Once there was an old woman who lived on the edge of the Dark Wood in a
small cottage all covered with thick thatch and over the thatch grew a
honeysuckle vine; but at the gable where the chimneys clustered, the
wisteria flung purple flowers in May.
On the topmost chimney was a stork's nest, and there dear grandfather
stork stood on one leg, unless he was wanted to carry a little baby to
some house in the village; when he flapped his wings and flew away over
the tree-tops to the Land of Little Souls.
Now the old woman loved her home, because she had lived there many years
with her husband. She loved the two worn chairs on each side of the great
hearth, and her pewter dishes, and her big china water-pitcher with
flowers shining on it--not for themselves, but for the reason that once
someone had used them and admired them with her.
Into the little latticed windows the roses peeped, and these Mother
Huldah loved too, and tended carefully all through the sweet-smelling
summer-time. But perhaps she liked best the long winter evenings when she
spun by the fire and sang little songs like these:
"My heart as a bird has flown away,
(Princess, where? Princess, where?)
Into the land that is always gay,
Out of the land of care.
"But no bird flies alone to bliss,
(Princess, why? Princess, why?)
I have no answer but a kiss,
And then the open sky."
Nobody listened but Tommie, who was an immense black cat, held in great
reverence by the villagers, for he had the greenest eyes and the longest
whiskers and the heaviest fur of any cat in the kingdom. Moreover, he had
hundreds of mice to his credit and no birds, for he was a good and wise
grimalkin. Sometimes he talked with his tail and sometimes he opened his
pink mouth and said just as plain as words that he had been stalking
through the moonlight and had seen old Egbert go limping home as if he
had the rheumatism.
So next day Mother Huldah with her little bag of medicines and ointments
would go to old Egbert's hut, and sure enough, find him bedridden; or
Tommie would tell her that Charlemagne the stork had carried a baby to a
poor mother who had no clothes for it. Then Mother Huldah would go to her
great cedar chest and take out linen that smelled all sweetly of
lavender, and carry it with some good food to the poor woman.
Mother Huldah was so kind and generous that everybody got in the habit of
taking things from her without sometimes so much as a "thank you," or an
inquiry as to her own health. But the little children loved her because
she made them pretty cakes; and told them the stories she used to tell
her own children, her two fine sons who were soldiers. These sons sent
her the money upon which she lived and out of which she made her little
charities, and they wrote her fine brave letters, and every year they
came home to see her, bearing beautiful presents from foreign lands,
ivory toys and shining silks (which she always gave to some bride) and
workboxes of sweet-scented wood richly carved--to show how much they
loved her.
One dreadful year a great war broke out, and not long after Mother Huldah
heard that her two sons had been killed, and she herself thought she
would follow them through grief. But she lived on and as she grew more
sorrowful she went less and less to the village, and people began to
forget her. Even the little children stayed away since she had no longer
the heart to tell them the tales she had once told her sons; and she must
no longer bake the little cakes since every day saw her small hoard of
money diminishing.
At last, when the winter tempests were raging, and the sleet was beating
upon the thatch, there came a day when no food remained in the cottage;
and Mother Huldah felt too weak and sick to go out in quest of it. Nor
did she wish to tell her neighbors that no food remained in the cottage.
So full of weary dreams and old sad thoughts she sat down in one of the
armchairs before the fire, and whether she nodded from drowsiness, or
whether Tommie nodded at her she never knew, but he moved his black head
and opened his pink mouth, and said he, "Suppose I fetch you a bird just
this once."
She was much surprised, for Tommie had never talked to her before, but
she did not show how astonished she was because she was always very
polite to him. So she replied, "Bless your whiskers! Tommie! but we won't
break through our rule. Maybe some neighbor will fetch me a loaf!"
"Maybe they will and perhaps they won't," said Tommie, "they're an
ungrateful lot."
"They think I am still rich, my dear," she answered.
"So you are, but not in the way they mean," Tommie said. "And,
Mother Huldah, if they neglect you a day longer it won't be your
Tommie's fault."
Then Mother Huldah shook her finger at him. "You switch your tail just as
if you were going to steal something. Tommie, I brought you up better
than that."
"Steal! nonsense!" cried Tommie. "Most of 'em have more than they
need, anyway."
"Tommie, I believe you're hungry, or your morals wouldn't be so queer!"
Mother Huldah said reprovingly.
