QUEER KITTENS
Left alone, Julie and Gerald scrambled to the road and looked both up and
down. "Which way will we go?" Julie inquired.
"We've been down--or, I mean, we've been up the down road." Then the boy
laughed. "Aw, gee! You know what I mean. We came up the road yesterday in
the stage; so now, let's go on further up."
Julie hopped about, clapping her hands gleefully. "Ohee, I know what!
Let's see if we can find that cabin the innkeeper lady said was about a
mile up the mountain road from our place. Wouldn't that be fun? And maybe
that nice girl will be at home from school, and, if she is, I just know
she'll let me ride her pony."
Gerald, nothing loath, fell into step by his sister's side, the gun over
his shoulder. After the fashion of small brothers, he could not resist
teasing. "I bet you couldn't stay on that pony, however hard you tried.
It's a wild Western broncho sort, like those we saw at Madison Square
Garden that time Dad took us to Buffalo Bill's big circus." Then, in a
manner which seemed to imply that he did not wish to boast, he added: "I
sort of think I could ride it easy. Boys get the knack, seems like,
without half trying."
They had rounded the bend and were nearing the very spot where the
mountain girl had shot the lion, when Julie clutched her brother's arm
and drew him back, whispering excitedly: "Gerry! Hark! What's that noise
I hear?"
The boy listened and then crept cautiously toward the bushes. He also
heard queer little crying sounds that were almost plaintive. "Huh!" he
said boldly. "'Tisn't anything that would hurt us. Sounds to me like
kittens crying for their mother."
A joyful shout from the girl, closely following him, turned into "Gerry!
That's just what they are! Great big kittens! See how comically they
sprawl? They haven't learned to walk yet. Their little legs aren't strong
enough to stand on. See, I can pick one right up. He doesn't seem to mind
a bit." The small girl suited the action to the word, and it was well for
her that the mother lion had been killed, or Julie would soon have been
badly torn, despite the fact that her brother still carried his small
gun.
The boy had lifted the other weak creature, which had not been alive many
days, and, with much curious questioning as to what kind of "pussy cats"
they might be, they continued their walk and soon reached the cabin.
Meg Heger, who had remained long in the forest that day, having sought a
rare lichen high on the mountain, was just descending from the trail that
led into her "botany gardens" when she saw the two children entering the
front yard of her home cabin. Unbuckling the basket which she carried
much as an Indian squaw carries a pappoose, the girl leaped down the
rocks and exclaimed: "Oh, children, where did you find those darling
little mountain lion babies?"
Luckily she took the one Julie was holding in her own arms as she spoke,
for if she had not, that particular "baby" would have had a hard fall,
for when the small girl from the East heard that she was actually holding
a mountain lion, she uttered a little frightened scream and let go her
hold. But Gerald, being a boy, realized that even a future fierce wild
animal was harmless when its legs were too weak for it to stand on, and
so he continued to hold his pet, even venturing to admire it.
"It's a little beauty, ain't--I mean, isn't it?" He glanced quickly at
Julie, but the slip had evidently not been observed, for she was intently
watching the mountain girl, who was caressing the little creature she
held as though she loved it, as she did everything that lived in all the
wilderness.
But as Meg Heger held that helpless, hungry baby her heart was sad, for
well she knew that it was unprotected and perhaps starving because she
had shot and killed its mother. Of course she had to kill the lion to
save the life of the lad who had gone too close to the place where the
mother had her young; but, nevertheless, she felt that, in a way, her act
had made her responsible for these helpless little wild creatures, since
they had been brought to her.
Brightly she turned to the children. "Don't you want to come with me to
the hospital?" she invited. "We'll give them some supper."
She did not ask who the children were, nor from whence they had come.
Perhaps she remembered having seen them the day before on the stage; or
Sourface Wallace may have told her.
Julie and Gerald followed, wondering what the "hospital" might be.
Back of the cabin, on a rocky ledge, the children saw a queer assortment
of wooden boxes, small cages and little runways. "This is the hospital."
