“I tell you, you must do it!”
“I won’t!”
There was considerable “substance” in each voice. Melville, however,
had the advantage of years and his terrible “roar,” which, even
accustomed as he had become to it, Fritzy never heard without a little
tremor.
The child stood at a safe distance from the invalid’s lounge, and held
in his hands a worn and scraggy old cat. “I say she is my very own,
’cause I found her. She ain’t yours, nor she ain’t grandma’s. They
sha’n’t nobody touch a bit of her. She’s mine.”
“In the interests of science, Fritzy,” said Melville, changing his tone.
“Don’t care nothin’ about the int’rusts of science; my cat is my own.”
“I’ll buy her of you.”
“Don’t want to sell her.”
“Fifty cents will get an awful lot of taffy.”
“There ain’t any shops on Deer Hill.” The change in tone told that
Fritz’s obstinacy was weakening. He looked down speculatively at the
disreputable-appearing animal in his arms. She was a cat of many
battles, and many “droppings.” By this last method do the soft-hearted
country-folk pass on to their neighbors the nuisance which has become
intolerable to themselves. There are tramp cats as well as human
beings; and if the “Marm Puss,” which was losing her breath under her
captor’s tight squeeze, could have told the tale of her life, it would
have harrowed the soul of the boy so that even “taffy” would have been
powerless to tempt him. “Marm Puss” had tumbled out of a bag at The
Snuggery gate that very morning, brought thither by a boarding-house
mistress from whom grimalkin had stolen various bits of food.
“It’s a good place,” said the boarding-mistress, furtively watching the
cat scamper barnwards after her liberation. “These folks are Quakers,
and they keep cows.” Then she had hurried away, lest her unneighborly
action should be discovered, and thinking herself very kind because
she had not killed the animal outright instead of “dropping” it. She
little dreamed for what a fate she had reserved it.
“It’s an unhappy old thing. It would rather die than live.”
“Pooh! Would you?”
“No; but then, I am a man.”
“You ain’t! You’re a boy, same’s I am, only bigger. If it was your cat,
would you sell it?”
“Yes, for a quarter; and I’ve offered you fifty cents. I’ll make it
seventy-five if you will chloroform her for me, and help me with the
whole business. But you couldn’t; you’d have to blab.”
“I wouldn’t, neither. I never blabbed in my life. I never told nothin’
when I said I wouldn’t. Ask Fritzy Nunky, when he comes.”
“‘Fritzy Nunky’ would like to have you do this for me; he’s scientific
himself. He would have been a great surgeon; haven’t you heard him say
so?”
“What’s that to do with this old cat?”
“Come here and I’ll tell you.”
“You won’t grab her ’thout I say so? an’ you won’t hit me?”
“Not a grab, not a hit,” replied Melville, impressively. He was
ostentatiously taking out of a purse three shining quarter-dollars.
Then he turned them over and over so that their alluring glitter fell
squarely upon little Fritz’s sight. He was not in the least a mercenary
child. Quarter-dollars for their own sake might have been spread before
him in piles, and he would not have coveted them. But quarter-dollars
for “taffy’s” sake--Ah! that was another matter.
“If you was a-going to buy it, where would you go?” he asked, slowly.
“To Mrs. Duncan’s thread-and-needle store, in the village.”
“Pooh! I know better,” retorted the victim of temptation; “you go to
candy shops for candy.”
“True; this isn’t a city like Munich, or New York, where you staid that
week before you came here with your Uncle Fritz. Up here in the country
they keep everything in one shop.”
“Every what thing?” The questioner’s tone was still doubtful.
“Why, just--everything. I can’t make it any plainer. ‘Abry-ham’ buys
his shoes there, and his wife her dresses. Grandmother gets her
milk-pans there, and there is a candy counter.”
“How do you know? You ain’t never been there.”
“Content has; she told me, and I’ve heard it in dozens of ways. I know
it, sure.”
Fritzy considered Content a responsible person, if there was one
anywhere. Her testimony seemed conclusive, but he had not yet exhausted
the subject. “Do they keep fish-hooks?”
“Fish-hooks, and rods, and--everything.”
“How would you go?”
“If I were you, and had seventy-five cents to spend?”
“Yep,” answered the younger cousin, fixing his eyes anew on the
quarter-dollars, and roughly estimating how many fish-hooks and how
much “taffy” they represented.
“I’d harness my pony to the cart, and I’d drive down the mountain like
split. But, first, I’d help my poor cousin to learn all about anatomy.”
“What’s a ‘natomy?’”
“What’s a boy but a living interrogation point! Come! I’m not going to
argue all day. If you want the seventy-five cents, and the taffy, and
the fish-hooks, and any other thing you happen to see, why, now’s your
chance. If you don’t, all right. I can hire Luke Tewksbury to help me.
He’d do it for a quarter, and throw in a kitten to bind the bargain.”
Fritz’s own truthfulness made him accept this statement literally.
The silver in his cousin’s hand assumed larger proportions; and the
sudden remembrance of how long it was since he had really tasted taffy
overcame his last scruple.
“I’ll do it!” he said, heroically, yielding the now drowsy object of
barter to his cousin’s grasp. A slight misgiving as he did so died when
he saw how contentedly the creature curled herself down upon Melville’s
luxurious cushions.
“She looks as if she liked you, a’ready,” said the little boy.