"Hungry!" exclaimed Tommie. "I dream of lobster claws and chicken wings
and blue saucers full of yellow wrinkled cream, twelve in a row. No
wonder my morals are queer!"
Then what happened was that poor Mother Huldah dozed off to sleep and
when she awoke there was Tommie staring into the fire, his green eyes
like two lanterns and his whiskers standing out very stiff and knowing,
and at Mother Huldah's' feet was a wicker basket from which issued a most
appetizing odor. "Why, Thomas" (she always called him Thomas in solemn
moments), "what's this?"
"Your dinner," said Tommie, and yawned like a gentleman who lights a
cigarette and says, "O hang it all! what a beastly bore life is."
"Thomas," questioned Mother Huldah solemnly, "where did you get this
dinner?" for she had taken the cover off the basket and found a small
roast chicken with vegetables and a bread pudding.
"Why, I was strolling down the gray lane when I met a woman carrying that
basket and I smelled chicken; so up I stood on my hind legs, and winked
at her and I said, 'Thank you, I know you are taking that to Mother
Huldah; let me carry it the rest of the way.'"
But Mother Huldah cried, "Maybe the dinner wasn't for me, and you
frightened her so she had to give it to you."
Tommie yawned again. "Don't you think that the best thing you can do with
a good dinner is to eat it?"
So Mother Huldah ate her dinner, hoping all the while that she was making
an honest meal; then, when she had fed Thomas, she asked him if
Charlemagne was on the roof. "Indeed, no!" cried he. "Charlemagne has
flown to the war country to fetch you a baby!"
"Alas!" cried Mother Huldah. "I pity the poor babes, but how can I bring
up a baby?"
"It is your granddaughter," said Tommie. "Charlemagne told me that a year
ago your son Rupert married, but he meant to bring his bride home as a
surprise to you. Then the war broke out and--"
"O poor little daughter-in-law!" cried Mother Huldah. "Did she break
her heart?"
"Yes, and so she followed Rupert to the Country of the Brave Souls; but
Charlemagne is fetching the baby in a warm woolen napkin tied up at the
four corners; and when his wings get tired from flying he puts a bit of
sugar and a drop of water in the baby's mouth and leans his feathery
breast against its little feet to keep them warm!"
"Yes! yes!" said Mother Huldah, "a baby's feet should be always kept
warm--but, dear me, dear me, the Sweet One will need milk before long,
and the grain of the whole wheat to help her grow! I have no money to buy
her food."
Tommie looked very wise. "Mother Huldah," he said as he drew a black paw
knowingly over one ear, "don't you know that wherever a baby comes, help
comes? Open the linen chest and get your shining shears and begin to make
little shirts and dresses. I think I'll take a look at the weather."
He made the last remark carelessly like a young gentleman who will stroll
out and leave the women-folk to their devices.
"O Tommie!" said Mother Huldah, "you are not going to do anything
impulsive?"
"Mother Huldah," replied Tommie, "did you ever know a cat to do anything
impulsive unless he saw a bird, or a mouse?"
With that he left her, and she watched him walk away down the forest path
with the sunlight glistening on his coat and his tail held high and
straight. Sometimes he would pause and lift one foot daintily, the toes
curling in. Mother Huldah always said that Tommie heard not with his ears
but with his whiskers, and perhaps it was true.
Tommie himself was making his own plans as he went along. "If I tell
these villagers outright that Mother Huldah is in need, each person will
think, 'O well, Neighbor Jude, or Gossip Dorcas has more to spare than I.
Someone else will take care of the poor old lady, I am sure.' And it will
end in her getting nothing at all. I will not talk about her, but to each
person I will talk about himself, for that is the way to get people
interested."
At which Tommie smiled, and because his great-grandfather was a Cheshire
Cat, his smile gave him a wise and jovial look, as if the Sphinx of Egypt
should suddenly see a joke. With a good heart he went daintily on his
way, shaking the snow from his paws at times, until he reached the
village green. Now in the middle of the green stood the pump, made of
wood with a flat top. On this Tommie seated himself, put his paws neatly
together, folded his tail about them, made his green eyes perfectly
round, and stared straight ahead of him.
Now even a cat when he looks as if he could think for himself will draw
people's attention; especially if he seems to enjoy his thoughts. And
Tommie, seated on the pump in the bright winter sunshine, looked as if he
had something in his mind that pleased him.
"Heigh-O," said one of the passers-by. "Here's a witch-cat!"
