V.

My Dear Helen:

I am sure you must have wondered why I have not written to you for the

last two weeks, but when you hear what I have been through, you will

only wonder that I am alive to write to you at all. I was very glad to

hear your mother say, yesterday, that she had not written to you about

what had happened to me, because it would make you so unhappy. But now

that it is all over, and I am in a fair way to be soon as well as ever,

I think you will like to hear the whole story.

In my last letter I told you about the new black cat, Caesar, who had

come to live in the Nelson house, and how anxious I was to know him. As

soon as my nose was fit to be seen, Judge Dickinson's cat, who is a

good, hospitable old soul, in spite of her stupidity, invited me to tea,

and asked him too. All the other cats were asked to come later in the

evening, and we had a grand frolic, hunting rats in the Judge's great

barn. Caesar is certainly the handsomest and most gentlemanly cat I

ever saw. He paid me great attention: in fact, so much, that one of

those miserable half-starved cats from Mill Valley grew so jealous that

she flew at me and bit my ear till it bled, which broke up the party.

But Caesar went home with me, so I did not care; then we sat and talked a

long time under the nursery window. I was so much occupied in what he

was saying, that I did not hear Mary open the window overhead, and was

therefore terribly frightened when there suddenly came down on us a

whole pailful of water. I was so startled that I lost all presence of

mind; and without bidding him good-night, I jumped directly into the

cellar window by which we were sitting. Oh, my dear Helen, I can never

give you any idea of what followed. Instead of coming down as I expected

to on the cabbages, which were just under that window the last time I

was in the cellar, I found myself sinking, sinking, into some horrible

soft, slimy, sticky substance, which in an instant more would have

closed over my head, and suffocated me; but, fortunately, as I sank, I

felt something hard at one side, and making a great effort, I caught on

it with my claws. It proved to be the side of a barrel, and I succeeded

in getting one paw over the edge of it. There I hung, growing weaker and

weaker every minute, with this frightful stuff running into my eyes and

ears, and choking me with its bad smell. I mewed as loud as I could,

which was not very loud, for whenever I opened my mouth the stuff

trickled into it off my whiskers; but I called to Caesar, who stood in

great distress at the window, and explained to him, as well as I could,

what had happened to me, and begged him to call as loudly as possible;

for if somebody did not come very soon, and take me out, I should

certainly die. He insisted, at first, on jumping down to help me

himself; but I told him that would be the most foolish thing he could

do; if he did, we should certainly both be drowned. So he began to mew

at the top of his voice, and between his mewing and mine, there was

noise enough for a few minutes; then windows began to open, and I heard

your grandfather swearing and throwing out a stick of wood at Caesar;

fortunately he was so near the house that it did not hit him. At last

your grandfather came downstairs, and opened the back door; and Caesar

was so frightened that he ran away, for which I have never thought so

well of him since, though we are still very good friends. When I heard

him running off, and calling back to me, from a distance, that he was so

sorry he could not help me, my courage began to fail, and in a moment

more, I should have let go of the edge of the barrel, and sunk to the

bottom; but luckily your grandfather noticed that there was something

very strange about my mewing, and opened the door at the head of the

cellar stairs, saying, "I do believe the cat is in some trouble down

here." Then I made a great effort and mewed still more piteously. How I

wished I could call out and say, "Yes, indeed, I am; drowning to death,

in I'm sure I don't know what, but something a great deal worse than

water!" However, he understood me as it was, and came down with a lamp.

As soon as he saw me, he set the lamp down on the cellar bottom, and

laughed so that he could hardly move. I thought this was the most cruel

thing I ever heard of. If I had not been, as it were, at death's door, I

should have laughed at him, too, for even with my eyes full of that

dreadful stuff, I could see that he looked very funny in his red

night-cap, and without his teeth. He called out to Mary, and your

mother, who stood at the head of the stairs, "Come down, come down;

here's the cat in the soft-soap barrel!" and then he laughed again, and

they both came down the stairs laughing, even your dear kind mother, who

I never could have believed would laugh at any one in such trouble. They

did not seem to know what to do at first; nobody wanted to touch me; and

I began to be afraid I should drown while they stood looking at me, for

I knew much better than they could how weak I was from holding on to the

edge of the barrel so long. At last your grandfather swore that oath of

his,--you know the one I mean, the one he always swears when he is very

sorry for anybody,--and lifted me out by the nape of my neck, holding me

as far off from him as he could, for the soft soap ran off my legs and

tail in streams. He carried me up into the kitchen, and put me down in

the middle of the floor, and then they all stood round me, and laughed

again, so loud that they waked up the cook, who came running out of

her bedroom with her tin candlestick and a chair in her hand, thinking

that robbers were breaking in. At last your dear mother said, "Poor

pussy, it is too bad to laugh at you, when you are in such pain" (I had

been thinking so for some time). "Mary, bring the small washtub. The

only thing we can do is to wash her."

When I heard this, I almost wished they had left me to drown in the soft

soap; for if there is any thing of which I have a mortal dread, it is

water. However, I was too weak to resist; and they plunged me in all

over, into the tub full of ice-cold water, and Mary began to rub me

with her great rough hands, which, I assure you, are very different from

yours and your mother's. Then they all laughed again to see the white

lather it made; in two minutes the whole tub was as white as the water

under the mill-wheel that you and I have so often been together to see.

You can imagine how my eyes smarted. I burnt my paws once in getting a

piece of beefsteak out of the coals where it had fallen off the

gridiron, but the pain of that was nothing to this. You will hardly

believe me when I tell you that they had to empty the tub and fill it

again ten times before the soap was all washed out of my fur. By that

time I was so cold and exhausted, that I could not move, and they began

to think I should die. But your mother rolled me up in one of your old

flannel petticoats, and made a nice bed for me behind the stove. By this

time even Mary began to seem sorry for me, though she was very cross at

first, and hurt me much more than she need to in washing me; now she

said, "You're nothing but a poor beast of a cat, to be sure; but it's

mesilf that would be sorry to have the little mistress come back, and

find ye kilt." So you see your love for me did me service, even when

you were so far away. I doubt very much whether they would have ever

taken the trouble to nurse me through this sickness, except for your

sake. But I must leave the rest for my next letter. I am not strong

enough yet to write more than two hours at a time.

Your affectionate Pussy.

[Illustration: "Judge Dickinson's cat, who is a good hospitable old

soul, in spite of her stupidity, invited me to tea, and asked Caesar

too."--Page 60.]

[Illustration: "When there suddenly came down on us a whole pailful

of water." Page 61.]

[Illustration: "He lifted me out by the nape of my neck, holding me

as far off from him as he could."--Page 68.]