Circumstantial Evidence
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The garden gate was close to the dining-room windows, and the windows
were not high above the ground. I rushed for the nearest. The moon was
bright, and I was in time to see three cats jump down from the shelf on
which the cottage was "situated," and dart away in as many different
directions. One ran close along the wall of the house, and I recognized
Preciosa. Hurling myself over the window-sill, I was the first of our
startled party to reach the scene of the tragedy.
The attack had been made from the three exposed sides of the cottage,
the cats thrusting their claws between the bars and dragging my
darlings up against these.
My father opened the cottage door and took out the mangled, palpitating
bodies.
"Oh, father!" I shrieked. "Are they killed?"
"Yes, my daughter."
Then I went crazy. So raging and raving crazy that when I came partially
to my senses, I did not recollect what I had been saying or doing since
I heard the awful truth. I had been removed from the dark and bloody
ground in some way and by somebody, for I was lying on my mother's bed.
The consciousness of where I was had in it some drops of the oil of
consolation. Next to the close embrace of the mother's arms there is no
other resting-place on earth that so aptly typifies the safety and
healing grace of Heaven to the child of whatever age, as Mother's Bed.
In our house, to be laid upon that miracle of elastic fluffiness was to
become, in fancy, a blessed ghost, cradled upon a cloud. The sick
child, the hurt child, the repentant child--were received into that holy
asylum without other certificate than his or her need.
Finding myself there made me feel that there might still be something
worth living for, and to care for. My mother was by me and her arm was
under my head; my father stood at the foot of the bed, kind and
compassionate; Mam' Chloe was putting a bottle of hot water to my feet,
and there was a strong smell of cologne in the air. I was very weak; my
head felt queer and light, and although I was not crying, something
seemed to grab me inside and shake me every little while--a short, sharp
shake that made me gasp. Before I could open my eyes I heard my mother's
voice say:--
"I wish the dear child did not take things so much to heart. It will
bring her a great deal of sorrow in her future life."
Ah, blessed mother of mine! for so many years beyond the sight and
hearing of the vicissitudes of that life, then new and all
untried--yours was but a partial prophecy. Against the sorrows born of
"taking things so much to heart," I set a wealth of joy and beauty and
love that have been made mine own by the same nature and habit.
What she said or meant was little to me at that moment, for as I blinked
confusedly about me, I saw Mary 'Liza, neat and upright, in her own
especial chair by the window, and Preciosa was on her lap.
An electric bolt quivered through me. I started up and pointed at the
placid pair, my hand shaking like a leaf, my voice thick with
spluttering wrath:--
"_She_ did it! I want her killed."
"Dear child, lie down, don't talk, you are dreaming," cooed my mother,
trying to force me gently down to the pillow.
I put her aside, and tried to form articulate words.
"_That, cat, did, it!_ I saw her. I'll kill her! Let me get up."
My father came to my mother's help.
"Take the cat out of the room, Mary Eliza," he ordered calmly. And to
me--"Now, Molly, we will hear what you have to say."
He heard and weighed the evidence before I was put to bed in my own
room. My head still went around queerly when I raised it, but my mind
was clear. He sat by me and stroked my hand gently while he got my
testimony. His kindness to his orphaned niece was unfailing, but he
seldom caressed her, and nobody ever romped with her. He listened to my
story first, and as patiently as if he were not to hear any other.
I was hotly positive that the big cat I had seen jump from the shelf and
dash by the window so close to me that I could have touched her by
leaning over the sill, was Preciosa. There was no other cat of her size
and color on the plantation. Beyond this conviction the prosecution had
not a scrap of testimony to offer. On the side of the accused were the
record of a blameless life; the lack of motive, inasmuch as the accused
was fed abundantly with daily bread far more convenient for her than the
raw flesh she had never desired before,--and, as a "clincher," an alibi
was set up by Preciosa's mistress, who, coming into the chamber a few
minutes after the disaster, had found the cat sleeping upon the rug just
as she had left her when the supper bell rang,--and with never a speck
of blood on her paws and fur.
"She had licked it off, then!" I stormed. "I tell you I did see her! I
did! I _did_! I DID! Father! you know I wouldn't tell a story about
it--don't you?"
"I believe that you think you saw her, my daughter. We all believe that.
But you may have been mistaken. You were very much excited, and the cat
ran fast, and it was in the night, recollect, and the moon is not as
bright as the day. Altogether, we must take it for granted that Preciosa
is not guilty, and keep a sharp lookout for the strange cat that did
the mischief."
"It was Preciosa--hateful old thing!" I insisted, angry and sullen. "She
ought to be killed!"
My father arose with decision that showed the case was concluded.
"Mother! you will see that our little daughter does not talk any more
about this to-night? She will, I hope, feel differently in the morning."
