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CAT STORIES.
BY
HELEN JACKSON (H. H.),
AUTHOR OF "RAMONA," "NELLY'S SILVER MINE," "BITS OF TALK," ETC.
LETTERS FROM A CAT.
MAMMY TITTLEBACK AND HER FAMILY.
THE HUNTER CATS OF CONNORLOA.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.
BOSTON:
ROBERTS BROTHERS.
1886.
THE HUNTER CATS
OF
CONNORLOA.
[Illustration: CONNORLOA.]
THE
HUNTER CATS
OF
CONNORLOA.
BY HELEN JACKSON
(_H. H._),
AUTHOR OF "LETTERS FROM A CAT," "MAMMY TITTLEBACK AND HER
FAMILY," ETC.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
BOSTON:
ROBERTS BROTHERS.
1886.
_Copyright_, 1884,
BY ROBERTS BROTHERS.
[Illustration: Decorative panel]*
THE HUNTER CATS
OF
CONNORLOA.
I.
Once on a time, there lived in California a gentleman whose name was
Connor,--Mr. George Connor. He was an orphan, and had no brothers and
only one sister. This sister was married to an Italian gentleman, one of
the chamberlains to the King of Italy. She might almost as well have
been dead, so far as her brother George's seeing her was concerned; for
he, poor gentleman, was much too ill to cross the ocean to visit her;
and her husband could not be spared from his duties as chamberlain to
the King, to come with her to America, and she would not leave him and
come alone. So at the time my story begins, it had been many years since
the brother and sister had met, and Mr. Connor had quite made up his
mind that he should never see her again in this world. He had had a
sorry time of it for a good many years. He had wandered all over the
world, trying to find a climate which would make him well. He had lived
in Egypt, in Ceylon, in Italy, in Japan, in the Sandwich Islands, in the
West India Islands. Every place that had ever been heard of as being
good for sick people, he had tried; for he had plenty of money, and
there was nothing to prevent his journeying wherever he liked. He had a
faithful black servant Jim, who went with him everywhere, and took the
best of care of him; but neither the money, nor the good nursing, nor
the sea air, nor the mountain air, nor the north, south, east or west
air, did him any good. He only tired himself out for nothing, roaming
from place to place; and was all the time lonely, and sad too, not
having any home. So at last he made up his mind that he would roam no
longer; that he would settle down, build himself a house, and if he
could not be well and strong and do all the things he liked to, he
would at least have a home, and have his books about him, and have a
good bed to sleep in, and good food to eat, and be comfortable in all
those ways in which no human being ever can be comfortable outside of
his own house.
He happened to be in California when he took this resolution. He had
been there for a winter; and on the whole had felt better there than he
had felt anywhere else. The California sunshine did him more good than
medicine: it is wonderful how the sun shines there! Then it was never
either very hot or very cold in the part of California where he was; and
that was a great advantage. He was in the southern part of the State,
only thirty miles from the sea-shore, in San Gabriel. You can find this
name "San Gabriel" on your atlas, if you look very carefully. It is in
small print, and on the Atlas it is not more than the width of a pin
from the water's edge; but it really is thirty miles,--a good day's
ride, and a beautiful day's ride too, from the sea. San Gabriel is a
little village, only a dozen or two houses in it, and an old,
half-ruined church,--a Catholic church, that was built there a hundred
years ago, when the country was first settled by the Spaniards. They
named all the places they settled, after saints; and the first thing
they did in every place was to build a church, and get the Indians to
come and be baptized, and learn to pray. They did not call their
settlements towns at first, only Missions; and they had at one time
twenty-one of these Missions on the California coast, all the way up
from San Diego to Monterey; and there were more than thirty thousand
Indians in them, all being taught to pray and to work, and some of them
to read and write. They were very good men, those first Spanish
missionaries in California. There are still alive some Indians who
recollect these times. They are very old, over a hundred years old; but
they remember well about these things.
Most of the principal California towns of which you have read in your
geographies were begun in this way. San Diego, Santa Barbara, San Luis
Obispo, San Rafael, San Francisco, Monterey, Los Angeles,--all of these
were first settled by the missionaries, and by the soldiers and officers
of the army who came to protect the missionaries against the savages.
Los Angeles was named by them after the Virgin Mary. The Spanish name
was very long, "Nuestra Señora Reina de Los Angeles,"--that means, "Our
Lady the Queen of the Angels." Of course this was quite too long to use
every day; so it soon got cut down to simply "Los Angeles," or "The
Angels,"--a name which often amuses travellers in Los Angeles to-day,
because the people who live there are not a bit more like angels than
other people; and that, as we all know, is very unlike indeed. Near Los
Angeles is San Gabriel, only about fifteen miles away. In the olden
time, fifteen miles was not thought any distance at all; people were
neighbors who lived only fifteen miles apart.
