A FIVE O’CLOCK CATNIP TEA
When Purrington was started there were a great many who thought that it
must fail. Cats who would not join the pilgrims to the new city sat on
back fences and mewed over the certain disappointment awaiting those who
went, sometimes spitting in their wrath that any cat should be so
foolish as to go on such a wild-goose chase after happiness, just as
human folk croak over other people’s experiments. It is too much to
expect that cats can always be better than human beings, at least that
all cats can.
But Purrington was not a failure; on the contrary it was a great
success; and, when it had been built in two weeks, and everything was in
running order, and the Purrers were quite sure that their plan was
working well, Bidelia and Madam Laura resolved to give a tea to
celebrate the founding of the city.
A great many ladies had come to the town by this time, so there was no
trouble about getting together plenty of guests for the tea. Doctor
Thomas Traddles’s school was by this time grown to thirty scholars, for
most of the ladies who had moved to Purrington, like Bidelia, brought
with them two or three children—and one came to town with five kittens!
The cards to the tea were issued three days in advance, and were
delivered at each house—there were more houses built by this time to
shelter all the new arrivals—by a small, gray cat called Posty, whose
duty it was to deliver the mails and to keep the post-office.
[Illustration:
“One came to town with five kittens.”]
[Illustration:
“A small, gray cat called Posty.”]
The cards ran thus: “Mrs. Bidelia Purplay requests the pleasure of your
company to tea on June 10th, from four to six. Music.”
There was not a cat omitted in these invitations, because the founders
of Purrington had talked the matter over in private and had agreed that
it would never do to allow any division and jealousy in the town such as
is caused by social sets, and one person looking down upon another, and
snubbing him. It was not easy for Ban-Ban, Kiku-san, Bidelia, and Tommy
Traddles to bring themselves to treat everybody exactly alike, for there
is nothing on earth so lofty by nature as a cat, and these four had been
used only to fashionable society. However, they made up their minds that
they must do whatever was for the general good, and treat all the
Purrers of Purrington with the same neighbourly kindness.
Bidelia hoped that by having her tea continue from four to six she would
escape crowding her parlour, in which there was not any too much room;
but, by five minutes to four, there was a stirring in the streets, heads
poking out of windows and doors to see if any one were starting, and
before the French clock on Bidelia’s parlour cabinet had struck
half-past four, all her guests had arrived.
Of course nobody would have missed this first social event in Purrington
for their whiskers, but there had been a good deal said from one to
another about Bidelia’s giving a tea. Nobody seemed to think that tea
would be very enjoyable.
“It’s all very well to be fashionable,” said the mother of the five
kittens—Daisy Bell was her name—“but tea! Whoever heard of a cat that
would so much as smell of tea? I should have thought that Mrs. Bidelia
Purplay could have found something better to have asked us to than tea!
I told my eldest daughter not to be surprised if I came home down sick.
Tea! Of all things!”
This was said as Daisy Bell came to the tea—one of the very earliest to
arrive she was, too, in spite of her dislike for tea—and her neighbour,
Mrs. Blotch, to whom she was talking, fully agreed with her.
Judge, then, the pleasure of these ladies when, on entering Bidelia’s
house, a strong odour of catnip met their twitching noses. Here is where
breeding tells; Daisy Bell’s manners were not proof against this
surprise and the tempting odour.
“Dear me!” she cried, as she came in,—before she had so much as inquired
after her hostess’s children, mind you,—“Dear me! How strong that catnip
smells! Are you giving a catnip tea? I wouldn’t have dreaded coming if
I’d have known that!”
“Did you dread coming?” inquired Bidelia, pleasantly. “I am very sorry.
Of course it is a catnip tea. I never thought of stating it on my cards,
because I thought everybody would understand. A Five O’Clock Catnip Tea.
Why, of course it is. What other kind of a tea would I care to give, or
you care to come to?”
“No other kind,” said Daisy Bell, promptly. “What do we do?”
“If you will go into my bedroom you will find Puttel there to take your
things, and help you in any little way that you may need help; she acts
as my maid to-day. Then, when your fur is arranged and you are quite
ready, if you will be so kind as to come back to me I will take you to
the dining-room. Madam Laura is good enough to pour for me to-day.”
Daisy Bell did not know what Bidelia meant by pouring for her, but she
kept silent, for there was something in little Bidelia’s easy and
gracious manner that made Daisy Bell, and Mrs. Blotch, too, conscious
that they had not her advantages of education and social experience.
They had not got their things off and their fur smoothed down, and their
ribbons retied, before other ladies came, and still others, until
Bidelia’s small bedroom was crowded, and Puttel had to give the first
comers a hint to go out to her mother, for everybody seemed to dread to
make the first move to go back to the parlour.
In the meantime the gentlemen had been arriving, hardly less prompt than
the ladies, which is not strange, because it was curiosity that brought
them all so early, and cats are the most curious of creatures, the
gentlemen just as curious as the ladies among them—wherein they are very
different, you know, from human creatures.
Bidelia was busy receiving her guests, and ushering them out to the
dining-room, where Madam Laura was pouring catnip tea at the table out
of a very big urn indeed. The table was beautifully set with charming
saucers and plates of glass and silver, and decorated with bunches of
catnip in the centre and at each corner, connected by long loops of
sky-blue ribbon. There were thin slices of cold meat, little cakes of
puppy biscuits, cut into fancy shapes, crackers, cheese, cream in a
large bowl, like a punch-bowl on a side-table, and ice-cream—melted
ice-cream, of course, as all sensible people with good, catlike tastes
prefer it.
