THE ROSE-COLORED CAT
The one hundred and twenty-six cats that we had cooped up in boxes in
the old mill certainly made an awful racket. They yowled as though
they were getting paid for it by the hour and were afraid some one
would come along and accuse them of loafing on the job. A thing that
tended to make them exercise their voices was their empty stomachs.
We realized that. But we had nothing to feed them. All the capital we
had was the ten-dollar bill the Chicago woman had sent us and we were
depressed in the thought that ten dollars wouldn’t go very far when it
came to buying food for one hundred and twenty-six hungry cats. It was
a critical situation. We talked it over with sober faces and worried
minds.
“Maybe we can get some meat scraps at the butcher shop,” Peg suggested.
“Or some stale buns at the bakery,” I spoke up.
“Stale buns!” scoffed Red. “Whoever heard of a cat eating stale buns?”
“Well,” I fired back at him, “I guess these cats’d rather eat stale
buns than starve to death.”
“True enough,” said he. “And I suspect if _you_ were starving to death
you could keep alive on grasshoppers. But that doesn’t prove you would
rather eat grasshoppers than fried chicken. What these cats want more
than stale buns is mice and rats. Suppose we set some traps in the
brickyard barn.”
“Milk is the food we ought to have,” said Scoop. “Maybe we can get some
at the creamery.”
I told him if we got any milk at the creamery we’d pay for it. Old Bill
Stewart, who runs the creamery, is the stingiest man in Tutter. I knew
he wouldn’t give us a pint of skimmed milk if he had gallons of it
going to waste.
Scoop scowled in a determined way.
“We’ve got to have milk,” he persisted.
“Why not try my scheme,” spoke up Red, “and feed the cats mice and
rats?”
“A cat that eats nothing but meat is sure to have fits,” said Scoop,
“and I guess we’d be out of luck worse than we are if this gang of cats
started in on the fit business. No, that is a thing we must avoid. Your
scheme for catching mice and rats is all right,” he told Red, “but
in addition we’ve got to think up another scheme for tapping a milk
wagon, or something.”
On the instant I thought of Mrs. Maloney and her Jersey cow. Mrs.
Maloney is a nice lady and one of my best friends. She is a widow, with
no children of her own, and that is why Dad lets her live in one of his
Zulutown houses rent free. In addition to her cow she has a flock of
chickens and a goat. I suspect she makes a living selling butter and
eggs.
Jumping to my feet I cried:
“I know how we can solve the milk problem, fellows. We’ll ask Mrs.
Maloney to help us out.”
“Yes,” Peg said without enthusiasm, “and we’ll probably get turned
down.”
“Not if we go about it in the right way,” I declared. My thoughts
were skipping along. “I’ll go over and tell her about our cats,” I
said. “She’ll naturally want to see them and I’ll bring her back with
me. We’ll be real polite and show her around. Kind of offhand we can
mention that the cats ought to have some milk. You see if she doesn’t
offer to give us some. She’s awfully good-hearted. Besides, she must
have a lot of skimmed milk to spare. I’ve seen her feed it to her
chickens, a pailful at a time.”
Scoop said there was nothing like trying, so I started for Mrs.
Maloney’s house while Red and Peg headed for town. Red was going after
traps and it was Peg’s intention to call at the butcher shop and see
what he could scare up in the way of meat scraps.
Mrs. Maloney was in her kitchen.
“Well, well, if it ain’t me little friend, Jerry,” she greeted warmly,
when I went onto the back porch and rapped on the screen door. “Sure,
you’re jist in time for a bite to eat,” she added, holding open the
door. “Come right in an’ have a cookie. Whin I was bakin’ ’em this
mornin’ I says to meself: ‘Here’s hopin’ some nice boy like Jerry Todd
comes along with a good husky appetite.’ Take another, Jerry. Put a
couple in your pocket. And tell me, did the milkweed juice I sint over
help your ma’s freckles any?”
