She had been the children’s kitten; had been petted and played with
and had free run of the living-rooms. She could never forget those
wonderful days--and the room there--just the other side of the
threshold, where no hen or cock, cow or horse, not even Box himself,
ever set foot--where only “humans” came. Old as she was, it still
lingered in her memory.
Often during the chill of spring or the frost of winter she would see
it hovering above her, dreamlike, with its endless bowls of milk and
its everlasting summer.
The days of luxury had lasted little more than a month; after that the
command was “Get out!” And with boot and broomstick she was ruthlessly
expelled.
“Grey Puss is such a thief!” complained the housewife.... “She is
always after the meat and cream on the kitchen table. Grey Puss
_steals_ ... we can’t have her in the house!”
What did she know about human laws? What were meat and cream meant for
if not for a cat?... She took what she could; it was her nature.
After being expelled from the house she began to avoid people; soon
the habit became second nature. From the house she was chased to
the farmyard, from the farmyard to the cow-stall.... The smoke from
the chimney was now the only thing in sight to remind her of her
childhood’s luxury.
She was often to be found of a summer morning basking in the sun
outside the stall. Together with the other she-cats of the farm she lay
here giving suck to a motherless kitten. They shared the child between
them, and fed it alternately, listening the while for the return of the
milk-cart from the fields.
Now they hear it in the distance--yes, that is old Whitefoot’s trot!
And soon afterwards it rattles and bumps into the yard. All the cats’
tails rise straight in the air like trees; their legs grow quite
stiff--the great event of the day is at hand.
The cart has barely stopped before they are up in it; they must
immediately sniff the odour of the sweet, fresh milk.
The foreman of the dairy gives them a little in a bowl to share among
them....
But the bowl is soon licked dry--and now they are on the lookout to get
whatever they can.
The moment the dairyman puts aside an empty pail, a cat pops in like
a flash, head first, and licks it clean to the last drop; they leap up
and hang by their forepaws to the dripping milk-sieve; they do anything
and everything to secure a taste of the delicious milk.
They all allow the foreman to lift them up by the tail; they only
straddle their legs....
“Puss, puss!” cries the good fellow affectionately as he raises them;
and adds to a wondering onlooker, “They know I won’t hurt them!”
Yes, so shamelessly did they soil themselves with milk, that afterwards
they spent hours and hours washing each other clean and dry.
She felt now so utterly out of touch with all that,--that _she_ could
have been a party to such goings on! To permit herself to be lifted up
by the tail--and then, actually, to wash another cat’s kitten!
She still went regularly to the farm, usually in the early morning or
the late evening. But she never ventured out into the open yard, and
was in general very shy of showing herself. She preferred to stand up
in the hayloft and peep through the trap-door into the stall; but the
moment she caught a glimpse of a “human” she vanished instantly.
Whenever one of the farm hands came up to fetch hay or straw for the
cows and caught her unawares, she would hiss at him. Nevertheless, the
foreman, who was fond of cats, always put a little milk in the loft for
her; it remained invariably untouched during the day, but at night it
was drunk up.
“Hanged if I know what is the matter with Grey Puss!” he often muttered
to himself. “I wonder if Box has been chasing her ... she’s so scared;
she’s more like a wild cat, the little fool!”
Yes, _wild_ she had been for a long time! From the cow-stall she
retreated to the loft, where she learned to hide among the beams and
rafters. She got into the habit of climbing trees, walking up and down
thatched roofs, and sleeping behind chimney-stacks.
And as time went on she became more and more peculiar....
She was not like the other farm cats, who let their children be
drowned litter after litter, without doing anything more heroic than
miauw over their corpses. No, she allowed _that_ to happen once, after
which she understood that she had hidden her kittens badly! Of course
they could not be expected to escape by themselves!
The next time she had young she hid them deep down under a heap of
straw; but the foreman’s small boys, who always played in the loft,
heard their squealing and fished them out--and then they were murdered.
One only was left, overlooked in the straw.
Most other she-cats would have been grateful for the survivor and
forgotten the rest. But _she_ did not forget; she went about seeking
and seeking, miauwing and complaining incessantly. Finally she took the
one kitten in her mouth and carried it away to an empty dovecote in a
deserted labourer’s cottage. Here it grew up without seeing a single
“human.” Until one fine morning it was killed by Box....
Now, this spring, when she is once more to have kittens, she hides
inside the old hollow willow out here in the fields.
No living soul shall find her young _this_ time!