Among the wheat, which is now almost ripe, flame the poppy-torches ...
the blue-stalked corn is so thickly massed that Grey Puss disappears
completely in its depths.
The seething of the rye from the adjacent field fills her sensitive
ear; it is the keynote of the summer music.
Out on the grass between the heaps of hay Box sits majestically on his
tail. He has accompanied the men working in the fields, and he feels
himself one of them, especially taking into consideration the important
nature of his sentry duty.
He has just been trying to facilitate the farmer’s ploughing by digging
a deep hole in search of a mole. But the ground is too dry and the
work on the whole too tedious--he doesn’t care about it any more! Then,
far away out on the road he sees a man walking, and so barks at him for
a time.
In this manner he is constantly useful!
At last he feels he would like a trot round.... Scarcely has he crossed
the potato-field when two partridges come running towards him. Wow! he
is upon them with a jump--and after them in the direction in which they
shoot away on their stiff, short wings!
Then he catches sight of an animal emerging from the corn. It creeps
along, its body close to the ground.... It smells, he notices; ha, cat
... cat!
Box has forgotten the partridges and races after puss. But it is
difficult for him to make progress, for the corn is thick and is higher
than the cat’s back. Only with extreme difficulty is he able to follow
the scent.
Grey Puss for the time takes things easily.... She canters quietly
away from the direction of the burial-mound. Several times she passes
ditches and bunches of thistles where she could easily have lain in
ambush and attacked the dog; but she knows Box well enough from old
times, and does not take the pursuit very seriously.
For a time they play hide-and-seek; then the affair bores her, and she
turns and makes a bee-line for home.
The children, not realizing the state of affairs, swarm out to meet her.
They see gliding towards them a daylight-coloured dog with big lumps of
night stuck to its coat. Its legs move very quickly, and its tail whips
and whistles like the wind. It comes with wide-open jaws, and tongue
hanging out of its mouth. “Ha, ha, ha!” it gasps, as with half-shut
eyes it sniffs eagerly through its big, split, padded snout.
Box suddenly sees the kittens. He literally quivers with ferocity; but
before he can reach them the entrance-hole is deserted.
For a long time he remains standing outside, barking and scratching up
the ground--then he rushes home to the farm and whines and jumps about;
he has something to tell--and he makes a jump towards the field; he has
seen cats out there, cats of _all_ colours!
Grey Puss pondered a while over the occurrence--this Box, near whose
kennel she used to sleep, on whose straw she had lain, and whose food
she had sometimes shared, what did he want here sniffing at their
mound? She could easily understand all the others, her natural enemies
in the fields; but this dog, who, like she, had once been in favour
with “the cunning ones”--was he friend or was he foe?
* * * * *
One still, sunny morning she lies by herself at the edge of a ditch,
listening to the cows’ eternal chewing of the cud, when the sound
suddenly ceases.
She wonders why the cows stop eating--and when, in addition, one or two
of them begin to run about, she puts up her head--and sees Box lurch
out of the corn towards her....
During the whole of the week she has been persecuted by the dog and
chased about like a fox. Just as well have it out with him now as later!
For awhile she retreats before him, but upon reaching a small mound
she sits and composedly awaits her pursuer.
The plump hooligan, who has lost sight of his quarry behind the waving
grass, comes along, his nose close to the ground, fully occupied with
following the scent....
So unexpectedly has Grey Puss changed her tactics that he cannot make
up his mind to stop, but swerves to one side as if about to run past.
She turns as he swings round, thus keeping her face steadily to the
foe....
It is quite a new experience for Box to see a cat sit and wait to be
taken in his jaws.
He prefaces his attack with a volley of hoarse dog-oaths....
Grey Puss stands with head low and mouth open; dull thunder rumbles
from her throat, and her tail whips restlessly from side to side....
Box, who is unfortunate enough to have the sun full in his eyes, opens
his jaws wide and makes a ferocious snap; which the cat evades with a
high jump which terminates on his back. Facing backwards on him, she
lets fly with fore and back claws simultaneously, combing his flesh
time after time from neck to tail.
He howls, and shakes himself, and throws himself down, and rolls over
and over; but the moment he rises to his feet, Grey Puss is on his back
again.
The ruthless cat-exterminator is driven almost out of his wits with
pain, and rushes blindly away, burning with lust for revenge, and
raging impotently at such treatment from a much-despised cat, whom he
now tries to convince in a plaintive whine that he never meant the
slightest harm.
Twice he succeeds in shaking off the vile she-devil; but she is utterly
relentless--and so, when the old manure-well appears in sight, he turns
there instinctively for help. Without hesitation he tears at the crazy
lid with his strong, sharp claws--and plunges through head first, while
Grey Puss hops off like the flick of a whip.
A dull plash follows, and a tall spurt of red-brown fluid, emitting an
insufferable smell, rises behind him....
Grey Puss sneaks round the opening listening to his splashings; then
when no more Box appears, she returns straight home to her kittens.