MY FIRST MOUSE
Mrs. Gilmour was never very nice to Auntie May after that. She began to
be nasty again at breakfast. Auntie May was reading her letters, and
one of them was from Mrs. Dillon.
'"Admiral Togo,"' Auntie May read out, '"_is the chief joy of my
life_." Oh listen, all of you, for you will be so much amused; I am
not, for of course it seems to me the obvious and natural thing to do.
"He is coming with me to my winter quarters in South Africa."'
'And Mr. Dillon--is he being left behind?' said Mrs. Gilmour. 'Though
after all, what is a husband in comparison with a cat? And she is
taking a hired attendant for him, and possibly a chef, and engaging a
private cabin for him--of _course_?'
'There isn't a Mr. Dillon,' said Auntie May, shaking with laughter,
'but as far as the cabin goes, that is precisely what she _is_ doing.
She says so.'
Mrs. Gilmour looked a little put out for a moment, then she said:
'I don't suppose they would admit the young gentleman except on those
conditions. Well, well, if people have absurd fancies they must pay for
them. Your friend seems to have plenty of good money to throw away!'
Auntie May said she would send a letter of directions to Mrs. Dillon's
maid, to tell her how to feed the kitten on the voyage. Forgetting
apparently that Mrs. Gilmour was there still, she went on:
'When medicine has to be given, I prefer it in the form of powders.'
Mrs. Gilmour pretended to be interested in order to be nastier
afterwards. 'To liquids they close their throats somehow, and it runs
out of the corner of their mouths. As for giving pills! Petronilla
shoots the pill several feet into the air, and the first thing that
tells me she hasn't swallowed it is the noise it makes as it hits the
ceiling. Poor Pet! She appears to think it funny.'
'So do I!' said Beatrice, screaming with laughter. 'I think I see
Petronilla, with her Burne-Jones angel expression, staring up to the
ceiling to see if she has hit the bull's eye, and you in despair
because you can't get the pills driven into her.'
'Has your cat had any _very_ alarming illnesses?' inquired Mrs.
Gilmour, with a very perfidious expression, but Auntie May was quite
taken in by her appearance of interest.
'Let me see, Petronilla has had gastritis, and she has once ricked her
back jumping backwards, and then she had to have massage--'
'Did it come expensive?' inquired the old lady.
'Yes, very. My cats cost me a fortune. What with their food and their
illnesses, etc., what I can raise on Pet's kittens hardly repays me for
my outlay.'
'Why don't you keep a nice common underbred kitchen cat that nobody
wants to steal? A serviceable beast that can go out in all weathers,
and get through the long grass without getting its fur wet and
draggled,' said Mrs. Gilmour.
'But as I live in London,' retorted Auntie May, 'where there is no long
grass--'
'In London,' said Tom, 'I should say myself that a nice tiler and
mouser would be more appropriate.'
'I don't like tilers and mousers or beetlers in my bed,' said Auntie
May hotly. 'I should never care to kiss cats that had any horrid
pursuit of that kind. And as for mice--do you mean to imply, Tom, that
Loki cannot catch a mouse as well as anybody if he had the chance?'
Mrs. Gilmour sneered, and Auntie May got quite pink.
'There are plenty in my carpentering shed,' said Tom. 'Why don't you
let him have a try?'
'It's disgusting!' said Auntie May. 'But yet--I can't have Loki
depreciated and looked down on. Very well, I will turn him in there for
a few hours and give him a chance of winning his spurs, only I am not
sure if he does that I shall ever feel able to speak to him again! He
has something better to do in life than catching mice, but I won't have
him humiliated, and he _shall_ show you that he can take mousing in his
stride.'
To me she said, 'Now, Loki, do your level best, but only this once,
mind. You are not to become a slave to the mousing habit, or let it
grow on you. Come along to the carpenter's shed.'
She took me there and left me alone, shutting the door after her. I
implored her to stay, but she said No, that I must go through it
alone. At first I cried, but becoming convinced she could not hear
me, I left off. I played with shavings for about an hour. It was my
first introduction to the fascinating, lovely, curly, crunchy, clean,
white things. I could bunch them up in my paws and throw them over my
shoulder, and they crackled and twisted when I seized them again as if
they were alive.
[Illustration: I PLAYED WITH SHAVINGS FOR ABOUT AN HOUR.]
I had never seen a mouse in my life.
Presently I saw what I should have said were two bright boot-buttons
set very near together, side by side, though, not one on top of the
other as they would be all down a boot. That roused my suspicions, and
I made a wild dash into the heap of shavings whence they peeped out.
I can say no more than this to account for what I did. I felt horrid
afterwards, not to say rather ill, but at the time I felt nothing but a
desire to get that mouse (for, of course, it was a mouse), and lay it
at the feet of Auntie May, or, better still, throw it in Mrs. Gilmour's
face. I should have died if I had not got it, and I did get it. It
_was_ a mouse, although I hardly looked. I just put my paws, which are
very broad and long, on it and it lay quite still beneath them and
didn't move a bit.
I did not know what in the world to do with it now that I had got it
safe. I knew that decency dictated that I should eat it, but I had not
the slightest idea where to begin, and I suppose, while I was thinking,
I let my paws rest on it rather more lightly, and it suddenly got up
and walked away!
I could not stand such an arrant piece of cheek as that, so I got it
back, with very little trouble, for it had not gone far. In a few
moments I loosened my paws again on purpose to see what it would do.
Sure enough it walked away again! It began to be a sort of game we were
playing, and my blood was up.
It was really rather a cheeky mouse, I think, and enjoyed the game as
much as I did. Presently I varied the fun a little and tossed it up
and down two or three times in the air, catching it again in my paws.
