CHAPTER XVI

THE TRAVELING CAT

One day Sally looked out of the screen door and she saw a new cat looking in at the window. He had a glossy coat of long black fur, and a white shirt-front and four white paws. At least they once had been white, but they were dirt-color from much traveling. Sally looked at the cat and the cat looked at Sally.

He asked Sally if he could get a meal at the house. Sally was about to say she would speak to Elvira, for she could always attract her attention by mewing or clawing her gown, when Oxford came to the screen door.

‘You can’t. This is my house. Clear out, and don’t show your black coat around here again!’

The black cat was very much offended. ‘I am an important person,’ he hissed back. ‘I’m a great traveler. I’ve come all the way from Malden, and I’ve been at the wharves in Boston and taken one or two sea voyages.’

‘You’d better take a few more,’ said Oxford. ‘You are not wanted here.’

And yet he was considerably impressed. Sally liked the appearance of the stranger, and yet she was a little afraid of him.

‘My name is Captain Ebony Black,’ said the traveling cat. ‘I’m called Eben by my friends. I’d like to fight you some day when we meet out-of-doors,’ he added as he looked at Oxford.

‘Just what I should like,’ said Oxford. ‘I always fight all the cats who come into my grounds.’

‘Do you own the whole place?’ the traveling cat asked. ‘I thought this was where Peter lived.’

‘He thinks he lives here,’ Oxford snarled, ‘but the place belongs to me.’

‘And to me, too,’ put in Sally.

‘I let her live here,’ Oxford said, ‘because she is my sister.’

Elvira, who was washing dishes, turned to see what was happening, for although she could not understand their language, she could tell that some sort of a row was going on. The cats were looking at each other fiercely, one on one side of the screen and one on the other.

‘Come, Oxford, be a good cat,’ she said; ‘here is some supper for you.’

Supper, indeed! When one was longing to fight an enemy! He made a few more angry remarks to the visitor, and ended by calling him ‘Blackie,’ which was hard for Captain Ebony Black to bear, for he came of an old family.

‘Who are you, anyway?’ he growled.

‘My great-grandfather was a Furbush,’ said Oxford, ‘and he was descended from a Furbush, who was called “William the Conqueror.”’

‘I am descended from the first Ebony Black who came to this country. There’s been an Ebony Black in each generation.’

Sally was greatly impressed, for ancestors meant so much to her.

‘Come and eat your supper like a good cat,’ said Elvira, and then, thinking that the stranger might be hungry, she took a plate of canned salmon and bread out to the back porch.

‘Elvira is feeding our enemy,’ said Oxford.

He seemed a fine-looking pussy to Sally, but she said nothing.

‘The way in which all the cats in the neighborhood come into my place is outrageous!’ said Oxford, as he began to eat his fish.

‘After all,’ Sally reminded him, ‘the place is Miss Winifred’s and Elvira’s, and if they don’t mind----’

‘I’ve explained to you a great many times, Sally, that the true owner of a place is the one who uses it the most, and so I say the back yard and the Wild Wood are mine.’

‘Then the parlor is certainly mine,’ said Sally, ‘for I am there much more than Miss Winifred.’

‘You can call the parlor yours, or can own the house if you like, but the land is mine.’

The traveling cat thoroughly enjoyed his meal. He was shy with strangers and had no idea of coming into the house, but he had taken a liking to Sally’s modest appearance. She looked as if she might be an old-fashioned cat, with whom one could have a pleasant talk if Oxford was not around. So he hung about the place, occasionally coming for a meal on the back porch. And one day he met Sally in the Wild Wood and they had a friendly chat, for Oxford was not there.

‘I don’t mean any harm,’ said the traveling cat, ‘and I don’t think your brother need be so rude.’

‘He’s the kindest brother,’ Sally said, ‘but he had such a hard time winning his way in the world when he was young that, when he did at last find a home for himself and me, he wants to hold on to it.’

‘I don’t care about a home for long at a time,’ said the traveling cat. ‘I like to take a voyage every now and then in a ship. It doesn’t cost anything, for I just walk on board, and I don’t have to bother about a passport, and I can always make myself useful by hunting rats and mice.’

‘It must be exciting to travel,’ Sally said. ‘But I am so home-loving I like to stay just where I’ve lived for so long.’

She told Oxford some of the tales of his travels that Ebony Black had told her. Oxford said the fellow was too fond of bragging, but the dazzling visions of distant spots began to have their effect.

‘Why don’t you drive him off the place, Sally?’ he asked. ‘I will if I ever find him here.’

‘I suppose he has as much a right to be here as Peter,’ said Sally. ‘There’s room for everybody, Elvira said so.’

‘Oh, Elvira! She would have all the stray cats and dogs in town here if she had her way. That fellow thinks Ebony Black is a name to be proud of,’ Oxford went on. ‘I never heard of the family in my life.’

Sally was sorry she had spoken of Ebony Black, but she had been so impressed by his tales that she wanted to share them with Oxford.

‘The way Elvira treats that fellow to canned salmon is too much!’ said Oxford.

‘But she isn’t taking anything from us, for we don’t like canned salmon,’ said Sally.

‘She’ll spend all her money if she doesn’t look out,’ said Oxford, ‘and then she can’t get haddock for us.’

‘I am sure Elvira has lots of money,’ said Sally.

‘Well, anyway, I don’t propose to have her feeding every cat in town,’ said Oxford.

‘Captain Ebony Black belongs in Malden,’ said Sally. ‘That is, when he isn’t traveling. He’ll be leaving soon.’

‘He’ll be leaving this very day if I run across him,’ said Oxford.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]