There are a great many interesting stories about the first settlement of
San Gabriel, and the habits and customs of the Indians there. They were
a very polite people to each other, and used to train their children in
some respects very carefully. If a child were sent to bring water to an
older person, and he tasted it on the way, he was made to throw the
water out and go and bring fresh water; when two grown-up persons were
talking together, if a child ran between them he was told that he had
done an uncivil thing, and would be punished if he did it again. These
are only specimens of their rules for polite behavior. They seem to me
as good as ours. These Indians were very fond of flowers, of which the
whole country is in the spring so full, it looks in places like a garden
bed; of these flowers they used to make long garlands and wreaths, not
only to wear on their heads, but to reach way down to their feet. These
they wore at festivals and celebrations; and sometimes at these
festivals they used to have what they called "song contests." Two of the
best singers, or poets, would be matched together, to see which could
sing the better, or make the better verses. That seems to me a more
interesting kind of match than the spelling matches we have in our
villages. But there is nothing of this sort to be seen in San Gabriel
now, or indeed anywhere in California. The Indians, most of them, have
been driven away by the white people who wanted their lands; year by
year more and more white people have come, and the Indians have been
robbed of more and more of their lands, and have died off by hundreds,
until there are not many left.
[Illustration: INDIAN MAKING BOWLS.--Page 19.]
Mr. Connor was much interested in learning all he could about them, and
collecting all he could of the curious stone bowls and pestles they used
to make, and of their baskets and lace work. He spent much of his
time riding about the country; and whenever he came to an Indian hut he
would stop and talk with them, and ask if they had any stone bowls or
baskets they would like to sell. The bowls especially were a great
curiosity. Nobody knew how long ago they had been made. When the
missionaries first came to the country, they found the Indians using
them; they had them of all sizes, from those so large that they are
almost more than a man can lift, down to tiny ones no bigger than a
tea-cup. But big and little, they were all made in the same way out of
solid stone, scooped out in the middle, by rubbing another stone round
and round on them. You would think it would have taken a lifetime to
make one; but they seem to have been plenty in the olden time. Even yet,
people who are searching for such curiosities sometimes find big
grave-mounds in which dozens of them are buried,--buried side by side
with the people who used to eat out of them. There is nothing left of
the people but their skulls and a few bones; but the bowls will last as
long as the world stands.
* * * * *
Now I suppose you are beginning to wonder when I am coming to the Hunter
Cats! I am coming to them just the way Mr. Connor did,--by degrees. I
want you to know about the place he lived in, and how he used to amuse
himself, before he decided to build his house; and then I must tell you
about the house, and then about the children that came to live with him
in it, and then about the Chinamen that came to do his work, and about
his orange-trees, and the gophers that gnawed the bark off them, and the
rabbits that burrowed under his vines. Oh! it will be a good many pages
yet before I can possibly get to the time when the Hunter Cats come in.
But I will tell it as fast as I can, for I dislike long stories myself.
The village of San Gabriel is in a beautiful broad valley, running east
and west. The north wall of the valley is made by a range of mountains,
called the Sierra Madre; that is Spanish and means "Mother Mountains."
They are grand mountains; their tops are almost solid stone, all sharp
and jagged, with more peaks and ridges, crowded in together, than you
could possibly count. At the bottom, they reach out into the valley by
long slopes, which in the olden time were covered thick with trees and
shrubs; but now, the greater part of these have been cut down and
cleared off, and the ground planted full of orange-trees and grapevines.
If you want to see how it looks to have solid miles upon miles of orange
orchards and vineyards together, you must go to this San Gabriel Valley.
There is no other such place in the world.
As Mr. Connor rode about, day after day, and looked at these orchards
and vineyards, he began to think he should like to have some too. So he
went up and down along the base of the mountains, looking for a good
place. At last he found one. It was strange nobody had picked it out
before. One reason was that it was so wild, and lay so high up, that it
would be a world of trouble, and cost a deal of money, to make a road up
to it and to clear the ground. But Mr. Connor did not care for that. It
was a sort of ridge of the mountains, and it was all grown over thick
with what is called in California "chapparal." That is not the name of
any one particular shrub or tree; it means a mixture of every sort and
kind. You all know what mixed candy is! Well, "chapparal" is mixed
bushes and shrubs; mixed thick too! From a little way off, it looks as
smooth as moss; it is so tangled, and the bushes have such strong and
tough stems, you can't possibly get through it, unless you cut a path
before you with a hatchet; it is a solid thicket all the way.
As Mr. Connor rode to and fro, in front of this green ridge, he thought
how well a house would look up there, with the splendid mountain wall
rising straight up behind it. And from the windows of such a house, one
could look off, not only over the whole valley, but past the hills of
its southern wall, clear and straight thirty miles to the sea. In a
clear day, the line of the water flashed and shone there like a silver
thread.
Mr. Connor used to sit on his horse by the half hour at a time gazing at
this hillside, and picturing the home he would like to make there,--a
big square house with plenty of room in it, wide verandas on all sides,
and the slope in front of it one solid green orange orchard. The longer
he looked the surer he felt that this was the thing he wanted to do.
The very day he decided, he bought the land; and in two days more he had
a big force of men hacking away at the chapparal, burning it, digging up
the tough, tangled roots; oh, what slow work it was! Just as soon as a
big enough place was cleared, he built a little house of rough
boards,--only two rooms in it; and there he went to live, with Jim.
Now that he had once begun the making of his house, he could hardly wait
for it to be done; and he was never happy except when he was overseeing
the men, hurrying them and working himself. Many a tough old bush he
chopped down with his own hands, and tugged the root up; and he grew
stronger every day. This was a kind of medicine he had not tried before.
