Kittykin was about five months old when there was a great marching of
soldiers backward and forward; the tents in the field beyond the woods
were taken down and carried away in wagons, and there was an immense
stir. The army was said to be “moving.” There were rumors that the
enemy was coming, and that there might be a battle near there. Evelyn
was so young that she did not understand any more of it than Kittykin
did; but her mother appeared so troubled that Evelyn knew it was very
bad, and became frightened, though she did not know why. Her mammy
soon gave her such a gloomy account, that Evelyn readily agreed with
her that it was “like torment.” As for Kittykin, if she had been born
in a battle, she could not have been more unconcerned. In a day or two
it was known that the main body of the army was some little way off on
a long ridge, and that the enemy had taken up its position on another
hill not far distant, and Evelyn’s home was between them; but there was
no battle. Each army began to intrench itself; and in a little while
there was a long red bank stretched across the far edge of the great
field behind the house, which Evelyn was told was “breastworks” for
the picket line, and she pointed them out to Kittykin, who blinked and
yawned as if she did not care the least bit if they were.
Next morning a small squadron of cavalry came galloping by. A body of
the enemy had been seen, and they were going to learn what it meant. In
a little while they came back.
“The enemy,” they said, “were advancing, and there would probably be a
skirmish right there immediately.”
As they rode by, they urged Evelyn’s mamma either to leave the house
at once or to go down into the basement, where they might be safe from
the bullets. Then they galloped on across the field to get the rest of
their men, who were in the trenches beyond. Before they reached there a
lot of men appeared on the edge of the wood in front of the house. No
one could tell how many they were; but the sun gleamed on their arms,
and there was evidently a good force. At first they were on horseback;
but there was a “Bop! bop!” from the trenches in the field behind the
house, and they rode back, and did not come out any more. Next morning,
however, they too had dug a trench. These, Evelyn heard some one say,
were a picket line. About eleven o’clock they came out into the field,
and they seemed to have spread themselves out behind a little rise or
knoll in front of the house. Mammy’s teeth were just chattering, and
she went to moaning and saying her prayers as hard as she could, and
Evelyn’s mamma told her to take Evelyn down into the basement, and she
would bring the baby; so mammy, who had been following mamma about,
seized Evelyn, and rushed with her down-stairs, where, although they
were quite safe, as the windows were only half above the ground, she
fell on her face on the floor, praying as if her last hour had come.
“Bop! bop!” went some muskets up behind the house. “Bang! bop! bang!”
went some on the other side.
Evelyn suddenly remembered Kittykin. “Where was she?” The last time she
had seen her was a half-hour before, when she had been lying curled up
on the back steps fast asleep in the sun. Suppose she should be there
now, she would certainly be killed, for the back steps ran right out
into the yard so as to be just the place for Kittykin to be shot. So
thought Evelyn. “Bang! bang!” went the guns again--somewhere. Evelyn
dragged a chair up to a window and looked. Her heart almost stopped;
for there, out in the yard, quite clear of the houses, was Kittykin,
standing some way up the trunk of a tall locust-tree, looking curiously
around. Her little white body shone like a small patch of snow against
the dark brown bark. Evelyn sprang down from the chair, and forgetting
everything, rushed through the entry and out of doors.
“Kitty, kitty, kitty!” she called. “Kittykin, come here! You’ll be
killed! Come here, Kittykin!”
Kittykin, however, was in for a game, and as her little mistress, with
her golden hair flying in the breeze, ran toward her, she rushed
scampering still higher up the tree. Evelyn could see that there were
some men scattered out in the fields on either side of her, some of
them stooping, and some lying down, and as she ran on toward the tree
she heard a “Bang! bang!” on each side, and she saw little puffs of
white smoke, and something went “Zoo-ee-ee” up in the air; but she did
not think about herself, she was so frightened for Kittykin.
“Kitty, kitty! Come down, Kittykin!” she called, running up to the tree
and holding up her arms to her. Kittykin might, perhaps, have liked to
come down now, but she could no longer do so; she was too high up. She
looked down, first over one shoulder, and then over the other, but it
was too high to jump. She could not turn around, and her head began to
swim. She grew so dizzy, she was afraid she might fall, so she dug her
little sharp claws into the bark, and began to cry.
[Illustration: “I WANT MY KITTYKIN,” SAID EVELYN.]
Evelyn would have run back to tell her mamma (who, having sent the
baby down-stairs to mammy, was still busy up-stairs trying to hide
some things, and so did not know she was out in the yard); but she was
so afraid Kittykin might be killed that she could not let her get out
of her sight. Indeed, she was so absorbed in Kittykin that she forgot
all about everything else. She even forgot all about the soldiers. But
though she did not notice the soldiers, it seemed that some of them had
observed her. Just as the leader of the Confederate picket line was
about to give an order to make a dash for the houses in the yard,
to his horror he saw a little girl in a white dress and with flying
hair suddenly run out into the clear space right between him and the
soldiers on the other side, and stop under a tree just in the line
of their fire. His heart jumped into his mouth as he sprang to his
feet and waved his hands wildly to call attention to the child. Then
shouting to his men to stop firing, he walked out in front of the line,
and came at a rapid stride down the slope. The others all stood still
and almost held their breaths for fear some one would shoot; but no one
did. Evelyn was so busy trying to coax Kittykin down that she did not
notice anything until she heard some one call out:
“For Heaven’s sake, run into the house, quick!”
