BLACKIE FINDS A FRIEND
Blackie was now out of the vacant house, it is true, but, for a time,
she did not feel much better off. She was up on a high roof, and as she
went to the edge to look down she saw that it was too far for her to
jump, even down into a tree.
“As soon as I get through with one adventure I find another,” sadly
said Blackie. “I had an empty-house adventure, and now I am having a
roof adventure. I wonder how it will end? I must get down some way. I
can’t stay up here all night, for it might rain, and I don’t like to
get wet.”
Cats do dislike getting wet, you know. They are not like dogs in that
way. A dog loves to jump in the water and swim, or at least most dogs
do. But you never saw a cat in swimming――at least I never did.
Blackie walked up and down the roof for a while. She could look down to
the street from in front, and she saw persons walking along, as well as
many wagons, automobiles and trolley cars. Blackie gave two or three
loud mews, but she soon stopped.
[Illustration: When Blackie reached the top she could look up and see
the sky through a crack.]
“There is so much noise down there in the street, and I am up here so
high, that I don’t believe they can hear me,” thought the black cat. “I
may as well keep still.”
Then she went to the other side of the roof, to where she could look
down in the back yards of the houses. She saw no one there, in any of
them, and after she had mewed several times she also gave that up.
“Oh, dear!” thought Blackie. “I don’t know what I shall do. Suppose it
rains during the night? Well, of course I could go down in the empty
house again, so I would be dry, anyhow. But I want something to eat.
Oh, dear! Running away, even to learn how to jump high fences, is not
half as nice as I thought it would be. Speckle did not tell me I would
have bad adventures. I thought they would all be nice ones.”
Blackie walked over toward one of the end houses in the row. She
was wondering what she would do, when, all at once, another and the
same kind of a scuttle cover as the one she had pushed to one side,
was opened in the roof in front of her, and up popped the head of a
gray-haired lady, who had a kind, pleasant face, and who looked at
Blackie through large spectacles.
“Why, it’s a cat――I do believe!” exclaimed the lady, whose name, as
Blackie learned later, was Mrs. Thompson. “I was wondering what was
making that noise, walking around on the roof. I’m glad I came up to
see. It’s a cat!”
“Of course I’m a cat,” said Blackie to herself. “I hope I don’t look
like a dog.”
Of course Mrs. Thompson did not hear Blackie say this, for the cat only
thought it to herself, just as we often think things without speaking
them out loud.
“What a fine big black cat!” went on Mrs. Thompson. “Come to me, pussy!
How did you get up here?”
“Pur-r-r-r-r!” said Blackie out loud. That, and mewing, was the only
way she had of talking to real folks. But to those who understand, cats
can say several things in just those two ways. Sometimes you can tell
by the way a cat mews, whether it is hungry, or whether it wants to go
out doors. And when it cries in another way you know it is in pain. And
when it says “pur-r-r-r-r!” like that, sort of softly and slowly, and
rubs up against you, why then you know the cat is happy.
Blackie was beginning to feel happy again, for she saw the lady looking
out through the hole in the roof, and the black cat thought the lady
would take her down and feed her.
“Why, you’re a nice cat,” said the lady, speaking to Blackie in a way
the cat liked. “You certainly are a nice pussy. I wonder how you got up
on this roof?”
Then, as she rubbed Blackie under the cat’s ears, in a way Blackie
liked, the lady looked along the roofs, and she saw on the roof the
cover, or scuttle, which Blackie had pushed to one side to get out.
“Oh, I see! That’s how you got up here, through the hole in the roof,”
said the lady. “Well, I must close it, or the rain might come in Mr.
Smith’s house. I see how it is. The family there moved out, and you
were left behind, Blackie. It’s too bad they forgot you. But never
mind, I’ll take care of you.”
Of course Mrs. Thompson was not right in thinking Blackie had been left
behind by the family that had moved away. But Mrs. Thompson did not
know that Blackie had run away, and had wandered in the vacant house by
herself. And Blackie could not tell.
“Now I’ll just close that scuttle over the roof for Mr. Smith,” went
on Mrs. Thompson. “He doesn’t know it is open, I dare say. Then, after
that, I’ll take you down in my house, Blackie.”
You might wonder how the lady knew Blackie’s name, never having seen
her before. But when a cat is all black, as this one was, it seems
natural for every one who meets her for the first time to call her
Blackie.
“Just a minute now, Blackie,” said Mrs. Thompson. “Then I’ll give you
something to eat. I know you’re hungry.”
Blackie was mewing her hungry cry, and the lady knew enough about cats
to know it.
“I’ll give you some nice milk, and a bit of meat in a minute,” the lady
went on. “Just wait until I close Mr. Smith’s scuttle.”
She climbed out on the roof to do this, and Blackie rubbed against her
skirts and purred. Blackie had found a new friend.
“Go on down my stairs now,” said Mrs. Thompson as she walked back to
the hole in her roof, followed by Blackie. “Go on down and then I’ll
close my scuttle, and get your supper and my own too.”
Blackie knew enough to run down. She waited at the foot of the stairs
while Mrs. Thompson fastened her scuttle with hooks, and then Blackie
waited for the lady to go ahead and show the way.
Blackie found herself in a house just like the empty one she had first
entered, but some one lived here, for there was furniture in all the
rooms, and carpets on the floors. In the other house the floors were of
bare boards.
“Come on down to the kitchen,” invited Mrs. Thompson. “I’ll feed you
there.”
Blackie understood this talk, and how she did hurry to that kitchen,
for she was very hungry! The lady poured out a saucer of nice milk, and
you can just imagine how fast Blackie put her red tongue in it to lap
it up, for she was thirsty as well as hungry, and milk to a cat is both
food and drink.
When the saucer was empty the lady brought Blackie some bits of
chicken, left over from dinner.
“Now then, let me see you eat that,” said Mrs. Thompson. She talked
to Blackie almost as if the black cat were a real person and could
understand. I know many men and women who do that. I do it myself to
my pets. I know they don’t understand _all_ I say, but I like to think
that they do.
Mrs. Thompson lived all alone in her house, and when a lady lives
alone, and has a cat, a dog, a bird, or a parrot, she gets in the habit
of talking to her pets.
“Yes, you are a nice cat,” went on Mrs. Thompson, as she once more
stroked Blackie’s smooth fur. “You came from a good home, I can tell
that, and why the folks moved away, and left you behind, I can’t see.
I’ll keep you for a while, and perhaps they may remember about you and
come to get you. If they don’t come I’ll take you to the country with
me, for I will soon be going there.”
After her meal Blackie washed herself carefully, as her mother had
taught her to do. Then she curled up in a black ball at the feet of the
kind lady.
It was now dark, and the lady lighted the gas.
“I’m glad I didn’t have to stay up on the roof, or in the vacant house
all night,” thought Blackie, purring away and beginning to feel a bit
sleepy. “My running away is turning out all right after all. I am in a
nice house, though I may not stay. I have not run far enough away yet.
I must go a bit farther before I go back to Arthur and Mabel.”
The old lady sat reading, now and then speaking to Blackie, who
answered with a purr.
“I once had a white cat,” said the lady, “but you are just as nice,
though you are black. I shall keep you a long time, I hope.”
Presently the door bell rang. Up jumped the nice old lady.
“Some one to see me!” she exclaimed. “Perhaps it is some one who has
come after Blackie.”
She went to the front door, and Blackie waited.
“I wonder if that can be Arthur or Mabel after me?” thought the black
cat.