This went on a long time, and I got quite excited, till the last time
it came down it lay quite still, and though I waited for it to walk
away again as usual it did not make the slightest attempt to get up. I
believe it was dead, really and truly, not pretending, but there wasn't
a bruise on its body or a hole in its skin anywhere, for I looked
carefully. I got bored with it and caught another. That one I nipped
in catching, I suppose, for it died at once. I tried to eat it, but no,
I find I don't care for mouse-flesh.
Before Tom and Beatrice came for me I had laid another brown body
beside the other two, and Tom said when he saw them:
'One to May! Game little cat! Three in two hours!'
Auntie May hadn't felt able to come, but Beatrice told her all about it.
'He didn't really eat any, May, only tried one. It looked like the
inside of a clock somehow.'
'Oh, don't, you pig!' screamed Auntie May, and cried, actually cried,
about the poor, dear, dead, darling little mice! I cried too, and
promised her I would never catch any more. As a matter of fact, it
really isn't a bit in my line. I am not a stable, or a kitchen, or even
a carpenter's cat, and mousing is not a fit pursuit for Petronilla's
child.
'So Loki has vindicated his reputation!' remarked Mrs. Gilmour, when
she heard of what Beatrice was pleased to call my prowess. 'Disgusting
little cruel wretch! The principle of cruelty is deeply embedded in a
cat's consciousness. Now a dog--'
'What does a dog do to a rat?' asked Auntie May rudely. But Mrs.
Gilmour took no notice.
'The dog is a noble animal--'
'I once wrote that out a hundred times in my copy-book,' observed
Amerye, 'and I can't write any better now, and I hate dogs because of
it!'
'Hush, Amerye, you are rude!' said Miss Grueber.
'A dog has dignity, a cat has only impudence,' continued Mrs. Gilmour,
'and comes when he is called--'
'To dinner, eh?' said Auntie May. 'I never knew a cat that would come
when it was called to dinner, even. A cat is at least consistent. A dog
is too greedy to wait to be consistent.'
'A dog can be greedy with dignity!' said Mrs. Gilmour. 'I have seen
him. And yet he is man's slave--self-constituted.'
'I prefer the independence of cats,' retorted Auntie May. 'They won't
be hustled--why should they? It is a mistake to want to enslave them
and destroy all their individuality. Dogs simply feed the love of
domineering that is implanted in our natures. Men--you even, Tom, the
nicest of them--enjoy saying "To heel, sir!" A cat never follows, it
goes before, and looks back and waits for you if it fancies you. It
has pronounced likes and dislikes, and is not afraid to show them. A
dog will lick any one's hand.'
'And a cat will scratch any one's nose. How do you manage in London,
Miss Graham, when you have to go out? Do you confide in all your
partners, and tell them that it was your favourite cat that scratched
you through thick and thin?'
'Yes, May,' said Beatrice, 'I could not help looking at your neck last
night at dinner, and wondering how you managed?'
'That was poor Loki,' said Auntie May hastily. 'He _will_ get on to my
shoulder and take flying leaps at the electric light globes.'
'I don't see why he need kick off from your neck, though,' said Tom.
'Oh, don't blame his dear spirits!' said that nasty old woman. 'Do you
see him now trying to run away with the blind tassel? He will hang
himself to a certainty.'
I was sitting on the window seat and playing with the cord. I was not
aware that it was attached to the blind, for it was lying quite quietly
on the sill when it came into my head that I should like to carry it
off to play with. When, having got it well between my jaws, I leapt
off with it, I found myself hanging to it by my teeth, and it gave me
a nasty jar.
One thing I noticed, although Mrs. Gilmour was always down on me when
Auntie May was there, she was quite different when we were alone
together. Then she used to hold out her wrinkled claw and flip her
ribbons to attract me, and say, 'Poos! Poos!' as if she wished me to
come to her; but I was not quite sure, so I never ventured, though
she was not a bad old thing in the main and awfully fond of her
grandchildren, and scolded them only very gently for the noise they
made every day about six o'clock.
I don't know how it was, but at that time they all lost their heads,
and screeched and shouted and walloped about the house like maniacs or
cats, with Miss Grueber scolding them, but not in a way to make them
leave off. I used to feel quite excited too, and run after their legs,
and nearly get trodden on; and Miss Grueber's large flat foot was no
joke, I can tell you. Still, it was quite amusing playing Blind Man's
Buff and not getting caught. They always put me into their games, and
politely caught me when I put myself in the way of the one who was
blindfolded. Of course I could not be blindfolded, so they had to let
me off being Blind Man, like Kitty, who never would play fair, but
always peeped under the handkerchief.
'Don't be angry with her, she's only a child!' Rosamond used to say,
'and let her go last down stairs, because we are heavier, and might
come on top of her.'
They used to come down the stairs helter-skelter on their stomachs,
bumping on every step. I used to come down too, but I could not help
using my feet, and therefore I ran along by the side of them, and got
to the bottom first.
Once Mrs. Gilmour came out of the drawing-room, just as the whole
procession landed on the mat at the bottom of the staircase. The noise
was deafening. She remarked on it.
'My dear children,' she said, standing at the open door of the
drawing-room as they all came tumbling at her feet, 'I tremble to think
what your little stomachs must look like! Have you ever seen toast done
on a gridiron? And the racket is deafening. Such yells! Have you all
gone mad? And the cat too, he makes as much noise as any of you!'
'Oh, Granny,' pleaded Rosamond, very much out of breath, 'please don't
mind the row. It's only just after six. Don't you know that children
and cats always go a little wild at night?'