“Of course she does. She is a self-denying animal, who is glad to die
for science’s sake.”
Fritz did wish that Melville would not use that unpleasant word “die”
so frequently. Whenever he heard it he didn’t like to look at “Marm
Puss.” Seeing this, the elder boy hastened matters.
“Go to that closet there. Open the door, and, on the right-hand corner
of the lowest shelf, you will see a big bottle with a glass stopper. A
blue bottle.--Find it?”
“Yep.”
“Bring it, then; and hurry up. First, go and lock both doors.”
“What for?”
“See here, youngster, you quit that ‘what for’ business. I haven’t time
to answer any more questions, and now you have sold yourself to me you
can’t go back on your word. All you’ve got to do is to obey. I’ll take
all the responsibility. You lock those doors, so that the meddling
girls can’t come in. Girls always want to poke their noses into boys’
business, you know.”
It gratified Fritzy to think that he was “boys,” having been accustomed
to consider himself just “little Fritz.” He went obediently to the two
doors, and fastened each. Then the windows; for Melville was determined
to make sure of no interruption.
When that was settled satisfactorily, he took off the pretty cover of
a big down pillow, and drew it cautiously over the unsuspecting cat’s
head. Tired with many wanderings, she did not in the slightest resist;
especially as Melville’s touch was soft and caressing, deluding not
only the four-footed victim but the little traitor who had sold her
unto death.
“Now, Fritz, you go to that other closet beside the chimney. Take out
some of the books that are on the floor, and fix the latch so it works
all right. Can you shut it tight?”
“Tight as a drum!”
“Put the bottle in there, and get the cork all ready to take out, but
don’t you take it out yet.”
“I’ve done that. What next?” Fritz was too genuine a boy not to have
entered into the spirit of this dark transaction by that time. His blue
eyes were big with importance; his cheeks glowed; he whistled softly to
himself.
“Next is--the job itself. Now, you must understand clearly. If you
don’t, it’ll be a fizzle. I’m half sorry I didn’t get somebody bigger
to help me.”
The tone and the words put Fritz on his mettle. “I’m big enough to kill
a old cat, I reckon! If I ain’t, I should like to know!”
“Remember, it won’t hurt her. So, if she struggles, don’t you back out.”
“I won’t,” said Fritz, stoutly.
“Then, take the animal and fire ahead. When you get her into the
closet, pull the stopper out of the bottle, open the bag and pour it
in, and shut the door.”
It all appeared very simple to the elder boy; and even so in a
less degree to his small assistant. But they had counted upon the
non-resistance of the victim.
Now, it seemed as if she had heard their plotting, for all at once she
sprung from the cushion-cover which served as her prison, and flew to
the farthest corner of the big room. For an instant the two lads gazed
after her in surprise that one who simulated submission so thoroughly
should develop such a gift for self-preservation. Another instant, and
Melville’s “roar” arose upon the air.
“You horrid little imp! After all the money I gave you, to let her go
like that! I’d be ashamed to call myself a boy!”
“I didn’t let her go, she let herself go. But I’ll catch her again, see
if I don’t.”
“You can’t! And I wanted to dissect her! Your Uncle Fritz says there is
no reason why I shouldn’t be a great doctor, even if his famous surgeon
doesn’t cure me. And how am I going to learn if I can’t trust anybody
to help me! I say it’s too bad!” cried Melville.
The excitement of the chase, added to all this, acted upon the blood of
little Fritz like flame upon gunpowder. His voice took on a tone which
silenced the elder cousin’s complaints, and hushed him to watchfulness.
“You shut up a minute, so’s not to scare her so, an’ I’ll catch her
again. I will, true as you live!”
Round and round the room, over chairs and tables darted poor “Marm
Puss,” and Fritz behind her. He was almost as lithe as she, and even
more determined. Twice they bounded across Melville’s lounge, but by
then he had become himself so excited over the game that he merely
ducked his head aside, and said not a word.
The chase ended with the victory in Fritz’s hands. The strength of
the ancient animal was no match for his, and her spirit had long ago
been broken. It had flamed up anew for a brief instant, but had died
ignominiously, and she had not enough “fight” left in her to use her
claws when she was finally captured and thrust, head foremost, into the
bag.
Into the closet Fritz rushed; and banged the pillow-cover with his
victim on the floor. Grimalkin’s spirit might have been dead, but her
voice was not. It was her voice which had been the cause of much of
her unhappiness in life, and was destined to be her final undoing. She
miauled so lustily that she angered her little captor, and made him
unmindful of his cousin’s loud remonstrance.
“Come out of the closet, Fritz! Come out of the closet!”
No notice was taken of the appeal.
“Oh, you little simpleton! You must come out of the closet! I didn’t
tell you to go in and shut the door behind you! Don’t open the bottle
till you have come out.”
The vigorous thumping of the bag and its contents upon the floor
told that the tragic end had not yet been achieved, and the miauling
continued so long that Melville did not observe when it at last grew
less violent; though his entreaties to his little cousin were unceasing.
“O Fritzy, dear little Fritz! Come out of it quick! All the doors and
windows are shut and I cannot help you! Fritz--Fritz!”
Melville paused to listen and to breathe; but the sounds had all ceased
behind that fast shut door, and the sickening odor which stole through
the crevices told him that his cries had come too late.
A moment later, and his own consciousness seemed to leave him, as the
terrible significance of his own work came full upon him.