I did not. In saying my prayers at bedtime I pointedly omitted--"Forgive
us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." I did
not mean to forgive Preciosa. Furthermore, I was not at peace with her
mistress and advocate. The more I mused, the hotter the fire burned,
until I was ready to convict my father of injustice, and my mother of
rank favoritism for the alien. I sulked violently at breakfast, and as I
was not reproved, grew so stubborn and disrespectful over my lessons
that I was sent to my room to stay there until dinner was ready. The
term of banishment had still an hour to run, and I was leaning, listless
and wretched, out of the window when Mam' Chloe and Uncle Ike met in the
yard directly beneath, and part of the low dialogue reached me.
"Ef I could onct ketch that Precious-O-sir in some o' her tricks, you'd
see the fur fly,--mind!" said the butler.
"I suttinly is mighty sorry for po' Miss Molly," answered his wife.
"Looks-if hur heart is pretty nigh broke. It's right down pitiful to see
how much sto' she sot by them young old hyars. You mus' see ef you can't
get her some mo'."
I dropped my head on the window-sill and cried out the tears that
scalded my lids at the unexpected touch of sympathy. Then I fell to
thinking and with a purpose.
I went down to dinner with a tolerably composed countenance, a good
appetite, and a well-digested scheme of vengeance in my mind. Uncle Ike
was my only co-conspirator. I think I can see him now as he rolled back
against the garden fence to laugh as I unfolded my design.
"Ef you ain't the _beater_!" he chuckled, his pepper-and-salt poll
tilted to one shoulder, and eyeing me with undisguised admiration. "An'
you say nobody ain' put it into your hade?"
"I haven't said a word about it to anybody else, Uncle Ike. You'll help
me,--won't you?"
He doubled himself up like a dyspeptic jack-knife, the ingenuity of the
plot gaining upon his imagination.
I pressed my advantage:--
"And don't tell Mam' Chloe--please! She'll think it is cruel. But it
isn't. It's just only justice. And it can't bring _them_ back."
I clenched my fists, and my eyes filled.
"That's so, Miss Molly, that's so," sobering instantly. "It is mighty
hard on you--powerful hard."
"And, Uncle Ike,"--hurrying to get it out lest my voice should
fail,--"please don't let anybody give me any more old hares, or any
'live things to keep. They'll just die, or be murdered by other folks'
cats--or something. It's no use making myself happy for a little while
just to be sorry for ever and ever so long afterward."
With which epigram I ran away, afraid to try to utter another word.
That evening we were all on the front porch. The air was breezeless, the
moon as yellow as brass through sultry fogs. My mother, in a white
dress, lay back in her rocking-chair and fanned herself languidly. My
father smoked his Powhatan pipe upon the steps, leaning against one
pillar of the roof. Mary 'Liza in pale-blue lawn, occupied the other end
of the step. Her hands were in her lap. Cinderella dozed upon a fold of
her skirt. Dorinda had been undressed and rocked to sleep at sunset.
Preciosa had gone upstairs at the same time. I saw her lying upon the
foot of our bed after supper, her eyes narrowed to slender slits with
sleep or slyness. I had a shrewd impression that if I were to go
upstairs now I should not find her in the same place. Instead of
verifying the surmise in this way I stole noiselessly out of the family
group, sauntering along carelessly until I turned the corner of the
house, after which I ran like a lapwing to the garden gate, the
rendezvous agreed upon between Uncle Ike and myself.
He was there with the various "properties" I had ordered.
_Imprimis_, a big dish-pan; _second_, a monstrous black pot from which
steam arose into the hot night; _third_, a stout twine, to one end of
which was attached a brick; a lump of raw liver dangled at the other. By
my directions the pan was balanced upon the shelf where the cottage had
stood, so that a slight pull would overset it, the brick was laid in the
bottom, the string with the liver attachment hanging over the side.
Lastly, Uncle Ike mounted upon the stool I was wont to use when I
visited my murdered dears, and filled the pan from the pot. All being
ready, we conspirators withdrew to the unlighted dining room, and
stationed ourselves at a window.
Our watch was not tedious. I was the first to discern a moving speck in
the dim vista of the walk leading from the gate far down the garden. It
enlarged and assumed a definite form, slowly. Evidently it was a scout,
and the advance a reconnoissance. Feline artifice was in every line and
motion. A ray of misty moonlight lay athwart the entrance to the garden.
The gate was propped open. As the cat crossed it, we recognized a wily
and wicked old Tom from the stable, a disreputable plebeian prowler,
never tolerated in the house grounds. I hardly smothered an ejaculation
as dainty Preciosa glided into the illuminated area and took part in the
furtive inspection of the preparations made for the reception of last
night's marauders. A third, and yet a fourth, miscreant joined the
first two, and heads were laid together in a council of war.