A great part of the bushes were "manzanita." The roots and lower stems
of this shrub are bright red, and twisted almost into knots. They make
capital firewood; so Mr. Connor had them all piled up in a pile to keep
to burn in his big fireplaces; and you would have laughed to see such a
woodpile. It was almost as high as the house; and no two sticks
alike,--all prongs and horns, and crooks and twists; they looked like
monster's back teeth.
At last the house was done. It was a big, old-fashioned, square house,
with a wide hall running through the middle; on the east side were the
library and dining-room; on the west, the parlor and a big
billiard-room; upstairs were four large bedrooms; at the back of the
house, a kitchen. No servants were to sleep in the house. Mr. Connor
would have only Chinamen for servants; and they would sleep, with the
rest of his Chinamen laborers, in what he called the Chinese quarter,--a
long, low wooden building still farther up on the hill. Only Jim was to
sleep in the house with Mr. Connor.
The Chinese quarter was a very comfortable house; and was presided over
by a fat old Chinaman, who had such a long queue that Jim called him
"Long Tail." His name was See Whong Choo, which, Jim said, was entirely
too long to pronounce. There were twenty Chinamen on the place; and a
funny sight it was to see them all file out of a morning to their work,
every one with what looked like a great dinner-plate upside down on his
head for a hat, and his long, black hair braided in a queue, not much
bigger than a rat tail, hanging down his back.
People in California are so used to seeing Chinamen, that they do not
realize how droll they look to persons not accustomed to the sight.
Their yellow skins, their funny little black eyes, set so slanting in
their heads that you can't tell half the time whether they are looking
straight at you or not, their shiny shaved heads and pig-tails, are all
very queer. And when you first hear them talking together in their own
tongue, you think it must be cats trying to learn English; it is a
mixture of caterwaul and parrot, more disagreeable in sound than any
language I ever heard.
About a year after Mr. Connor had moved into his new house, he got a
letter, one night, which made him very unhappy. It told him that his
sister and her husband were dead; they had died, both of them in one
week, of a dreadful fever. Their two children had had the fever at the
same time, but they were getting well; and now, as there was nobody in
Italy to take care of them, the letter asked what should be done with
them. Would Mr. Connor come out himself, or would he send some one? The
Count and his wife had been only a few days ill, and the fever had made
them delirious from the first, so that no directions had been given to
any one about the children; and there the two poor little things
were, all alone with their nurse in their apartment in the King's
palace. They had had to live in the palace always, so that the Count
could be ready to attend on the King whenever he was wanted.
[Illustration: THE KING'S PALACE.--Page 31.]
Giuseppe and Maria (those were their names) never liked living there.
The palace was much too grand, with its marble staircases, and marble
floored rooms, so huge and cold; and armed soldiers for sentinels,
standing at the corners and doors, to keep people from going into rooms
without permission, and to keep watch also, lest somebody should get in
and kill the King. The King was always afraid of being killed; there
were so many unhappy and discontented persons in Italy, who did not
want him to be King. Just think how frightful it must be to know every
day,--morning, noon, and night,--that there was danger of somebody's
coming stealthily into your room to kill you! Who would be a king? It
used to make the children afraid whenever they passed these tall
soldiers in armor, in the halls. They would hold tight to each other's
hands, and run as fast as they could, past them; and when they got out
in the open air, they were glad; most of all when their nurse took them
into the country, where they could run on the grass and pick flowers.
There they used often to see poor little hovels of houses, with gardens,
and a donkey and chickens in the yard, and children playing; and they
used to say they wished their father and mother were poor, and lived in
a house like that, and kept a donkey. And then the nurse would tell them
they were silly children; that it was a fine thing to live in a palace,
and have their father one of the King's officers, and their mother one
of the most beautiful of the Queen's ladies; but you couldn't have made
the children believe it. They hated the palace, and everything about it,
more and more every day of their lives.
Giuseppe was ten, and Maria was seven. They were never called by their
real names: Giuseppe was called Jusy, and Maria was called Rea; Jusy and
Rea, nobody would ever have guessed from that, what their real names
were. Maria is pronounced _Mahrea_ in Italy; so that was the way she
came to be called Rea for shortness. Jusy gave himself his nickname when
he was a baby, and it had always stuck to him ever since.
It was enough to make anybody's heart ache to see these two poor little
things, when they first got strong enough to totter about after this
fever; so weak they felt, they could hardly stand; and they cried more
than half the time, thinking about their papa and mamma, dead and buried
without their even being able to kiss them once for good-by. The King
himself felt so sorry for the little orphans, he came to speak to them;
and the kind Queen came almost every day, and sent them beautiful toys,
and good things to eat; but nothing comforted the children.
"What do you suppose will become of us, Jusy?" Rea often said; and Jusy
would reply,--
"I don't know, Rea. As soon as I'm a man, I can take care of you and
myself too, easy enough; and that won't be a great while. I shall ask
the King to let me be one of his officers like papa."
"Oh, no! no! Jusy," Rea would reply. "Don't! Don't let's live in this
horrid palace. Ask him to give you a little house in the country, with a
donkey; and I will cook the dinner. Caterina will teach me how."
Caterina was their nurse.
"But there wouldn't be any money to pay Caterina," Jusy would say.
"The King might give us enough for that, Jusy. He is so kind. I'm sure
he would, don't you think so?" was Rea's answer to this difficulty.