"You are mistaken," replied Tommie with a wink. "I belong to Mother
Huldah, and she is the best woman in the village."
The man was so astonished that he dropped a parcel of eggs he was
carrying, and they were all broken.
"That's what comes," said Tommie, "of imagining evil where none exists."
The man was so angry that he made some snowballs hastily and began to
pelt Tommie with them; but Tommie understood the beautiful art of
dodging--which some people never learn all their lives--so he didn't get
hit. By this time a crowd had gathered about the angry man, and were
asking him what was the matter.
"Matter!" he shrieked, "that black object on the pump gave me impudence!"
"Heigh-O!" cried little Elsa. "How could a cat give thee impudence!"
"Ask him then," said the man. "He can talk like any Christian."
At which the crowd all looked at Tommie, who winked at them and said,
"Does anybody here want to ask me any questions? I'll tell him what he
wants to know in perfect confidence between him and me and the pump. If
my answer pleases him, he can give me a silver piece. If my reply make
his heart go pit-a-pat with joy he can give me a gold piece. If he
doesn't like my answers, he needn't give me anything. Now that's fair,
isn't it?"
Then everybody looked at everybody else, and dropped their jaws and
rubbed their eyes. Nobody stirred for a minute, then a fine young fellow
stepped forward, blushing. This was Carl, the miller's son, who was
straight as a birch-tree, and had blue eyes like deep lakes, and he
walked right up to the pump, and bowed, then he whispered into Tommie's
ear, "Does Lucia love me?"
Tommie winked his right eye and smiled. "Carl," he replied, "get up
your courage and ask her to-day, for she loves you better than anyone
in the world."
Then Carl felt his heart go pit-a-pat, and all the snow wreaths on the
trees seemed to turn to bridal flowers. "Thanks, dear and wise Pussy," he
said, and took out his handkerchief and spread it at Tommie's feet and on
it he placed not one, but three gold pieces.
When the villagers saw the gold pieces glittering in the sun and beheld
the radiant face of Carl, they all began to wonder, and each person
wanted to try his own luck. "After all," said each one to himself, "if I
don't like what the cat says I needn't pay him anything."
The next person to go up was the village tanner, whose skin was like
leather and whose eyes were little like a pig's. Tommie was already
acquainted with him, having been kicked out of his tannery once when on
an innocent mousing expedition.
"Say," said the tanner, "will my Uncle Jean leave me his farm?"
"No," answered Tommie, winking his left eye. "That he won't! He knows you
are always wishing he would die!"
The tanner was so angry that he snarled: "Don't you ever let me catch you
around the tannery again, or I'll make you into a muff for my daughter."
"Black furs are not fashionable this winter," said Tommie. "Next?"
Everybody laughed when they saw that the tanner hadn't paid money for
his information, and so, presumably, didn't like it. But strangely
enough, instead of discouraging this led them on to try their luck; and
the next person who came to ask Tommie a question was poor, old,
half-blind Henley the miser. He put his mouth close to the cat's ear, so
the people behind him wouldn't catch what he said, and in a hoarse voice
he asked, "Say, old whiskers, will my fine ship loaded with dates and
spices reach Norway safely?"
"Yes, it will," said Tommie, "long before your withered old soul will
reach a haven of peace."
Henley was so excited over the first words that he didn't even hear the
last ones. He hopped about on one leg, and was rushing off at last when
Tommie cried, "Heigh-O, you haven't paid me!"
The miser felt in his pockets and drew out a silver coin and laid it on
the handkerchief.
"Not at all," said Tommie. "Remember the Worth of that cargo! Gold
or nothing."
Henley began to whine. "I'm a poor old man, Tommie. I'll leave the cream
jug on the doorstep every day and no questions will be asked!"
"I'm not a thief," answered Tommie. "Mother Huldah brought me up better
than that. Come, you don't want to have any quarrel with a black cat."
Whereupon Henley reluctantly drew from his pocket a gold piece, while all
the villagers opened their eyes very wide, and wondered what Tommie could
have told the old gentleman to make him so liberal.
The next person to come up was a little shy girl named Clara. She had big
brown eyes and fair floating hair, and under her white chin and about her
little white wrists were soft furs; for her father was a wealthy
moneylender. She came close to Tommie and whispered, "Tell me, beautiful
Pussy, if I shall ever win the love of Joseph Grange."
Tommie winked his right eye several times and replied, "My dear, I see
it coming!"