THE FRIENDLY HOUSE
Sally was sure she liked houses. She liked the house where her new
friends lived from the very start. A corner under a piazza where the
rain could come through the cracks in the boards overhead had never
seemed her idea of what a home should be, nor did she care to spend
most of her time out-of-doors looking for food which was hard to find.
So she settled down quite contentedly, and it did not trouble her that,
while Elvira and Miss Winifred were in New Hampshire, Miss Harvey kept
her and Oxford Gray, Junior, in the house. She always spoke of the
three ladies in the following order, Miss Harvey, Elvira, and Miss
Winifred. Her brother told her that she should speak of Miss Winifred
first because she was the oldest and the owner of the house, and of
Miss Harvey next, and Elvira last, because she was the youngest of the
three, but Sally persisted in her own way.
‘I love Miss Harvey best, so I speak of her first, and I love Miss
Winifred less than the others, so she comes last.’
[Illustration]
It was not until Elvira and Miss Winifred had been at home some days
that Miss Harvey said to Sally one morning, ‘You are such a good little
kitten, I am going to let you through into the other part of the house
while I am dusting the rooms.’
[Illustration]
Sally had always wondered what was on the other side of the door. She
had heard from her father that the rooms were large and that there
were many pictures of Miss Winifred’s ancestors hanging on the walls.
He had told her there was a portrait of Miss Winifred’s mother over
the mantelpiece in the hall. Sally had never seen a picture, and so
she looked at them with great interest. So that little girl in a fur
cape was Miss Winifred’s mother! How odd it seemed that a lady so
old herself had had a mother who was once a little girl! There were
other portraits in the parlor and dining-room, all pictures of Miss
Winifred’s relations, she was sure.
She looked in vain for any pictures of her own ancestors. Surely so
many Furbush-Tailbys had lived in the house, she should think Miss
Winifred would have framed portraits of them hanging on the walls. Her
great-great-grandmother, Martha Furbush-Tailby, would have made a nice
picture, and her great-grandfather, William Furbush-Tailby, the poet,
would certainly have been an ornament to the walls. And these relations
of Miss Mann’s looked so queer in their old-fashioned clothes, while
her own ancestors would have looked as much up-to-date as Oxford Gray,
Junior, himself, for she had been told they all had the gray tiger
markings and broad white shirt-fronts like himself, and every one of
them had white feet. And so far as tails were concerned, they were
all noted for the fine tiger markings; she herself was proud of her
tail. Yes, it would have made the sober green walls of the parlor
far pleasanter to look at if there had been portraits there of her
ancestors.
At last she saw a picture with a house and church in the distance, and
there, walking on the grass in the foreground, were two ladies, and a
little boy, and a dog. Here at last was an animal. The ladies wore long
skirts that trailed on the grass and bonnets that hid their faces, and
the little boy wore odd clothes, too, but the dog looked exactly like
one that Sally had met in the Wild Wood and scampered away from.
‘Yes,’ said Sally, ‘it only shows how sensible and superior animals
are, to be so made that they never have to change with the fashion.’
There was another room that was filled with books. It had a desk in
it and Miss Winifred’s typewriter, and a sofa that looked as if it
would be a pleasant place for a kitten to take a nap. There were
window-seats, too. The sun was pouring in on them. Sally jumped up on
one and settled down. The sun felt warm and pleasant on her back.
‘It is a friendly house,’ said Sally. ‘I like it, but some of the
pictures would look so much nicer with kittens in them. The little
girl with the fur over her shoulders would look much sweeter if she
had a kitten in her arms. I am sure she would have loved a nice, furry
kitten.’
There was a mantelpiece in this room that Sally longed to explore, for
there were candelabra on it, one at either end with two candles in each
of them and dangling metal things hanging down from them that Sally
longed to play with. She knew they could swing, for she saw Miss Harvey
dusting them, so while Miss Harvey was dusting the table, she jumped up
on the mantelpiece by way of the sofa and began to play with them.
When she went back into the kitchen, she told Oxford Gray, Junior,
about the charms of the friendly house. He was greatly interested when
he heard of the mantelpiece with the candlesticks with the swinging
pendants.
‘I think maybe Miss Harvey wouldn’t like you to touch them,’ said Sally.
‘Miss Harvey!’ He spoke a little contemptuously. ‘Why should I do any
more harm than you?’
So the kittens watched their chance, and one day they slipped through
the door that was left partly open so that Miss Harvey could hear the
telephone in the other part of the house.
Oxford Gray, Junior, hardly paused to look at anything in the other
rooms. He did not care for the portraits of Miss Winifred’s ancestors.
‘They all have on such old-fashioned clothes,’ he said. ‘Our ancestors
would look much more up-to-date.’
‘That is what I thought myself,’ said Sally.
Oxford and Sally went into the library where the candelabra stood on
the mantelpiece.
‘There’ll be a candlestick for each of us to play with,’ said Sally.
Oxford thought it would be exciting to get to the mantelpiece ahead of
Sally, and Sally wanted to get there first, so they had a mad race to
the sofa and then they gave a jump that landed them on the mantelpiece.
Alas! the mantelpiece was not wide enough for the pair of them, and the
first thing they knew was that they had knocked one of the candlesticks
off the mantelpiece and had tumbled off themselves and were lying on
the floor with the ruins of the broken wax candles.
The kittens were very much frightened. Sally rushed under the sofa and
Oxford Gray, Junior, took refuge under a chair.
Elvira, who was in the kitchen, heard the noise, and came in to see
what had happened. They heard her step in the hall.
‘If we are very quiet,’ said Sally, in her thought-transference
language, ‘Elvira will never find us. She’ll think the candlestick just
fell off of itself.’
‘For mercy sakes!’ said Elvira, as she saw the broken candles on the
floor. ‘You little rascal, what have you been doing?’ and she fixed her
eyes on Oxford Gray, Junior. ‘I suppose Sally is somewhere about. Oh,
yes! there she is under the sofa.’
‘It wasn’t our fault,’ said Oxford. ‘It is just the fault of that old
mantelpiece--it’s too narrow. Miss Winifred ought to have made her
house more convenient for kittens.’
But, alas! Elvira couldn’t understand his language.
[Illustration]