"No," said Jusy, "I don't think he would, unless I earned it. Papa had
to work for all the money he had."
It was a glad day for the children when the news came that their uncle
in America was going to send for them to come and live with him; and
that in three weeks the man who was to take them there would arrive.
This news came over by telegraph, on that wonderful telegraph wire,
down at the bottom of the ocean. Their kind Uncle George thought he
would not leave the children uncheered in their suspense and loneliness
one minute longer than he could help; so he sent the message by
telegraph; and the very day after this telegraphic message went, Jim set
out for Italy.
Jim had travelled so much with Mr. Connor that he was just the best
possible person to take charge of the children on their long journey. He
knew how to manage everything; and he could speak Italian and French and
German well enough to say all that was necessary in places where no
English was spoken. Moreover, Jim had been a servant in Mr. Connor's
father's house all his life; had taken care of Mr. Connor and his sister
when they were a little boy and girl together, just as Jusy and Rea were
now. He always called Mr. Connor "Mr. George," and his sister "Miss
Julia;" and when he set out to go for the children he felt almost as if
he were going to the help and rescue of his own grandchildren.
Jusy and Rea did not feel that they were going to a stranger; for they
had heard about their Uncle George ever since they could remember; and
all about "Jim" too. Almost every year Mr. Connor used to send his
sister a new picture of himself; so the children knew very well how he
looked.
When the news came that they were to go to America and live with him,
they got out all of these pictures they could find, and ranged them in a
line on the mantelpiece in their parlor. There was a picture of Jim too,
as black as charcoal. At first, Rea had been afraid of this; but Jusy
thought it was splendid. Every morning the lonely little creatures used
to stand in front of this line of pictures and say, "Good-morning, Uncle
George! Good-morning to you, Mr. Black Man! How soon will you get here?
We shall be very glad to see you."
It was over a month before he arrived. The children had been told that
he might be there in three weeks from the day the despatch came; and as
soon as the three weeks were ended, they began almost to hold their
breaths listening for him; they were hardly willing to stir out of the
palace for a walk, for fear he might come while they were away. Rea
watched at the windows, and Jusy watched at the doorway which led into
the corridor.
"He might be afraid of the sentinel at the corner there," he said.
"Caterina says there are no palaces in America."
"Goody!" interrupted Rea, "I'm so glad."
"And so perhaps he has never seen a man in armor like that; and I'd
better be at the door to run and meet him."
All their clothes were packed ready for the journey; and all the things
which had belonged to their mamma were packed up too, to go with them.
The huge rooms looked drearier than ever. The new chamberlain's wife was
impatient to get settled in the apartment herself, and kept coming to
look at it, and discussing, in the children's presence, where she would
put this or that piece of furniture, and how she would have her pictures
hung.
"I think she is a very rude lady," said Jusy. "The Queen said these were
our rooms so long as we stayed, just the same as if mamma were here with
us; and I think I see her coming in here that way if mamma was here!"
[Illustration: decorative panel]*
II.
After all their precautions, Jusy and Rea were out when Jim arrived.
They had been to take a walk with Caterina; and when they came back, as
they passed the big sentinel at the outside gate, he nodded to them
pleasantly, and said,--
"He has come!--the black signor from America." ("Signor" is Italian for
"Mr.")
[Illustration: JUSY AND REA. "He has come!--the black signor from
America."--Page 42.]
You see everybody in the palace, from the King down to the scullions in
the kitchen, was interested in the two fatherless and motherless
children, and glad to hear that Jim had arrived.
The very next day they set off. Jim was impatient to be back in
California again; there was nothing to wait for. Caterina was greatly
relieved to find that he did not wish her to go with him. The Queen had
said she must go, if the black signor wished it; and Caterina was
wretched with fright at the thought of the journey, and of the country
full of wild beasts and savages. "Worse than Africa, a hundred times,"
she said, "from all I can hear. But her Majesty says I must go, if I am
needed. I'd rather die, but I see no way out of it."
When it came to bidding Rea good-by, however, she was almost ready to
beg to be allowed to go. The child cried and clung to her neck; and
Caterina cried and sobbed too.
But the wise Jim had provided himself with a powerful helper. He had
bought a little white spaniel, the tiniest creature that ever ran on
four legs; she was no more than a doll, in Rea's arms; her hair was like
white silk floss. She had a blue satin collar with a gilt clasp and
padlock; and on the padlock, in raised letters, was the name "Fairy."
Jim had thought of this in New York, and bought the collar and padlock
there; and the dog he had bought only one hour before they were to set
out on their journey. She was in a beautiful little flannel-lined
basket; and when Rea clung to Caterina's neck crying and sobbing, Jim
stepped up to her and said,--
"Don't cry, missy; here's your little dog to take care of; she'll be
scared if she sees you cry."
"Mine! Mine! That sweet doggie!" cried Rea. She could not believe her
eyes. She stopped crying; and she hardly noticed when the Queen herself
kissed her in farewell, so absorbed was she in "Fairy" and the blue
satin collar. "Oh, you are a very good black man, Signor Jim," she
cried. "I never saw such a sweet doggie; I shall carry her in my own
arms all the way there."