I told her I knew nothing about Mother’s freckles. Then I mentioned the
cats in the old mill and asked her would she like to come over and see
them.
“We don’t make a business of showing them to everybody,” I explained,
wanting her to feel that the invitation was very special.
“Now, would ye listen to that!” and Mrs. Maloney beamed at me in her
usual kindly way. “Sure,” she added, “I did hear somethin’ about your
cat farm. An’ whin I seen ye comin’ along the back walk I says to
meself: ‘I bet the little divil is here to wheedle me out of the two
cats that keep me sich fine company.’ I tell ye what I’ll do, Jerry,
seein’ as how it’s you: I’ll let ye have one of me cats, but ye can’t
have both.”
“I--I wasn’t expecting a cat,” I fumbled. Good night! The last thing I
wanted any one to wish onto me was another cat. Of course I couldn’t
tell her so. In offering me the cat she thought she was doing a
kindness. The thought came to me that if I refused to accept the cat we
might not get the milk. I wasn’t going to take the chance of hurting
her feelings.
“Sure, you’re welcome to the cat,” Mrs. Maloney said in a sort of
liberal way. “An’ ye needn’t say another word about it, Jerry. I don’t
know what ye want with so many cats, but it’s proud I am to be able to
help, considerin’ all the fine things your pa and ma have done for me.
Which one would ye rather have?--the white one, or the black one with
the short tail?”
“Which one eats the most?” I inquired.
“Sure, they’re both good feeders,” Mrs. Maloney said reflectively.
“They’re fine cats,” she added. “Maybe the black one eats a bit the
most----”
“Then I’ll take the white one,” I put in hurriedly.
“Have your own way about it, Jerry. The white one it is if ye say the
word. What I was goin’ to remark is, that the black one with the bob
tail eats the most at meal times, but the white one--heaven bless
it!--eats _all_ the time. Sure, he’d have his nose in a saucer of milk
the livelong day if he had his way about it.”
“Well, he won’t have any such chance if we take him over to the old
mill,” I cried, “because we haven’t any milk.” Maybe I was mistaken,
but it seemed to me that she turned and regarded me with a sort of
questioning look.
“Jerry,” she laughed, “whin it comes to havin’ a business head you’ve
got your pa beat sivin different ways. Come! I’ve got me bonnet on, an’
I’m anxious to take a squint at these wonderful cats you’ve bin tellin’
me about.”
She caught the white cat just outside the kitchen door and handed it to
me. I thanked her, hoping all the time that the blamed cat would slip
from my fingers and make its escape. Then we left the yard, taking a
shortcut across the brickyard to the old mill.
Her eyes got big and round when she saw our family of cats.
“Mither of Moses,” she gasped, “an’ would ye look at the cats! Sure, I
didn’t know there was so many cats in the whole state of Illinois. What
the divil be you b’ys expectin’ to do with all these cats?”
“We haven’t decided yet,” Scoop evaded. Then he explained: “We’re
supposed to get pay for taking care of them, but so far the only money
we’ve seen is a solitary ten-dollar bill. Maybe you know what’s best to
feed cats, Mrs. Maloney. You see,” he added, “we don’t know very much
about cats.”
“Give a cat a mouse an’ a dish of milk an’ he’ll be perfectly
continted,” said Mrs. Maloney. She was passing in front of the cat
boxes, peeking in through the slats at the cats. “Sure,” she grinned,
“they’ve got good strong voices.”
Scoop touched her on the arm.
“You said something about milk, I believe,” he put in quickly, not
wanting her to get away from the subject that was uppermost in our
minds.
“Yes, about milk,” I supplemented, touching her other arm.
She turned and squinted at us closely.
“My, what an attentive audience I have,” she laughed. “Sure, an’ I
repeat: what your cats need mostly is milk.”
“Thank you for telling us, Mrs. Maloney,” Scoop said politely. He
turned to where I was standing. “You can feed them some milk, Jerry,
while I show Mrs. Maloney around.”
I tumbled to his scheme.
