CHAPTER X

THE CAT IN A BAG--THE FROG RACE

In the summer, when the cloud of war was gathering, the last beautiful season of the Indian race of the bays, the visits of Little Metacomet to the Barley cabin in the green groves of Swansea were frequent. He became more than ever a playmate of Roger, and the two searched the groves as they then were, for the wonders of nature.

The animals are gone now that then inhabited the woods of beautiful oaks, green savins, white birches, and bright waters. The moose came down from the north then, and there were bears and wolves and many foxes. Buzzards' Bay was full of buzzards, and the coves, of waterfowl.

But there were no cats, except wild cats, and when Little Metacomet found a domestic cat, all gentleness and lovingness, at timid Susan's, he thought the purring animal to be a wonder indeed. He himself had a little fox dog, or a red dog that resembled a fox. It was quite tame and followed him, and slept beside him in the lodge.

One day, when a great tempest and downpour kept the boys indoors in the green groves, the Indian playmate said to Roger--

"Let's trade."

"What shall we trade?"

"I will give you my dog for your cat. I like pussy; she purrs in my arms. You need a little dog like mine. His nose is sharp."

Timid Susan did not like the idea.

"I would be afraid that his teeth would be sharp, too sharp for me. And the cat is the only thing we have got that came from England. She seems like one of the family. But there is little that we would not do for you, Metacomet."

Metacomet sat on the floor silent for a time.

"Would you lend kitty to me? I will lend you my dog."

"Yes, yes," said Susan. "I will give her to you, and you can keep her here."

"No, no. I want my mother to see her, and the papooses and all. Let me take her to the lodges."

"But how would you carry her? She would come back. Cats come back. They see by scent. They see in the night. In the old country they carry them in bags. I will make a bag for you to carry her in, and Roger shall go with you to the oaks of Sowams when the bag is ready."

"I will send back the dog with Roger, if he will follow him."

So the trade was made, and timid Susan prepared a bag, hugged and kissed the cat many times, until she purred, and then put her into the bag and drew the string.

The two boys with the bag, which seemed greatly agitated, went together to Sowams and the little prince took the cat to his mother, who welcomed her with wonder.

When Roger was about to return, he called the dog after him, and Metacomet said to the animal--"Go!" but he would not follow. So he put a collar around his neck, and attached a long leather cord to it, and Roger, pulling the animal along, compelled him to follow him. But the dog did not seem at home in the cabin in the groves. He turned around and around as if looking for his tail, and whined. He would not eat. He seemed to be longing for the little prince, and the bountiful and lively lodges.

The next morning timid Susan let the dog out into the yard. In a moment he was gone. "He went like a streak," said Susan.

Just then they heard a sharp, glad "mew" in the road. Susan ran out in surprise. The cat was coming as fast as her legs could bring her.

"Wonder of wonders!" said Susan. "And what are we to do now? We will have to go over to Study Hill and ask the hermit what it was that made the dog go home and the cat come back. When Little Metacomet comes, I will take my slat sunbonnet and we will go over there, and ask him about these things."

They went, on a long sunny day. They asked the hermit, and he looked wonderfully wise.

"The heart follows its own gravitations," said he.

Timid Susan did not know any more what that meant than the little prince himself. But they knew that was the true answer, and Susan courtesied, and the prince's eyes blinked, and they were pleased to hear the hermit add--

"The home is in the heart; the animal's is in the lair, and the bird's in her nest, and all in their own country. Little animals love their own, and they are good people whom animals will not leave. The cat was true to Susan, and the dog to Metacomet, and you have all promised to be true to each other."

"Then we will not trade," said the Indian boy "and we will all be true to each other--I to Roger, he to me, and both to his mother, and she to us, and mother to you all."

"How many will that be?" asked Susan. "Mr. Blaxton can tell. I seem to lose my count."

So as the cat and dog did not wish to trade homes, but were allowed to stay with their own keepers.

On their road home, that day, the three paused to rest upon a moss-covered log, when they saw a toad leaping quickly along.

"What hurries him?" asked Roger.

"A snake is following him," said Metacomet.

And sure enough a snake came swiftly after the toad and struck him, evidently poisoning him.

Little Metacomet struck the snake with a stick, breaking his back.

There was a bed of plantain leaves in the moss under the trees.

The toad turned and went to the plantain leaves, and seemed to suck them, and to rub against them, and to spread himself out upon them.

"They will cure him," said Metacomet. "Had he not found the plantain he would have died. How did he know that the plantain would cure him?"

But the others shook their heads.

"They say," said Susan, "that the witch-hazels cure people of poisons. How wonderfully nature works, and I, a poor, simple soul, don't understand it as the hermit does. He knows what we don't know--there are not many like him."

Roger brushed the toad with a stalk of green leaves, gently. He leaped away; he had evidently been cured by the plantain leaves. In what school did he learn of the right doctor?

"He seems to be running all right," said Roger's mother.

The Indian boy grunted. "I could outrun him," he said.

"Outrun him?" said timid Susan. "I would think that you might with your nimble feet. I could."

"No, no, mother Susan, not if I gave him a start; there is something in him that you do not know about. Do you know how long a bullfrog's legs are when he gets to going?"

The little prince spread out his hands.

"Let me take that big frog out of the water, and tickle him by a hazel stick so that he will think it is a snake. Then when he begins to run, you run with him, and if you outrun him, I will give you a string of wampum."

So Metacomet captured a big green frog. He cut down a hazel stick, which did indeed look like a snake.

Susan dropped the sticks that she had gathered and prepared to run with the frog. Little Metacomet tickled the frog, and the frog made one leap, and timid Susan kept pace with him.

But he made another leap, more rapid than before, and another farther and more rapid still. The Indian boy tried to wiggle the hazel after him, but he was left behind.

Then the frog got to going; leap, leap! he brought all the arts of animal electricity into motion. He leaped quicker and quicker, higher and higher, farther and farther. Susan ran, but she did not know how to use electricity like the frog. At last the frog seemed to fly.

Metacomet sat down by the way and laughed in the suppressed Indian manner, while Roger rolled over and over in delight.

The frog soon left timid Susan far behind, and came to a ferny brook and dove into it from a high leap into the air.

Poor Susan threw up her hands and sat down on a fern bank by the way, saying--

"I am all tuckered out. I never would have believed it. I shut my eyes to think of it. What surprising things do happen, if you stop to look. How that frog did go! He could outrun a horse!"

Yes, Susan, and some of the arts of the twentieth century were illustrated in those long, high leaps.