It was a hard journey; but the children enjoyed every minute of it. The
account of all they did and saw, and the good times they had with the
kind Jim, would make a long story by itself; but if I told it, we should
never get to the Hunter Cats; so I will not tell you anything about the
journey at all except that it took about six weeks, and that they
reached San Gabriel in the month of March, when everything was green and
beautiful, and the country as full of wild flowers as the children had
ever seen the country about Florence in Italy.
Mr. Connor had not been idle while Jim was away. After walking up and
down his house, with his thinking-cap on, for a few days, looking into
the rooms, and trying to contrive how it should be rearranged to
accommodate his new and unexpected family, he suddenly decided to build
on a small wing to the house. He might as well arrange it in the outset
as it would be pleasantest to have it when Jusy and Rea were a young
gentleman and a young lady, he thought. What might do for them very well
now, while they were little children, would not do at all when they were
grown up.
So, as I told you, Mr. Connor being a gentleman who never lost any time
in doing a thing he had once made up his mind to, set carpenters at work
immediately tearing out half of one side of his new house; and in little
over a month, there was almost another little house joined on to it.
There was a good big room for Rea's bedroom, and a small room opening
out of it, for her sitting-room; beyond this another room in which her
nurse could sleep, while she needed one, and after she grew older, the
governess who must come to teach her; and after she did not need any
governess, the room would be a pleasant thing to have for her young
friends who came to visit her. This kind uncle was planning for a good
many years ahead, in this wing to his house.
These rooms for Rea were in the second story. Beneath them were two
large rooms, one for Jusy, and one for Jim. A pretty stairway, with a
lattice-work wall, went up outside to Rea's room, and at the door of
her room spread out into a sort of loggia, or upstairs piazza, such as
Mr. Connor knew she had been used to in Italy. In another year this
stairway and loggia would be a bower of all sorts of vines, things grow
so fast in California.
* * * * *
And now we are really coming to the Cats. They had arrived before the
children did.
When the children got out of the cars at San Gabriel, there stood their
Uncle George on the platform waiting for them. Jusy spied him first.
"There's Uncle George," he shouted, and ran towards him shouting, "Uncle
George! Uncle George! Here we are."
Rea followed close behind, holding up Fairy. "Look at my doggie that
Signor black Jim gave me," she cried, holding Fairy up as high as she
could reach; and in the next minute she herself, doggie and all, was
caught up in Uncle George's arms.
"What makes you cry, Uncle George?" she exclaimed; "we thought you would
be very glad to see us!"
"So I am, you dear child," he said. "I am only crying because I am so
glad."
But Jusy knew better, and as soon as he could get a chance, he whispered
to Rea, "I should have thought you would have known better than to say
anything to Uncle George about his having tears in his eyes. It was
because we reminded him so much of mamma, that he cried. I saw the
tears come in his eyes, the first minute he saw us, but I wasn't going
to say a word about it."
Poor little Rea felt badly enough to think she had not understood as
quickly as Jusy did; but the only thing she could think of to do was to
spring up in the seat of the wagon, and put her arms around her uncle's
neck, and kiss him over and over, saying, "We are going to love you,
like,--oh,--like everything, Jusy and me! I love you better than my
doggie!"
But when she said this, the tears came into Mr. Connor's eyes again; and
Rea looked at Jusy in despair.
"Keep quiet, Rea," whispered Jusy. "He doesn't want us to talk just
yet, I guess;" and Rea sat down again, and tried to comfort herself with
Fairy. But she could not keep her eyes from watching her uncle's face.
Her affectionate heart was grieved to see him look so sad, instead of
full of joy and gladness as she had thought it would be. Finally she
stole her hand into his and sat very still without speaking, and that
really did comfort Mr. Connor more than anything she could have done.
The truth was, Rea looked so much like her mother, that it was almost
more than Mr. Connor could bear when he first saw her; and her voice
also was like her mother's.
Jusy did not in the least resemble his mother; he was like his father
in every way,--hair as black as black could be, and eyes almost as black
as the hair; a fiery, flashing sort of face Jusy had; and a fiery,
flashing sort of temper too, I am sorry to say. A good deal like
thunder-storms, Jusy's fits of anger were; but, if they were swift and
loud, like the thunder, they also were short-lived,--cleared off
quickly,--like thunder-storms, and showed blue sky afterward, and a
beautiful rainbow of sorrow for the hasty words or deeds.
Rea was fair, with blue eyes and yellow hair, and a temper sunny as her
face. In Italy there are so few people with blue eyes and fair hair,
that whenever Rea was seen in the street, everybody turned to look at
her, and asked who she was, and remembered her; and when she came again,
they said, "Ecco! Ecco! (That is Italian for Look! Look!) There is the
little blue-eyed, golden-haired angel." Rea did not know that the people
said this, which was well, for it might have made her vain.
It was six miles from the railway station to Mr. Connor's house. But the
house was in sight all the way; it was so high up on the mountain-side
that it showed plainly, and as it was painted white, you could see it in
all directions like a lighthouse. Mr. Connor liked to be able to see it
from all places when he was riding about the valley. He said it looked
friendly to him; as if it said, all the time, "Here I am, you can come
home any minute you want to."
After they had driven about half way, Mr. Connor said,--
"Children, do you see that big square house up there on the mountain?
That is Connorloa."
"Whose house is it, Uncle George?" said Jusy.
