WEDDING-BELLS AND BRIEF FAREWELLS
There’s nothing harder than deciding on how to have a good time when one
deliberately sets out to have one. A good time seems to be a fine sort
of thief, which must come upon one unawares and steal away heaviness of
heart.
Having made up their minds to giving back Ban-Ban and Kiku-san to Rob
and Lois, except for the weekly visit to Purrington which all four had
pledged themselves to make, and having resolved on having the very best
kind of time until the close of that day when their guests and the
beloved cats started for their first home, the Purrers did not know how
to begin having it. They were in danger of standing around discussing
what to do instead of pitching into the good time without delay, just as
children sometimes do, when something happened.
Down the road that led to Purrington two dots were seen moving nearer.
When they had come decidedly nearer the two dots turned into two cats
hurrying along. One was snowy white, as the sunshine revealed, and the
other was a Maltese.
“Here come your doubles, Ban and Kiku!” cried Bidelia.
[Illustration:
“Had often sat on a big volume of Shakespeare.”]
The Purrers were quite used by this time to the arrival of strangers
coming out from the human city to seek the peace and safety of
Purrington, but this pair looked very different from most of the
arrivals. The refugees who joined the Purrers were more than likely to
come with “lean and hungry look,” like Cassius. Indeed Tommy Traddles,
who had often sat on a big volume of Shakespeare during his youth, and
who thus had learned to know the poet well, named one of these strangers
Cassius for that reason. But this pair of cats arriving now were glossy,
sleek, plump, and most elegant to behold, and the Purrers wondered at
them as they waved their paws, making them welcome and signalling them
to enter the gates of the city.
The Maltese cat came up to the Purrers with a jaunty air. He was
strikingly like Ban-Ban, with the same short, Maltese-kind of nose and
the same up-and-coming air which the Founder wore, but the Purrers and
Lois and Rob thought he was not quite as beautiful in figure.
The white cat accompanying him hung back shyly. She had a less delicate
face, more chubby than Kiku-san’s, but she had his gentle air.
“Gentlemen, your servant,” said the Maltese cat, bowing to the Purrers
with an impressive air, and expressing himself in a manner which at once
betrayed the fact that he had lived with a family where English classics
were read aloud. “My name is Ods Bobs, gentlemen; it is a name as old as
the reign of Queen Elizabeth. This lady is called Lady Blanche. We lived
in the same house in town; one of us had been brought up by one old
maiden sister, the other by the other. Lady Blanche and I were looking
forward to being married and living happily ever after, looking forward
to spending our lives together to their end, just as we had spent them
together thus far from kittenhood, when—imagine our horror!—I learned
that the person who had brought me up intended sending me away to her
brother’s little girl, while Lady Blanche stayed on with her protector!
It was not possible to submit to such a fate! We made up our minds to
run away; of course to run away together. And where were we so likely to
run as to Purrington, of which we had heard such glowing accounts from
other cats? So we came; here we are! Will you receive us among you?”
“Gladly,” cried all the Purrers.
“Isn’t that the very strangest thing, that another Maltese cat and this
little white lady should come here just when we are taking away Ban-Ban
and Kiku-san?” whispered Lois to Rob. “It looks as if they had come to
take their places,” she added, as Rob nodded his assent to her question.
“Then we will gladly stay,” Ods Bobs went on. “But one thing more. We
were to have had a pretty wedding on the day after to-morrow—no end of
guests were invited. We can get on without the guests and the
prettiness, but we should like a wedding, and to set up housekeeping for
ourselves at once. Can we be married here?”
The Purrers looked at one another, puzzled. There had been no demand for
such a thing before, and they were at a loss how to answer. Then they
looked at Rob for a suggestion.
“I think the mayor can marry them,” Rob began, slowly, but was
interrupted by Bidelia’s little excited mew as she ran over to throw her
paws around Lady Blanche’s neck, who was blushing till the tip of her
pink nose was rosy red.
“The mayor!” cried Bidelia. “Tommy Traddles—the very thing! We’ll give
you the loveliest wedding, my dear! Come, Laura! Come, all lady Purrers,
and the kittens! We must gather quantities of catnip and make garlands
for the hall. And order all the ribbon there is at the shop. Won’t you
come with us, Lady Blanche; we shall want to ask you something every
five minutes. Why, you’re not much older than my girls!”
