CHAPTER XVII

OXFORD GOES ON A JOURNEY

Now that the autumn had come, Oxford was seized with a desire to travel. He had been considerably impressed by the tales the traveling cat had told Sally, although he had not let her see this. And then there was Peter. He was but a poor creature, to be sure, but the tales he told of the free life in the open appealed to Oxford.

‘I am going on a journey,’ he said to Sally one morning.

‘Oh, Oxford, aren’t you happy here with me? What more do you want?’

‘I am tired of this back yard and of the Wild Wood. It all seems too cramped to me. I want some good hunting, such as that tiresome, no-account Peter has had.’

[Illustration]

‘What could be better than the hunting is here?’ Sally asked. ‘Haven’t you caught your ninth mouse this season? And you got a robin the other day.’

‘Yes, and there was an awful row about it. I never saw Elvira in such a state.’

‘I don’t quite see why,’ said Sally. ‘Elvira eats turkeys and chickens. Why can’t we eat robins?’

‘That is a different matter. They have their own laws.’

‘Do explain it to me,’ said Sally.

‘You could never understand it,’ said her brother.

Sally suspected that he could not understand it either, but being wise beyond her years, for it was years now, she did not say so.

Sally did not ask Oxford to take her with him. She liked home life best, and she was beginning to have a few friends. It was pleasant to be a favorite in a modest way, if not a belle, and she liked the serenades they gave her on moonlight nights. And above all, she loved Miss Harvey, and she knew Miss Harvey would not care to take a journey with Oxford and herself.

So Sally bade Oxford good-bye, and said she hoped he would have a pleasant journey and come back the next day.

‘I may be gone two nights,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry unless I am gone three.’

‘I am sorry to have you go,’ said Sally.

‘I am sorry to leave you, Sally, but it is too much to be tied to a woman’s apron string, and there are three of them in this house, all wearing aprons.’

‘I suppose you know best,’ said Sally, ‘but when I think of our early days and of how we had to scratch around for food and a place to sleep in, I am contented with my lot.’

‘I am glad you are, Sally, but I want to visit foreign parts. Perhaps I can get as far as Malden.’

‘Oh, do be careful! Don’t get on a boat, whatever you do!’

Oxford promised to be cautious, for in the main he was a home-loving cat. He merely wanted to see the world in a quiet and safe way without running any great risks.

‘Remember there is fine hunting here,’ Sally said again.

‘Yes, but, as I said before, these women make such a fuss. They force a fellow into going into the big world for hunting. You’d think, after catching nine mice, no one would grudge me a robin or two and she with her chicken dinners!’

Sally looked very down-hearted when the actual parting came.

‘You must buck up, Sally,’ he said, for he had learned this phrase from the traveling cat. It seemed to mean more than ‘brace up.’ Sally was a grown cat now, and a grown cat certainly ought to buck up.

Sally missed Oxford, but there was a certain peace about the place. She could eat the whole of her dinner without his taking part of it, and she could see her friends freely without having them driven off the place by Oxford. She missed him, of course; still, there was a certain peace.

No one discovered his absence until bedtime, for he had often been late before.

‘Where is Oxford?’ Miss Harvey asked Elvira.

‘Oxford! I don’t know,’ said Elvira, as she took off her hat and coat. ‘Why should I know where Oxford is? I didn’t take him to Boston with me.’

‘I thought you might have some idea where he was,’ said Miss Harvey. ‘He never comes in for me.’

They went through the garden and the Wild Wood calling, ‘Oxford, Oxford, Oxford Gray, Junior.’

‘Sometimes he’ll come in for the Junior,’ said Elvira, but there was no scampering of small feet and no furry face to be seen.

‘Cats certainly are the limit,’ said Elvira. ‘You get fond of one, and the first thing you know he’s off like a shot.’

‘Sally looks very wise,’ said Miss Harvey, as they went back into the house. ‘I dare say she knows just where Oxford is.’

‘I wish I did,’ Sally said, but no one heard her. ‘I fear he is in some miserable place, and hungry and cold.’ For it had begun to rain. Sally could hear the raindrops pattering down the window-pane.

‘This is a good little cat,’ and Elvira stroked Sally. ‘She never gives us any trouble.’

‘She is a perfect lady, the sweetest little thing,’ said Miss Harvey, as Sally climbed into her lap.

Sally put her two paws around Miss Harvey’s neck.