"Why, did you not hear?" replied Mr. Connor. "It is Connorloa."
The children looked still more puzzled.
"Oh," laughed their uncle. "Is it possible nobody has told you the name
of my house? I have called it Connorloa, from my own name, and 'loa,'
which is the word in the Sandwich Islands for 'hill.' I suppose I might
have called it Connor Hill, but I thought 'loa' was prettier."
"Oh, so do I," said Jusy. "It is lovely. Connorloa, Connorloa," he
repeated. "Doesn't it sound like some of the names in Italy, Rea?" he
said.
"Prettier!" said little Rea. "No word in Italy, so pretty as Connorloa;
nor so nice as Uncle George."
"You dear, loving little thing!" cried Uncle George, throwing his arms
around her. "You are for all the world your mother over again."
"That's just what I've been saying to myself all the way home, Mr.
George," said Jim. "It's seemed to me half the time as if it were Miss
Julia herself; but the boy is not much like you."
"No," said Jusy proudly, throwing back his handsome head, and his eyes
flashing. "I am always said to be exactly the portrait of my father; and
when I am a man, I am going back to Italy to live in the King's palace,
and wear my father's sword."
"I sha'n't go," said Rea, nestling close to her uncle. "I shall stay in
Connorloa with Uncle George. I hate palaces. Your house isn't a palace,
is it, Uncle George? It looks pretty big."
"No, my dear; not by any means," replied Mr. Connor, laughing heartily.
"But why do you hate palaces, my little Rea? Most people think it would
be the finest thing possible to live in a palace."
"I don't," said Rea. "I just hate them; the rooms are so big and so
cold; and the marble floors are so slip-py, I've had my knees all black
and blue tumbling down on them; and the stairs are worse yet; I used to
have to creep on them; and there is a soldier at every corner with a gun
and a sword to kill you, if you break any of the rules. I think a palace
is just like a prison!"
"Well done, my little Republican!" cried Uncle George.
"What is that?" said Rea.
"I know," said Jusy. "It is a person that does not wish to have any
king. There were Republicans in Italy; very bad men. Papa said they
ought to be killed. Why do you call Rea by that name, Uncle George?" and
Jusy straightened himself up like a soldier, and looked fierce.
Mr. Connor could hardly keep his face straight as he replied to Jusy:
"My dear boy the word does not mean anything bad in America; we are all
Republicans here. You know we do not have any king. We do not think that
is the best way to take care of a country."
"My papa thought it was the best way," haughtily answered Jusy. "I shall
think always as papa did."
"All right, my man," laughed Uncle George. "Perhaps you will. You can
think and say what you like while you live in America, and nobody will
put you in prison for your thoughts or your words, as they might if you
lived in Italy."
It was near night when they reached the house. As they drove slowly up
the long hill, the Chinamen were just going, on the same road, to their
supper. When they heard the sound of the wheels, they stepped off the
road, and formed themselves into a line to let the carriage pass, and to
get a peep at the children. They all knew about their coming, and were
curious to see them.
[Illustration: "The Chinamen were just going to their supper, and they
formed themselves into a line."--PAGE 60.]
When Rea caught sight of them, she screamed aloud, and shook with
terror, and hid her face on her uncle's shoulder.
"Are those the savages?" she cried. "Oh, don't let them kill Fairy;" and
she nearly smothered the little dog, crowding her down out of sight on
the seat between herself and her uncle.
Jusy did not say a word, but he turned pale; he also thought these must
be the savages of which they had heard.
Mr. Connor could hardly speak for laughing. "Who ever put such an idea
as that into your head?" he cried. "Those are men from China; those are
my workmen; they live at Connorloa all the time. They are very good men;
they would not hurt anybody. There are not any savages here."
"Caterina said America was all full of savages," sobbed Rea,--"savages
and wild beasts, such as lions and wolves."
"That girl was a fool," exclaimed Jim. "It was a good thing, Mr. George,
you told me not to bring her over."
"I should say so," replied Mr. Connor. "The idea of her trying to
frighten these children in that way. It was abominable."
"She did nothing of the kind," cried Jusy, his face very red. "She was
talking to her cousin; and she thought we were asleep; and Rea and I
listened; and I told Rea it was good enough for us to get so frightened
because we had listened. But I did not believe it so much as Rea did."
The Chinamen were all bowing and bending, and smiling in the gladness
of their hearts. Mr. Connor was a good master to them; and they knew it
would be to him great pleasure to have these little children in the
house.
While driving by he spoke to several of them by name, and they replied.
Jusy and Rea listened and looked.
"What are their heads made of, Uncle George?" whispered Rea. "Will they
break if they hit them?"
At first, Mr. Connor could not understand what she meant; then in a
moment he shouted with laughter.
Chinamen have their heads shorn of all hair, except one little lock at
the top; this is braided in a tight braid, like a whiplash, and hangs
down their backs, sometimes almost to the very ground. The longer this
queer little braid is, the prouder the Chinaman feels. All the rest of
his head is bare and shining smooth. They looked to Rea like the heads
of porcelain baby dolls she had had; and that those would break, she
knew by sad experience.
How pleased Rea and Jusy were with their beautiful rooms, and with
everything in their Uncle George's house, there are no words to tell.