“I’m nine months old,” said Lady Blanche, through her blushes.
“Puttel and Dolly Varden are six months old—I’m only eighteen months old
myself. We’ll have a lovely wedding! I wish my husband was here, but he
won’t come for a month. He went to the country with the family he owns
very early this year, and hasn’t got back. Come along, my dears,” said
Bidelia, hurrying away.
The Purrers had never seen Bidelia so excited, and the gentlemen of the
place looked at one another, feeling very useless indeed, as the ladies
ran off, attended by all the kittens.
“I think we ought to offer to help them,” said Lois. “Rob, Ban-Ban,
Kiku-san dearie, let us go after them and ask Bidelia if we can’t help
trim the hall.”
It seemed queer to ask such a small cat as Bidelia if she couldn’t make
use of them in some way, but the children were getting used to queer
things, and to taking the lower place with cats, as mere mortals should.
Bidelia said if they would wait until the kittens came back with the
catnip, which they had gone to gather in the Public Gardens, she would
be willing to let them help twist the garlands and hang them around the
hall. Bidelia took the lead in these arrangements, as she was most
fitted to do, by reason of her youth and taste, as well as her
experience.
“How often we shall talk over these wonderful happenings in Purrington
after we get home, you and I, and our two Blessings,” observed Lois, as
they waited for the catnip.
“We shall not talk to you—or rather you won’t understand us—between our
visits to Purrington,” Ban-Ban reminded her. “You understand us a little
when you’re at home—you often can tell what we want—but we can’t talk
together like this outside of Pussy-Cat Town.”
“I’ve been trying to think of everything I want to say to you before we
leave here to-night,” Kiku-san added.
“Oh, how horrid!” cried Lois, who had forgotten this rule, and had been
looking forward to long talks with Kiku after they were tucked away for
the night.
“It will only make us enjoy our visits to Purrington the more,” said
Rob, wisely. And then the kittens came bringing the catnip, and they all
fell to work weaving the slender leaves and blossoms into wreaths and
garlands.
In a short time the hall was beautifully hung with green, and the odour
that filled it would have made one of those calico cats, stuffed with
batting, turn a somersault. When the hall was trimmed Bidelia, never
stopping to admire her own handiwork, ran off with her kittens at her
heels to make her own toilet and her children’s, and to summon the
wedding guests.
Not a Purrer was lacking to the “large and fashionable gathering which
filled the hall,” as _The Weekly Mews_, Purrington’s paper, stated when
it appeared on the following Saturday.
’Clipsy played beautifully on his fiddle as the bridal procession
approached. Rob remembered having once seen a picture of a Puritan
wedding, in which the bride was represented as riding on a splendid
snow-white bull. So the Purrers, acting on this hint, had got Brindle to
allow Lady Blanche to ride to her wedding on Brindle’s back, and the
effect of the very small snow-white bride clinging to big Brindle’s
ridge-poled back was most impressive. The groom walked at the cow’s
side, strutting along as proud as a cat, a duke, and a peacock, all
rolled into one—and well he might be, for the Lady Blanche was lovely.
Tommy Traddles stood on the platform waiting the bridal procession. It
entered the hall, preceded by Puttel and Dolly Varden, in immense white
bows, as bridesmaids, and following them came Nugget, also in a white
bow bigger, far, than his head, scattering catnip blossoms before the
happy couple’s softly falling, padded feet.
It was a most beautiful sight, and a deep purr rolled around the hall as
the Purrers gazed admiringly at this first wedding in Purrington.
Rob had drawn up the marriage service, which was brief and simple.
[Illustration:
“It was a most beautiful sight.”]
“Do you promise, Ods Bobs,” Doctor Traddles asked, “to keep this cat
provided with mice all her life? To protect her from dampness,
crossness, and all other things she wouldn’t like, just as far as you
can? And to love her until she is white, not with this beautiful young
whiteness she has now, but with the whiteness of old age?”
“I promise,” said Ods Bobs, in a deep voice.