The liver hung high. Tom rose upon his hind feet, clawed the air
futilely and came down sheepishly upon all fours. Next, a small, nimble
black cat jumped and fell short of the bait. Uncle Ike snickered, and I
drew in my breath excitedly, as the pampered exquisite, My Lady
Preciosa, tripped mincingly into the open. The moon shone out obligingly
to let us see her fall into position, her head upraised toward the
tempting morsel--(pig's liver, and none too fresh at that)--her
crouching body thrown well back upon the haunches, her tail, enlarged to
double the usual size, waving sinuously from side to side in leisurely
calculation of distance and chances. Suddenly she launched her supple
body into space like a catapult, caught the meat between her claws,
swung in the air for a victorious half-second--and then, the deluge!
A chorus of screeches, a frantic stampede in all directions, and the
arena was clear of all except the home-made infernal machine,--the empty
dish-pan upside down on the ground, the brick, the string, and the raw
meat lying under it.
The caterwauling, Uncle Ike's "ky-yi!" and my scream of laughter,
brought the porch-party to the spot. By previous agreement neither of us
mentioned Preciosa's name. I had to pinch myself violently to contain
the unseemly mirth bottled up in my wicked soul when Mary 'Liza was "so
glad the horrible creatures were punished," and "hoped" gently "that
Molly was convinced, now, that poor, dear Preciosa was innocent."
"By the way, where _is_ Preciosa?" asked my father.
"She seemed so sleepy that I gave her her supper, and put her to bed,
when I took Dorinda upstairs," said her surety.
Perhaps my father partly interpreted the gleam in my eyes and the
quivering muscles about my uncontrollable mouth, for he glanced keenly
at me and made as if he would let the inquiry drop. Not so my mother.
She bade Mary 'Liza run upstairs and make sure that Preciosa was there.
"I want my dear little girl to be entirely satisfied that her cousin was
right, and that she did the cat an injustice," she said with judicial
mildness.
Preciosa was not in our room, and she stayed out all night, greatly to
her owner's alarm and distress. Her habits were so regular, her
deportment was always so impeccable that the circumstance assumed the
proportions of an Event by breakfast time. My mother was anxious, Mary
'Liza sorrowful, and my father shook his head more gravely than the
occasion seemed to warrant.
"Molly may not have been so far wrong after all," he observed to my
mother, "in spite of the array of circumstantial evidence against her."
My mother was unconvinced.
"Previous good behavior should count for much in such a case," she
urged. "And our little Molly is too apt to jump at conclusions. We
cannot be too careful how we accuse others of sins which they may never
have committed."
I understood what they said perfectly. They never talked down to us.
That was one reason we were called "old-fashioned" and "precocious" by
people who had one set of words for their own use, and another for
children. My parents considered, and I think rightly, that the best and
most correct forms of speech should be taught to mere infants, that it
is as easy to train a child to be grammatical as to let it lapse into
all sorts of slovenly inaccuracies that must be unlearned at school, and
in society. So, when they talked of "circumstantial evidence" I had a
fair inkling of what the phrase conveyed. Preciosa was upon trial for
misdemeanor, and I for backbiting.
I ate away industriously to keep from "answering back,"--a cardinal
offence in nursery government. Mary 'Liza had no appetite, but she,
also, remained silent, and there was moisture under her eyelids.
"We will suspend judgment--" began my father, and interrupted himself to
ask--"What _have_ you got there, Ike?"
The butler grinned from ear to ear, and broke into uncontrollable
cachinnations in depositing his burden upon the floor.
"One of the stable-boys foun' it in the lof', suh."
He could say no more, and would not have been heard had he gone on, for
my father roared, my mother fairly shrieked with laughter, and I went
into hysterics, while Mam' Chloe and Gilbert joined in the general
racket from the doorway.
An abject nondescript cringed at Mary 'Liza's feet, whimpering
piteously. The devil's broth concocted by Uncle Ike, according to my
receipt, was warm starch, made blue with indigo. A few red peppers were
boiled in it to dissuade the cats from licking it off before it could
dry. It adhered to every individual hair of Preciosa's body. She looked
like an azure porcupine. I had thought, at first, of using soot as
coloring matter, but the thought of the blue appealed to my sense of the
congruous ridiculous. I was more than content with the result. Why a
blue cat should be more mirth-provoking than a yellow may not be
explicable, but the fact remains. Even Mary 'Liza shrank from contact
with the absurd object, and the moisture condensed into falling drops.
"Oh, Aunt Mary! do you think it _can_ be Preciosa? It looks like
a--_monster_!"
With tears running down his cheeks, and his sides shaking with gusts of
merriment, my father took me upon his knee, and gave me the funniest
kiss I ever had--a jerky kiss, as if a bee had bobbed against my mouth.
"You'll be the death of me yet, child!" And after another series of
side-shakings--"So much for circumstantial evidence!"
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