Bidelia had cups for the catnip tea which had come down to her from her
greatest of grandmothers, nobody knows how many generations ago, for the
cups were nearly a hundred years old, and in a hundred years cats lay by
a great length of grandmothers. These cups were small at the bottom and
flaring at the top, like little bowls, and they had no handles. They
were a grayish china, with dark blue border and little sprigs of dark
blue flowers in the bottoms, which the guests could not see until they
had lapped up their tea to the last drop.
Dolly Varden handed around tea and the other refreshments. The crowd
grew so great that there was not room after awhile to set the cups on
the floor. Ever so many were waiting to be served, and one could see
from their rising fur that this was annoying them dreadfully.
Tommy Traddles saw this, too, and he whispered to Bidelia.
“Certainly,” she said aloud, and Tommy Traddles turned to the guests.
“Our hostess has provided us with an entertainment, in which I have the
honour to be of some assistance, as the master of the Purrington
school,” he said. “When you have enjoyed sufficiently the hospitality of
this room will you please go out upon the lawn, where the music
announced on the cards of invitation will be given.”
The instant Doctor Traddles had finished speaking more than half the
guests hastened out on the lawn, anxious to secure the best places to
see and hear, for cats do not always behave unselfishly; perhaps they
have followed the bad example of human beings, of whom a few are always
trying to get the best of everything for themselves.
Here the fond and proud parents found all the kittens of Purrington,
little girls and little boys, drawn up in a row, their eyes as bright as
they could be, their noses quivering with nervous impatience, and their
little tails all straight up in the air above their backs like so many
fur-covered slate-pencils. The kittens all wore ribbons crossed under
the left foreleg and tied in a bow on the right shoulder. The boys wore
pink, the girls blue ribbons, and the scholars who had done well in
school had each a little silvered bell tied around the throat by a
narrow ribbon, matching in colour the wider one around the shoulder.
The murmurs that arose from the guests on the lawn reached the ears of
those remaining in the dining-room, who hastily finished their catnip
tea and swallowed their last bites of cold meat and puppy biscuit cakes,
lapped the final drops of their ice-cream, and hurried after the ladies
and gentlemen on the lawn.
“Dear friends,” said Bidelia in a faint little voice, for she was
frightened to speak to so many cats, all with their eyes fixed on her
and with their tails slightly waving. “Dear friends, with Doctor
Traddles’s help I have got together our blessed kittens to help me
entertain you, and to prove what great progress they are making in
school. First, my dancing class will show you a figure, a new figure, in
the cotillion. It is called: The Chase of the Tails.”
’Clipsy, who, being black, had a natural talent for music, and
particularly for playing the violin, took his place with his fiddle over
his shoulder, precisely as you see the cat in “High, Diddle, Diddle.”
Nearly all the kittens stepped out into the middle of the lawn, stuck
their tails out straight, and waited. ’Clipsy played a few bars softly
and then dashed into a lively air, that made every eye in the place
spread its pupil ’way to the beginning of its white line, so exciting
was this music.
[Illustration:
The Dance.]
Instantly every kitten made a rapid, low bow, and then danced a few
steps to the right, a few to the left, leaped into the air, turned its
soft body half-way around as it came down, and slapped at its own tail
with its right forepaw. The music changed into other time, and with it
the dancing steps of the kittens changed also. Swinging and swaying, the
kittens began to spin around after their tails, keeping perfect time to
the exciting music, whirling faster and faster, until all one could see
were so many soft, varied-coloured balls of graceful kits, spinning,
dashing, running, skipping, snatching after the tails that they never
quite caught, never losing the swing of the dance, never losing the fun
of the thing, until all the cats looking on were quite wild themselves
with the delight of it and pride in their children. Fancy, if one kitten
running after its tail is funny and charming, what it must have been to
have seen twenty-two kittens, in a circle, trying to catch their tails
in a mazy dance, perfectly performed!
“We’ve had the time of our lives!” cried Posty, jumping up in the air
himself, and giving a wild mew, because he could not help doing it.
“Let us give Mrs. Bidelia a vote of thanks,” proposed Ban-Ban,
remembering how he had been publicly thanked for bringing the cow into
Purrington.
“Three cheers instead!” cried Wutz-Butz, who wanted to let off steam in
some way.
The three cheers were instantly given, for all the cats felt precisely
as Wutz-Butz did, that they must give vent to their feelings, so wrought
up by the dance, or fly into small pieces on the spot.
Bidelia dropped a beautiful curtsey. “Thank you, dear friends,” she
said. “I am glad that you consider our first social event in Purrington
a success. Before you go will you join in a song? The kittens will lead
us, because they know it best.”
A large kitten, whose voice was already changing from soprano to tenor,
started the air of “Old Kentucky Home,” in which all the kittens, and
most of the cats, joined at once, singing the following words:
“We are cosy ev’ry night,
And we’re happy ev’ry day,
In this Pussy-town we call Purrington;
We have just enough of work,
And we’ve just enough of play
To keep us ever purring on.
_Chorus_: “Then hasten, all ye pussies,
Oh, come, our joy to see.
For we’re happy little kits,
And we’ve danced ourselves to bits,
In honour of Bidelia’s Catnip Tea.
“In the world we’ve left behind
Where the houses grow in blocks,
We were often far from safe and warm,
And the hands that ought to stroke,
Sometimes gave us cruel knocks;
But in Purrington we’re out of reach of harm.
_Chorus_: “Then sing aloud, dear pussies,
And purr your joy and glee!
For here we’ve made a home,
Whence we never more will roam,
And we’re grateful for Bidelia’s Catnip Tea.”
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