They would have been very unreasonable and ungrateful children, if they
had not been; for Mr. Connor had not forgotten one thing which could add
to their comfort or happiness: books, toys, everything he could think
of, or anybody could suggest to him, he had bought. And when he led
little Rea into her bedroom, there stood a sweet-faced young Mexican
girl, to be her nurse.
"Anita," he said, "here is your young lady."
"I am very glad to see you, señorita," said the girl, coming forward to
take off Rea's hat; on which Rea exclaimed,--
"Why, she is Italian! That is what Caterina called me. And Caterina had
a sister whose name was Anita. How did you get over here?"
"I was born here, señorita," replied the girl.
"It is not quite the same word, Rea," said Mr. Connor, "though it sounds
so much like it. It was 'signorita' you were called in Italy; and it is
'señorita' that Anita here calls you. That is Spanish; and Anita speaks
much more Spanish than English. That is one reason I took her. I want
you to learn to speak in Spanish."
"Then we shall speak four languages," said Jusy proudly,--"Italian,
French, and English and Spanish. Our papa spoke eleven. That was one
reason he was so useful to the King. Nobody could come from any foreign
country that papa could not talk to. My papa said the more languages a
man spoke, the more he could do in the world. I shall learn all the
American languages before I go back to Italy. Are there as many as nine,
Uncle George?"
"Yes, a good many more," replied Uncle George. "Pretty nearly a language
for every State, I should say. But the fewer you learn of them the
better. If you will speak good English and Spanish, that is all you will
need here."
"Shall we not learn the language of the signors from China?" asked Rea.
At which Jim, who had followed, and was standing in the background,
looking on with delight, almost went into convulsions of laughter, and
went out and told the Chinamen in the kitchen that Miss Rea wished to
learn to speak Chinese at once. So they thought she must be a very nice
little girl, and were all ready to be her warm friends.
The next morning, as Rea was dressing, she heard a great caterwauling
and miaowing. Fairy, who was asleep on the foot of her bed, sprang up
and began to bark furiously; all the while, however, looking as if she
were frightened half to death. Never before had Fairy heard so many
cats' voices at once.
Rea ran to the open window; before she reached it, she heard Jusy
calling to her from below,--
"Rea! Rea! Are you up? Come out and see the cats."
Jusy had been up ever since light, roaming over the whole place: the
stables, the Chinamen's quarters, the tool-house, the kitchen, the
woodpile; there was nothing he had not seen; and he was in a state of
such delight he could not walk straight or steadily; he went on the run
and with a hop, skip, and jump from each thing to the next.
"Hurry, Rea!" he screamed. "Do hurry. Never mind your hair. Come down.
They'll be done!"
Still the miaowing and caterwauling continued.
"Oh, hurry, hurry, Anita," said Rea. "Please let me go down; I'll come
up to have my hair done afterwards. What is it, Anita? Is it really
cats? Are there a thousand?"
Anita laughed. "No, señorita," she said. "Only seventeen! And you will
see them every morning just the same. They always make this noise. They
are being fed; and there is only a very little meat for so many. Jim
keeps them hungry all the time, so they will hunt better."
"Hunt!" cried Rea.
"Yes," said Anita. "That is what we keep them for, to hunt the gophers
and rabbits and moles. They are clearing them out fast. Jim says by
another spring there won't be a gopher on the place."
[Illustration: THE CHINAMAN, AH FOO, FEEDING THE CATS--Page 70.]
Before she had finished speaking, Rea was downstairs and out on the east
veranda. At the kitchen door stood a Chinaman, throwing bits of meat to
the scrambling seventeen cats,--black, white, tortoise-shell, gray,
maltese, yellow, every color, size, shape of cat that was ever seen.
And they were plunging and leaping and racing about so, that it looked
like twice as many cats as there really were, and as if every cat had a
dozen tails. "Sfz! Sfz! Sputter! Scratch, spp, spt! Growl, growl, miaow,
miaow," they went, till, between the noise and the flying around, it was
a bedlam.
Jusy had laughed till the tears ran out of his eyes; and Ah Foo (that
was the Chinaman's name) was laughing almost as hard, just to see Jusy
laugh. The cats were an old story to Ah Foo; he had got over laughing at
them long ago.
Ah Foo was the cook's brother. While Jim had been away, Ah Foo had
waited at table, and done all the housework except the cooking. The
cook's name was Wang Hi. He was old; but Ah Foo was young, not more than
twenty. He did not like to work in the house, and he was glad Jim had
got home, so he could go to working out of doors again. He was very
glad, too, to see the children; and he had spoken so pleasantly to Jusy,
that in one minute Jusy had lost all his fear of Chinamen.
When Rea saw Ah Foo, she hung back, and was afraid to go nearer.
"Oh, come on! come on!" shouted Jusy. "Don't be afraid! He is just like
Jim, only a different color. They have men of all kinds of colors here
in America. They are just like other people, all but the color. Come
on, Rea. Don't be silly. You can't half see from there!"
But Rea was afraid. She would not come farther than the last pillar of
the veranda. "I can see very well here," she said; and there she stood
clinging to the pillar. She was half afraid of the cats, too, besides
being very much afraid of the Chinaman.
