CHAPTER XIX

SALLY IS YOUNG WITH HER CHILDREN

Before Sally had any kittens she used to wonder at the shiftless way in which the wild tortoise-shell cat who sometimes came about the place dealt with her kittens. Sally knew she would not have the slightest trouble in making her children mind, if she were so fortunate as to have any. But it is one thing to make imaginary children mind and quite another to deal with real ones.

She would say in her powerful voice, ‘Come, Patty, come, Eben, be quiet. Come to me. Let Elvira’s sweater alone,’ and the pair would gayly prance about the room with the sweater between them, Eben firmly grasping a sleeve, and Patty the hem.

‘Children, did you hear what I said?’ she would add.

‘Yes, mother,’ said the gay pair, and they went on dancing about the room. Then Sally would raise her voice again, and finally Elvira would stamp her foot and say, ‘Sally, be quiet!’ which was very unfair of Elvira, Sally thought, when she was doing her best to make the kittens mind.

‘I can’t understand why you are not better behaved,’ she said to them.

‘Mother, dear, didn’t you want us to have a lively, happy kittenhood, different from yours?’ Patty asked, as she dropped the sweater and put a paw around her mother’s neck.

Then Patty leaped upon the table and gave a flying jump into the sink, where Elvira had put some water in a pan. Eben quickly followed her.

‘We are waiting for Miss Winifred to come out,’ said Patty. ‘We like her lap for naps, it is so woolly and she’s so kind.’

‘Kind!’ said Sally. ‘She thought of sending you to the Ellen Gifford Home. Perhaps she will yet.’

‘I am sure she hasn’t any idea of it, mother,’ said Patty. ‘Once Miss Winifred gets fond of you, she’s all right. She’s a dear. Her lap is a lot woollier than Elvira’s.’

Presently Miss Winifred came into the kitchen, moving slowly in her near-sighted way, so as not to step on a kitten. Patty darted past her as if to dare her to step on her tail. Miss Winifred seated herself in the big rocking-chair, ready to discuss the meals. Presently Patty ran up her skirt and settled down in her lap. Eben then appeared, getting up very slowly with more than one fall, but arriving at last. He always liked everything Patty had, so he moved her to the other side of Miss Winifred’s lap and slipped into her place.

Sally came over and sat on the arm of Miss Winifred’s chair, for she still felt a little uneasy about the Ellen Gifford Home.

‘These kittens are perfectly fascinating,’ said Miss Winifred.

‘Did you hear that, mother?’ said Eben.

‘She knows how to make pretty speeches,’ said Sally.

‘I like pretty speeches,’ said Eben. ‘I wish you’d make a few, mother.’

‘If you’ll come into the basket to take your nap, I’ll sing the song that your great-great-grandmother composed. The Martha Furbush for whom you are named, Patty.’

Out of curiosity to hear the song, the kittens scrambled down from Miss Winifred’s lap and joined their mother in the basket. She gently purred:

Purr, darlings, purr, While mother is washing your fur. In all the great nation There’s no occupation That’s half so sweet to her. Purr, darlings, purr.

Patty grew restless while the song was going on, and she skipped out of the clothes-basket.

‘My darling, don’t you think it a sweet song?’

‘I think it is a lot more interesting hearing Elvira reading the paper aloud to Miss Winifred, than to listen to you singing,’ said Patty.

‘When you have children of your own, Patty, you will appreciate how every mother feels.’

‘I just love to hear about the cat that came all forlorn and full of burrs to the lady who took him in and made a home for him,’ Patty went on. ‘I’d love to get out and be stuck full of burrs, mother.’

‘There was a verse in the Cradle Song about hissing,’ Sally said.

‘Oh, try to remember it, mother,’ they begged.

‘I’m sorry, but I’ve forgotten it.’

As the kittens grew older, Sally found it harder and harder to make them mind. One day she found her dear little Patty in a drawer in the kitchen, one that she had never got into before. Sally was terribly worried for fear some thoughtless person would shut the drawer with her child in it. She called and called to Patty to come out. She called until Elvira stamped her foot and said, ‘Be quiet, Sally.’

Then Sally stopped to think things out.

‘I see that the door into the passageway is open, Patty,’ she said. ‘Wouldn’t you like to come with me into the other part of the house?’

It had worked. Patty sprang out of the drawer and gayly followed her mother, for she had longed to go into the parlor again ever since the day that she and Eben had been taken there to show to some admiring ladies who were having afternoon tea with Miss Winifred.

Patty and her mother went up a flight of stairs to the sewing-room door, which was open. There was no door open into the other part of the house.

‘Oh, is that all you’ve got to show me! I’ve seen this old room before,’ said Patty.

‘You’ve seen it before? When?’

‘Uncle Peter showed it to us one day when you were in the parlor with Miss Harvey.’

‘Uncle Peter! That tramp cat is no relation of yours. It is Oxford who is your uncle.’