It was not until after the third night that Sally began to worry, for Oxford had told her not to worry until after that. After the third night, she began to miss him very much, indeed. There had been a certain peace in his absence at first, but it seemed too peaceful now. Moreover, she had had much pleasant conversation with Captain Ebony Black, who had seen the world. He was a good-looking cat with his long-haired, glossy, black coat and white shirt-front. A black cat was an interesting variety in her life, and, although she knew that the tigers were of a nobler race, it made a pleasant change to see some one so different. Moreover, the black cat had said kind things to Sally, as kind things as Miss Harvey had said. But he had gone now, and so she had more time to worry about her brother.

‘I do hope he will realize there is no place like home before it is too late and something awful happens to him,’ said Sally, and she softly repeated the familiar words to herself: ‘“Mid pleasures and palaces, though I may roam; be it ever so humble, there’s no place like Home.”’

She hoped he would think of his basket and his little sister, and of kind Elvira who always warmed his milk, and of the haddock that she served for him. Nothing seemed the same without Oxford.

When five days had gone by and still he did not come, gloom descended upon the household.

‘I knew something would happen to him,’ said Miss Winifred. ‘That is why I did not want another cat. Something always happens once I get attached to one.’

‘He may turn up yet,’ said Miss Harvey.

‘He may turn up yet’--that sounded very hopeless. Had it come to that?

‘I wish I’d never let him go on the journey,’ said Sally, ‘and yet how could I have helped it? His mind was made up. I know he won’t come back. He told me not to worry until after three days, and that meant that, if he did not come back then, something would have happened.’

The three women to whose apron strings Oxford had been tied, had been around to the neighbors asking if any one had seen a tiger cat with white paws and a white breast. As there were several cats of this sort in the neighborhood, many people thought they had seen him, but the cat never proved to be Oxford himself.

‘Black Sam, Sam Furbush-Tailby, I mean, was once gone ten days,’ said Elvira. ‘Oxford will probably come back.’

‘Several of your pets have never come back,’ said Miss Winifred.

‘I am going over to Handerson Court,’ said Elvira. ‘Maybe some one there will have seen him.’

As Elvira went along the strip of land that led to Handerson Court, she heard a faint mew. It seemed a cry of distress, and it sounded to her like Oxford’s voice. She hurried over the grass and went through the gap in the fence. Presently she saw a thin tiger cat coming toward her with his head firmly encased in a fish can that some one must have carelessly thrown away without flattening it.

‘Oh, poor pussy, whoever you are, you are in an awful fix,’ said Elvira.

As the cat came nearer, she could hardly believe it was Oxford, he looked so thin, but she thought she recognized the markings on his tail. Another minute and there was no doubt at all, for he began to mew piteously again, and it was Oxford’s voice. The proud Oxford, who felt affection, but seldom showed it, was delighted to recognize the voice of a friend.

Elvira picked him up and carried the frightened, struggling cat to the house.

‘Poor dear, where have you been?’ she asked him. ‘You must have been shut in somewhere, and when they found you and let you out, you must have been so hungry that you smelled the fish and thought you could get some of it.’

She put Oxford down in the kitchen. Sally was frightened at first at the sight of the can with no head to be seen, but when she found it was really Oxford, she ran up to him. Poor Oxford! Suppose they could not get his head out of the can. But Elvira and Miss Harvey worked away at him, and presently Oxford’s head emerged, but his beautiful fur was all over rust. Elvira stamped on the can to flatten it out.

‘No cat will ever be caught in that can again,’ she said.

Sally flew to wash Oxford, and Miss Harvey and Elvira began to scrub him, while Miss Winifred stood in the doorway and said, ‘Poor cat, do you suppose he will ever get over it?’

‘I’m all right,’ Oxford said, but only Sally understood.

‘Where were you?’ Sally asked. ‘Why didn’t you come home before? Did you have good hunting?’

‘I have been in prison, Sally,’ said Oxford. ‘I was accidentally shut up in a building without food, so when I came out, I was very hungry.’

‘Did you think of home and your sister?’ Sally ventured to ask.

‘Yes, Sally.’ Oxford was never one to show much affection. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I thought of home, and of the hunting in the Wild Wood. I thought, too, of Blackie; I am glad to see he is not about.’

‘Captain Ebony Black has had to go on another journey,’ said Sally.

‘I am glad of that; and Peter, where is he?’

‘Peter was around last night, I think. It is getting cold. I think he slept in the cellar last night.’

Oxford was hungrily eating some haddock at the time. How good it tasted!

‘When I have got back to my full weight,’ said he, ‘I hope to show Peter once for all that this is not his home.’

‘I am glad it is your home, Oxford,’ said Sally. ‘Aren’t you glad to get back?’

Oxford was in truth very glad, indeed, but he did not like to show his feelings.

‘A fellow might do worse,’ he said.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]