The cats' breakfast was nearly over. In fact, they had had their usual
allowance before Rea came down; but Ah Foo had gone on throwing out meat
for Rea to see the scrambling. Presently he threw the last piece, and
set the empty plate up on a shelf by the kitchen door. The cats knew
very well by this sign that breakfast was over; after the plate was set
on that shelf, they never had a mouthful more of meat; and it was droll
to see the change that came over all of them as soon as they saw this
done. In less than a second, they changed from fierce, fighting,
clawing, scratching, snatching, miaowing, spitting, growling cats, into
quiet, peaceful cats, some sitting down licking their paws, or washing
their faces, and some lying out full-length on the ground and rolling;
some walking off in a leisurely and dignified manner, as if they had had
all they wanted, and wouldn't thank anybody for another bit of meat, if
they could have it as well as not. This was almost as funny as the first
part of it.
After Ah Foo had set the plate in its place on the shelf, he turned to
go into the kitchen to help about the breakfast; but just as he had put
his hand on the door-handle, there came a terrible shriek from Rea, a
fierce sputter from one of the cats, and a faint bark of a dog, all at
once; and Ah Foo, looking around, sprang just in time to rescue Fairy
from the jaws of Skipper, one of the biggest and fiercest of the cats.
Poor little Fairy, missing her mistress, had trotted downstairs; and
smelling on the floor wherever Rea had set her feet, had followed her
tracks, and had reached the veranda just in time to be spied by Skipper,
who arched his back, set his tail up straight and stiff as a poker, and,
making one bound from the ground to the middle of the veranda floor,
clutched Fairy with teeth and claws, and would have made an end of her
in less than one minute if Ah Foo had not been there. But Ah Foo could
move almost as quickly as a cat; and it was not a quarter of a second
after Fairy gave her piteous cry, when she was safe and sound in her
mistress's arms, and Ah Foo had Skipper by the scruff of his neck, and
was holding him high up, boxing his ears, right and left, with blows so
hard they rang.
"Cat heap wicked," he said. "You killee missy's dog, I killee you!" and
he flung Skipper with all his might and main through the air.
Rea screamed, "Oh, don't!" She did not want to see the cat killed, even
if he had flown at Fairy. "It will kill him," she cried.
Ah Foo laughed. "Heap hard killee cat," he said. "Cat get nine time life
good;" and as he spoke, Skipper, after whirling through the air in
several somersaults, came down on his feet all right, and slunk off into
the woodpile.
"I tellee you," said Ah Foo, chuckling.
"Thatee isee heapee goodee manee," cried Jusy. "I havee learnee talkee
oneee language already!"
A roar of laughter came from the dining-room window. There stood Uncle
George, holding his sides.
"Bravo, Jusy!" he exclaimed. "You have begun on pigeon English, have
you, for the first of your nine languages?"
"Isn't that Chinese?" said Jusy, much crestfallen.
"Oh, no!" said Uncle George, "not by any manner of means. It is only the
Chinese way of talking English. It is called pigeon English. But come in
to breakfast now, and I will tell you all about my cats,--my hunting
cats, I call them. They are just as good as a pack of hunting dogs; and
better, for they do not need anybody to go with them."
How pleasant the breakfast-table looked!--a large square table set with
gay china, pretty flowers in the middle, nice broiled chicken and fried
potatoes, and baked apples and cream; and Jusy's and Rea's bright faces,
one on Mr. Connor's left hand, the other on his right.
As Jim moved about the table and waited on them, he thought to himself,
"Now, if this doesn't make Mr. George well, it will be because he can't
be cured."
Jim had found the big house so lonely, with nobody in it except Mr.
Connor and the two Chinese servants, he would have been glad to see
almost anything in the shape of a human being,--man, woman, or
child,--come there to live. How much more, then, these two beautiful and
merry children!
Jusy and Rea thought they had never in all their lives tasted anything
so good as the broiled chicken and the baked apples.
"Heapee goodee cookee, Uncle George!" said Jusy. He was so tickled with
the Chinaman's way of talking, he wanted to keep doing it.
"Tooee muchee putee onee letter e, Master Jusy," said Uncle George.
"After you have listened to their talk a little longer, you will see
that they do not add the 'ee' to every word. It is hard to imitate them
exactly."
Jusy was crestfallen. He thought he had learned a new language in half
an hour, and he was proud of it. But no new language was ever learned
without more trouble and hard work than that; not even pigeon English!
[Illustration: decorative panel]*
[Illustration: decorative panel]*
III.
It had come about by chance, Mr. Connor's keeping this pack of hunting
cats. He had been greatly troubled by gophers and rabbits: the gophers
killed his trees by gnawing their roots; the rabbits burrowed under his
vines, ate the tender young leaves, and gnawed the stems.
Jim had tried every device,--traps of all kinds and all the poisons he
could hear of. He had also tried drowning the poor little gophers out
by pouring water down their holes. But, spite of all he could do, the
whole hill was alive with them. It had been wild ground so long, and
covered so thick with bushes, that it had been like a nice house built
on purpose for all small wild animals to live in.
I suppose there must have been miles of gophers' underground tunnels,
leading from hole to hole. They popped their heads up, and you saw them
scampering away wherever you went; and in the early morning it was very
funny to see the rabbits jumping and leaping to get off out of sight
when they heard people stirring. They were of a beautiful gray color,
with a short bushy tail, white at the end. On account of this white tip
to their tails, they are called "cotton-tails."