“How can I feed them milk,” I said, “when we haven’t any?”
He scratched his head.
“That’s so,” he admitted. Then he looked into the face of our visitor.
“You don’t happen to know where we can get a little skimmed milk for
nothing, do you, Mrs. Maloney?--like people feed to chickens?”
She gave another hearty laugh.
“Do I? Sure, I do. You’re fine b’ys, outside of a few p’ints I needn’t
mention, an’ if you’ll come over to the house this evenin’ after I’ve
milked an’ siparated I’ll git ye fixed up in fine shape.”
It was mighty good of Mrs. Maloney to help us out. We told her so.
Presently Peg returned from town with two pounds of meat scraps. That
evening we gave the cats a filling up that took some of the yowl out of
them.
The following day was Wednesday. The letter from Mrs. Kepple had
reached us Tuesday afternoon, so we felt that the rose-colored cat
would surely arrive in Tutter within a few hours.
We were anxious to see this wonderful cat. We told each other it was
wonderful in the first place because it was worth five hundred dollars.
Never had we imagined a cat could be worth so much money. Then, too,
the fact that it was rose-colored helped to make it wonderful. The
professor had insisted there was no such thing as a rose-colored cat.
Very shortly we were going to see for ourselves--and we were anxious to
have the cat arrive so we could satisfy our curiosity.
When we went over to the depot to meet the morning train from Chicago
the baggage man scowled at us.
“I hope you kids ain’t hangin’ ’round here for more cats,” he growled.
“You bet we are,” Scoop returned. “We’re expecting Lady Victoria to
arrive this morning,” he added loftily.
The baggage man’s scowl deepened.
“Who’s Lady Victoria?” he wanted to know.
“Maybe,” countered Scoop, “you never heard of a rose-colored cat.”
“Naw,” growled the man, “an’ I never heard of a green pig, nuther.”
“Lady Victoria,” continued Scoop, “is a rose-colored cat worth five
hundred dollars. She belongs to a swell society lady in Chicago.”
The baggage man walked away, shaking his head and muttering to himself.
I guess he thought Scoop was dippy.
When the train pulled into the station we ran down the platform to the
baggage car. A box was unloaded that looked to us as though it might
contain the cat we were expecting. In our excitement we would have
climbed onto the truck if the baggage man hadn’t yelled at us to keep
down.
“Here’s another cat,” he told us. Then his scowl turned into a grin
as he better observed the cat in the box. “Calc’late it must be your
rose-colored cat,” he added. “Who did you say was sending it?”
“Mrs. Peter Kepple,” Scoop returned quickly.
“Well, here she be,” and the man leaned down and handed us the box.
I guess we all held our breath as we gathered around and peered through
the chicken netting that covered the top of the box. At last we were to
get a glimpse of what we thought must be the most wonderful cat in the
whole world. We took a good look. Scoop was the first one to fall back.
He gave a cry of astonishment. Then he began to laugh. Pretty soon we
were all laughing.
“Yes,” said the baggage man, “it’s your rose-colored cat, all right.
I’ve seen lots of yaller roses. Haw! haw! haw!”
“Well, I’ll be jiggered,” said Scoop. “Nothing but a yellow cat.
Yellow. Rose-colored. A yellow cat _is_ rose-colored when you come to
think about it,” he added, “but it’s rose-colored only in the sense of
a joke.”
Peg had a dizzy look on his face.
“It can’t be a joke on us,” he said slowly, “because the woman sent
us ten dollars and people don’t pass out money in fun. Nope. Besides,
the woman wrote in her letter that she was coming to the sanitarium.
A rose-colored cat! Fellows, doesn’t it strike you that she’s got a
_reason_ for calling this cat rose-colored instead of yellow?”
Red was staring.
“You think there is some mystery about the cat?”
Peg nodded.
“Either that,” said he, “or the woman’s blamed queer.”
On the instant an excited thrill chased itself up and down my backbone.
In a vague unexplainable way I knew that Peg had the right dope.