Meg flashed a merry smile at them over her shoulder. "There aren't many
patients just now. Most of them have been cured. Here's one little
darling, and I'm afraid he never will be well. Some prowling creature
caught him and had succeeded in breaking a wing when it heard me coming.
Why it dropped its prey when it ran, I don't know, but I brought the
little fellow home and Pap helped me set its wing. It's ever so much
better, but even yet can't fly, but it can scuttle along the ground just
ever so fast."
Gerald was much interested.
"What kind of a bird is it, Miss Heger?" he began, very politely, when
the girl's musical laughter rippled out. "Don't call me that!" she
pleaded. "It makes me feel as old as the thousand-year pine Teacher
Bellows told our class about. It's a little quail bird, dearie. You'll
see ever so many of them in flocks. There are sixty different kinds of
cousins in their family. The Bob Whites with their reddish brown plumage
have a black and white speckled jacket. They live in the grass rather
than in trees and are good friends of the farmer because they devour so
many of the insects that destroy grain and fruits. This one is a mountain
quail; it is one of the largest cousins. The one that lives in the South
is called a partridge."
Gerald listened politely to the life history of the pretty bird, but his
attention had been seized and held by what Meg had said about the very
ancient pine. "Was there ever a tree that lived a thousand years?" he
asked with eager interest. The girl nodded. "Indeed, there are many that
have lived much longer, but this pine was blown over, and Teacher Bellows
was allowed to cut it up to read its life history. He found that it had
been in two forest fires, and about five hundred years ago an Indian
battle had been fought near it, for there were arrow heads imbedded in
the rings that indicated that year of its life."
Then Meg concluded with her bright smile: "Some day, when Teacher Bellows
is up here, I'll have him tell you the names and probable ages of all our
neighbor trees! It's a fascinating study."
Julie was not much interested in the length of a tree's life and so she
began eagerly: "Miss--I mean--do you want us to call you Meg?" she
interrupted herself to inquire.
The older girl nodded. Every move she made seemed to express
bubbling-over enthusiasm and interest. "Haven't you any more patients?"
Gerry was peering into empty boxes in which there were soft, leaf-like
beds.
"Only just Mickey Mouse. He's a little cripple! His left foot was cut off
in a trap, but he gets around nicely on one stump. That's his hole over
there. I put grain and bits of cheese in front of it. Keep ever so still
and I'll put a kernel of corn right by his door. Then perhaps you'll see
his bright eyes." And that is just what happened. As soon as the corn
kernel rolled in front of the hole, out darted a sharp brown nose with
twitching whiskers and two beady black eyes appeared just long enough for
their owner to drag his supper into the safe darkness of his particular
box.
Meg laughed happily. "He's the cunningest, Mickey is! I sometimes take
him with me in my pocket. He likes to ride there, or so it seems. At any
rate he is just as good as he can be. Often he goes to sleep, but at
other times, he stands right up and looks out of the pocket, just as
though he were enjoying the scenery."
At that moment a sharp, almost impatient cry from the small creature she
held recalled to the head doctor of the hospital the fact that she had
started out to feed the baby lions. She brought milk from a cave-like
room, only the front wall of which was wood, the rest being in the
mountain. "That's our cooler," she told Gerald, whom she could easily
observe was interested in all the strange things he saw. Dipping one
corner of her handkerchief into the milk, she put it in the mouth of her
tiny lion and the children were delighted to see how readily and joyfully
the creature seemed to feast upon it. Having gathered courage, Julie
wished to feed the other baby lion and then Meg suggested that they be
put in a soft lined box on the rocks near, since they were used to being
high up. The baby lions, being no longer hungry, cuddled down and went to
sleep. Gerald's conscience was troubling him. "We'll have to be going,"
he said. "Nobody knows where we are." Then he hesitated. He knew that it
would be polite to ask the mountain girl to call upon them, but he was
afraid that Jane would not treat her kindly, so, in his embarrassment, he
caught Julie by the hand and fairly dragged her away as he called,
"Goodbye, Meg, I'm coming up often." When they were on the down-road, the
boy cautioned Julie to say nothing whatever of their adventure to their
sister, but just to Dan.