“And do you, Lady Blanche, promise to nurse and lick this cat if he gets
ill, to keep his house, and cook his mice and his catnip as he likes
them, and to love him always, and not to spit at him, or scratch him
ever, but be a good wife until you die?”
“I promise,” mewed Lady Blanche so faintly that Tommy Traddles had to
bend down to hear whether she said: “I promise,” or “I prefer mice.”
But as her response was the right one, Tommy Traddles straightened
himself and said, turning to the audience: “I now marry these cats! Lady
Blanche, give Ods Bobs your paw to hold; Ods Bobs, take Lady Blanche’s
hand. You are now cat and cat, cat and wife. Keep your promises and be
happy for life.”
The Purrers purred together the gay tune into which ’Clipsy’s fiddle at
once broke, and the procession left the hall as it had entered it, only
in retiring Nugget did not walk backward, nor behind his sisters, but
strutted out ahead of the bride and groom, and of the bridesmaids, as
proud as Ods Bobs himself.
“I’m afraid we ought to start for home,” said Rob, regretfully, as the
Purrers prepared to escort the bridal party to the newest house in town,
which, fortunately, had not been rented, and so was ready for their use.
“And take Ban-Ban and Kiku-san?” cried a Purrer. All the cats suddenly
remembered their sorrow, which the events of the past few hours had made
them almost forget.
“Isn’t it strange—and nice—that Ods Bobs and Lady Blanche have come on
the very day we go, and that they are white and Maltese, like Bannie and
Kiku?” hinted Lois, comfortingly.
“There are no friends like old friends; there can be but one Ban-Ban and
Kiku-san,” mewed the cats in chorus.
“So there can’t,” agreed Rob, heartily. “But we’re going to bring this
one Ban and Kiku every week to see you. Don’t you think we ought to have
just one cat, when we love all cats so much? And don’t you think it
ought to be this one, one for each of us, that we took care of and loved
from the time they were kittens?”
“Oh, it’s all right, Rob, it’s all right,” cried the cats, eagerly,
afraid Rob was offended. “We owe you even our best Purrer and our
Founder—but we are sorry enough to let them go.”
“Say good-bye, friends,” cried Ban-Ban, brightly. “Ods Bobs, you’ll have
to try to look still more like me, so they won’t miss me! Good-bye,
Wutz-Butz; keep the town safe! Good-bye, ’Clipsy, you fine fellow!
Good-bye, Tommy Traddles, and good luck to your mayoring! Good-bye, kind
Madam Laura, and good-bye, clever, charming Bidelia! Good-bye, three
kittens, Puttel, Dolly, Nugget—keep your mittens; remember you are
_three_ little kittens! And we shall never be gone long. Good-bye.”
Kiku-san silently took each paw in turn as it was proffered by the
Purrers. He was much moved, but did not for a moment lose sight of the
fact that where Lois was he must be. The children kissed every cat in
the city between the ears, and renewed their promises to protect
Purrington.
Then the party of four passed out of the city gates.
“I hope you will never be sorry, Ban,” said Rob. Ban-Ban looked up in
his face.
“Mew,” he said, and Rob remembered that, until their return, this was
all that Ban-Ban and Kiku-san would say to Lois and him.
Looking back, the children and their cats saw gathered on the walls of
the city all the Purrers, just as they had seen them when they arrived.
Again they were singing, and though as Rob and Lois walked down the road
they could no longer understand the words of the song, Ban-Ban and
Kiku-san understood them, and they were these, sung to the air of “My
Lady Lou:”
“We watch two shadows wav’ring down the roadway—
Our Bannie-Ban and Kiku-san;
How heavy on our homeless hearts their load lay
When they showed us where the home road ran!
We could not look upon our dear ones going,
Our eyes would burn, our hearts would yearn,
But that we’re comforted in knowing
We shall watch when they return.
_Chorus_;
“Good-bye, Ban, we’re lending you;
Good-bye, dear Kiku-san, we’re sending you
But for a little space, then turn your gentle face
Toward Pussy-Town, where love awaits.
Here we’ll live in joy and peace,
But you will bring us joy’s increase,
And when these children come, they’ll hear our loud purrs hum
Through Purrington’s wide open gates.”
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Transcriber’s note:
○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
when a predominant form was found in this book.