitten jumped on the bed.

“No, you can’t,” Impty answered. “I’m awfully sorry, but my grandfather says that unless you can change into a cat you can’t go; and people can’t change into cats, nor cats into people, nowadays. I can’t imagine wanting to be a human being, but there was a cat once that did. Did you ever hear of her?”

[Illustration: VENUS AND THE CAT]

There was, once upon a time, a cat who was not at all satisfied with herself. It was not that she wished to be more beautiful, but, because she had fallen in love with a young man, she wanted to be changed into a girl, that he might love her in return. So she prayed before the altar of Venus, and begged that the goddess would make her a beautiful maiden. So long and so earnestly did the cat pray, that Venus at last grew sorry for her, and changed her into one of the loveliest girls in the world, so beautiful, indeed, that, as soon as he saw her, the young man begged her to marry him. Everything was going as happily as possible, when Venus, just to see if she had been able to give the cat another nature in changing her shape, put a mouse down before her. Instantly the girl sprang from her seat, and chased the mouse round and round the room, caught it, and would have eaten it, had not Venus turned her at once into a cat again, for she saw it was of no use, and that what was bred in the bone would always stick to the flesh.

[Illustration: VENUS TURNED HER AT ONCE INTO A CAT AGAIN.--_Page 180._]

* * * * *

“Of course it’s a pity she didn’t have more sense,” added Impty, sagely; “but then, mice are _such_ a temptation! Æsop--my grandfather says he wrote the fable hundreds and hundreds of years ago--knew just as much about animals as he did about men. I’m going to tell you his story of ‘The Cat and the Fox.’”

[Illustration:

THE CAT AND THE FOX ]

One day a cat met a fox in the wood. “Ah,” she thought, “he is clever and sensible, and talked of in the world a good deal; I will speak to him.” So she said, quite in a friendly manner: “Good morning, dear Mr. Fox; how are you? And how do things go with you in these hard times?”