She looked around and saw the gentleman hurrying toward her. He
appeared to be very much excited.
“What on earth are you doing out here?” he gasped, as he came running
up to her.
He was a young man, with just a little light mustache, and with a
little gold braid on the sleeves of his gray jacket; and though he
seemed very much surprised, he looked very kind.
“I want my Kittykin,” said Evelyn, answering him, and looking up the
tree, with a little wave of her hand, towards where Kittykin still
clung tightly. Somehow she felt at the moment that this gentleman could
help her better than any one else.
Kittykin, however, apparently thought differently about it; for she
suddenly stopped mewing; and as if she felt it unsafe to be so near a
stranger, she climbed carefully up until she reached a limb, in the
crotch of which she ensconced herself, and peeped curiously over at
them with a look of great satisfaction in her face, as much as to say,
“Now I’m safe. I’d like to see you get me.”
The gentleman was stroking Evelyn’s hair, and was looking at her very
intently, when a voice called to him from the other side:
“Hello, Johnny! what’s the matter?”
Evelyn looked around, and saw another gentleman coming toward them. He
was older than the first one, and had on a blue coat, while the first
had on a gray one. She knew one was a Confederate and the other was a
Yankee, and for a second she was afraid they might shoot each other,
but her first friend called out:
“Her kitten is up the tree. Come ahead!”
He came on, and looked for a second up at Kittykin, but he looked at
Evelyn really hard, and suddenly stooped down, and putting his arm
around her, drew her up to him. She got over her fear in a minute.
“Kittykin’s up there, and I’m afraid she’ll be kilt.” She waved her
hand up over her head, where Kittykin was taking occasion to put a few
more limbs between herself and the enemy.
“It’s rather a dangerous place when the boys are out hunting, eh,
Johnny?” He laughed as he stood up again.
“Yes, for as big a fellow as you. You wouldn’t stand the ghost of a
show.”
“I guess I’d feel small enough up there.” And both men laughed.
By this time the men on both sides began to come up, with their guns
over their arms.
“Hello! what’s up?” some of them called out.
“Her kitten’s up,” said the first two; and, to make good their words,
Kittykin, not liking so many people below her, shifted her position
again, and went up to a fresh limb, from which she again peeped over at
them. The men all gathered around Evelyn, and began to talk to her, and
both she and Kittykin were surprised to hear them joking and laughing
together in the friendliest way.
“What are you doing out here?” they asked; and to all she made the same
reply:
“I want my Kittykin.”
Suddenly her mamma came out. She had just gone down-stairs, and had
learned where Evelyn was. The two officers went up and spoke to her,
but the men still crowded around Evelyn.
“She’ll come down,” said one. “All you have to do is to let her alone.”
“No, she won’t. She can’t come down. It makes her head swim,” said
Evelyn.
“That’s true,” thought Kittykin up in the tree, and to let them
understand it she gave a little “Mew.”
“I don’t see how anything can swim when it’s as dry as it is around
here,” said a fellow in gray.
A man in blue handed him his canteen, which he at once accepted, and
after surprising Evelyn by smelling it--which she knew was dreadfully
bad manners--turned it up to his lips. She heard the liquid gurgling.
As he handed it back to its owner he said: “Yank, I’m mighty glad I
didn’t shoot you. I might have hit that canteen.” At which there was
a laugh, and the canteen went around until it was empty. Suddenly
Kittykin from her high perch gave a faint “Mew,” which said, as plainly
as words could say it, that she wanted to get down and could not.
Evelyn’s big brown eyes filled with tears. “I want my Kittykin,” she
said, her little lip trembling.
Instantly a dozen men unbuckled their belts, laid their guns on the
ground, and pulled off their coats, each one trying to be the first to
climb the tree. It was, however, too large for them to reach far enough
around to get a good hold on it, so climbing it was found to be far
more difficult than it looked to be.
“Why don’t you cut it down?” asked some one.
But Evelyn cried out that that would kill Kittykin, so the man who
suggested it was called a fool by the others. At last it was proposed
that one man should stand against the tree and another should climb up
on his shoulders, when he might get his arms far enough around it to
work his way up. A stout fellow with a gray jacket on planted himself
firmly against the trunk, and one who had taken off a blue jacket
climbed up on his shoulders, and might have got up very well if he
had not remarked that as the Johnnies had walked over him in the last
battle, it was but fair that he should now walk over a Johnny. This
joke tickled the man under him so that he slipped away and let him
down. At length, however, three or four men got good “holds,” and went
slowly up one after the other amid such encouraging shouts from their
friends on the ground below as: “Go it, Yank, the Johnny’s almost got
you!” “Look out, Johnny, the Yanks are right behind you!” etc., whilst
Kittykin gazed down in astonishment from above, and Evelyn looked up
breathless from below. With much pulling and kicking, four men finally
got up to the lowest limb, after which the climbing was comparatively
easy. A new difficulty, however, presented itself. Kittykin suddenly
took alarm, and retreated still higher up among the branches.