‘Uncle Peter said he wasn’t any relation,’ said Patty, ‘but we asked if we might call him that, for we like him a lot better. Uncle Oxford tries to make us mind, and it isn’t his business. He isn’t our mother.’

‘I don’t want you playing around with Peter.’

‘But, mother, he tells us such lots of exciting stories. He’s going to take Eben hunting as soon as we are big enough to be let out.’

Patty was halfway down the stairs as she spoke. Her mother followed her anxiously. What should she do to keep her child out of that drawer. To her intense relief, she saw that Elvira had closed it.

It was a very cold day, and Eben was standing absorbed in the passageway to the outside door, watching Peter, who was fighting another cat.

‘Eben,’ she called in her shrill voice, ‘come in at once, you will take cold.’

‘For pity sake, keep quiet, Sally,’ said Elvira, stamping her foot. Eben did not move.

Then Patty went and touched her brother with her paw and tried to get him in out of the cold. Cat fights had no interest for her. He shook her off and remained rooted to the spot.

‘Oh, children, children,’ said Sally in despair. She went over to Miss Harvey, who had come in and was sitting by the table. She had been too busy with her kittens to pay any attention to Miss Harvey of late. Now she put her paws around her neck and her face up to be kissed.

‘Poor, dear Sally,’ said Miss Harvey, ‘it is quite a job to be a mother.’

‘What’s the use of trying to make us mind, mother? It’s much more fun to do the things yourself.’ As he spoke, Eben began to chase after his sister’s tail, Patty chased after his, and finally Sally joined them, and the three had a mad race around the kitchen floor.

‘Isn’t it more amusing, mother, than to sing, “Purr, darlings, purr?”’ said Eben, as the three paused for breath.

‘We made a better song than that the other night,’ said Patty.

‘You made a song?’ Sally was delighted. She was proud of her kittens.

‘Eben made most of it, but I helped him,’ said Patty, and the two kittens said together:

[Illustration]

‘Skip, mother, skip with us, Don’t hold us back and make a fuss, You look so young you’re surely able To jump with us upon the table, Then give a leap into the sink, Where you will find a cooling drink. Skip, mother, skip with us, Don’t hold us back and make a fuss.’

‘And you call that poetry,’ said their mother. ‘I can do better than that.’

‘Some day I’ll make better poetry than that,’ said Eben. And a few weeks later, when he was three months old, and Sally heard an evening song that he had made, she felt that the wish of her heart was to be granted at last, and that her little son was to be the companion she had longed for.

‘I’m thankful for my happy days, So full of work and pleasant plays, When Patty’s tail and mine we chase, And mother joins us in the race. I’m thankful for my long black fur, And mother says it pleases her. And for my eyes that see so far, And watch the moon and evening star. I love both sunshine and the rain That patters on the window-pane. I love the people living here. I think Elvira is a dear. Miss Harvey is just to my mind, And even Miss Winifred is kind. I love the world, I think it’s great, What kitten could want a better fate? I’m glad my months are only three With all of life ahead of me.’

‘It might be better,’ said Sally, who did not believe in too much praise, ‘but it is a great improvement on “Skip, mother, skip with us.”’

Sally wondered if her son would be a famous poet, like his great-great-grandfather, William Furbush-Tailby, when he was a full-grown cat. She often wondered as to what the future of her children would be. Patty was so extremely bright and enterprising that she felt sure she would be able to look out for herself. And then, too, Sally thought her a beauty, for she looked exactly as she would have liked to look, with her round white face and beautiful eyes set far apart, and her tiger blanket and the tiger cap that covered the back of her head and came down over her forehead and looked as if it were parted like hair. But Eben, although slower, was a kitten of real distinction. She felt he might make his mark in the world. He was so absorbed in cat fights, even at his tender age, that he might be a great warrior, or he might become like his grandfather, a mighty hunter, for he sat for five minutes at a time before a mouse-hole.

Sally liked to keep them young as long as possible and she was glad that it was to be a late spring, for now, at the beginning of March, there was snow on the ground, and Elvira said to Miss Harvey, ‘It will be some time before we can let the kittens out-of-doors.’ So at present they were safe from the peril of meeting intruding cats or being chased by that villain Spot.

Meanwhile Sally raced around the kitchen with her children and scampered up and down the stairs that led to the sewing-room as if she were their age and not a sober cat.

‘I am having my youth now,’ she said to Oxford, who was watching the three with his slightly superior air, as he looked up from his last mouthful of haddock. He was a little too lazy to join in the race, and he preferred to take his exercise out-of-doors.

‘Sally, you have learned to brace up,’ he said.

This tale is ended, yet, not so, The kittens’ tails, they grow and grow. A tiger tail that’s tipped with white, A black one, Sally’s chief delight. When the Spring comes, with joyous purr, In coats of black, and tiger fur, They’ll hasten through the open door, The earth’s great wonders to explore.

THE END

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Perceived typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.