The higher they climbed after that, the higher she climbed, until she
was away up on one of the topmost boughs, which was far too slender for
any one to follow her. There she turned and looked back with alternate
alarm and satisfaction expressed in her countenance. If the men
stirred, she stood ready to fly; if they kept still, she settled down
and mewed plaintively. Once or twice as they moved she took fright and
looked almost as if about to jump.
Evelyn was breathless with excitement. “Don’t let her jump,” she
called, “she will get kilt!”
The men, too, were anxious to prevent that. They called to her, held
out their hands, and coaxed her in every tone by which a kitten is
supposed to be influenced. But it was all in vain. No cajoleries, no
promises, no threats, were of the least avail. Kittykin was there safe,
out of their reach, and there she would remain, sixty feet above the
ground. Suddenly she saw that something was occurring below. She saw
the men all gather around her little mistress, and could hear her at
first refuse to let something be done, and then consent. She could not
make out what it was, though she strained her ears. She remembered to
have heard mammy tell her little mistress once that “curiosity had
killed a cat,” and she was afraid to think too much about it so high
up in the tree. Still when she heard an order given, “Go back and get
your blankets,” and saw a whole lot of the men go running off into the
field on either side, and presently come back with their arms full of
blankets, she could not help wondering what they were going to do. They
at once began to unroll the blankets and hold them open all around the
tree, until a large circle of the ground was quite hidden.
“Ah!” said Kittykin, “it’s a wicked trap!” and she dug her little claws
deep into the bark, and made up her mind that nothing should induce her
to jump. Presently she heard the soldiers in the tree under her call to
those on the ground:
“Are you ready?”
And they said, “All right!”
“Ah!” said Kittykin, “they cannot get down, either. Serves them right!”
But suddenly they all waved their arms at her and cried, “Scat!”
Goodness! The idea of crying “scat” at a kitten when she is up in
a tree!--“scat,” which fills a kitten’s breast with terror! It was
brutal, and then it was all so unexpected. It came very near making her
fall. As it was, it set her heart to thumping and bumping against her
ribs, like a marble in a box. “Ah!” she thought, “if those brutes below
were but mice, and I had them on the carpet!” So she dug her claws into
the bark, which was quite tender up there, and it was well she did, for
she heard some one call something below that sounded like “Shake!” and
before she knew it the man nearest her reached up, and, seizing the
limb on which she was, screwed up his face, and--Goodness! it nearly
shook the teeth out of her mouth and the eyes out of her head.
Shake! shake! shake! it came again, each time nearly tearing her little
claws out of their sockets and scaring her to death. She saw the ground
swim far below her, and felt that she would be mashed to death. Shake!
shake! shake! shake! She could not hold out much longer, and she spat
down at them. How those brutes below laughed! She formed a desperate
resolve. She would get even with them. “Ah, if they were but--” Shake!
sha-- With a fierce spit, partly of rage, partly of fear, Kittykin let
go, whirled suddenly, and flung herself on the upturned face of the man
next beneath her, from him to the man below him, and finally, digging
her little claws deep in his flesh, sprang with a wild leap clear of
the boughs, and shot whizzing out into the air, whilst the two men,
thrown off their guard by the suddenness of the attack, loosed their
hold, and went crashing down into the forks upon those below.
The first thing Evelyn and the men on the ground knew was the crash of
the falling men and the sight of Kittykin coming whizzing down, her
little claws clutching wildly at the air. Before they could see what
she was, she gave a bounce like a trap-ball as high as a man’s head,
and then, as she touched the ground again, shot like a wild sky-rocket
hissing across the yard, and, with her tail all crooked to one side and
as big as her body, vanished under the house. Oh, such a shout as there
was from the soldiers! Evelyn heard them yelling as she ran off after
Kittykin to see if she wasn’t dead. They fairly howled with delight
as the men in the tree, with scratched faces and torn clothes, came
crawling down. They looked very sheepish as they landed among their
comrades; but the question whether Kittykin had landed in a blanket or
had hit the solid ground fifty feet out somewhat relieved them. They
all agreed that she had bounced twenty feet.
Why Kittykin was not killed outright was a marvel. One of her eyes was
a little bunged up, the claws on three of her feet were loosened, and
for a week she felt as if she had been run through a sausage mill; but
she never lost any of her speed. Ever afterward when she saw a soldier
she would run for life, and hide as far back under the house as she
could get, with her eyes shining like two little live coals.
For some time, indeed, she lived in perpetual terror, for the soldiers
of both lines used to come up to the house, as the friendship they
formed that day never was changed, and though they remained on the
two opposite hills for quite a while, they never fired a shot at each
other. They used instead to meet and exchange tobacco and coffee, and
laugh over the way Kittykin routed their joint forces in the tree the
day of the skirmish.
As for Kittykin, she never put on any airs about it. She did not care
for that sort of glory. She never afterward could tolerate a tree; the
earth was good enough for her; and the highest she ever climbed was up
in her little mistress’s lap.
“NANCY PANSY.”