BLACKIE IN A BASKET
Blackie, who had walked from the sitting room, where the old lady had
been reading, out toward the hall, heard voices as the front door was
opened.
“Come in,” invited Mrs. Thompson.
“I just thought I’d step over to see how you were,” spoke a strange
voice.
“That isn’t Arthur or Mabel,” thought Blackie, for she knew the voices
of the children.
“I thought perhaps you might be lonesome,” said the visitor.
“Well, I _was_ lonesome,” said Mrs. Thompson, “but, a little while ago
I heard something up on the roof. I went up, opened the scuttle and
what do you think I found?”
“Not a baby! Don’t tell me it was a baby!” exclaimed the other voice,
which was that of a lady.
“No, it _wasn’t_ a baby,” spoke Mrs. Thompson, with a laugh, “so of
course I’ll not tell you it _was_. Come in the sitting room and see.”
“Oh, what a fine big black cat!” cried the other lady, leaning over to
pet Blackie. “Where _did_ you get her? Oh, _isn’t_ she a beauty!”
“That’s what I found up on the roof,” explained Mrs. Thompson. “It was
the cat I heard walking around, and I brought her down to my house with
me.”
“How did she get on the roof?” asked the other lady.
“Why she got out through that vacant house where the family lived that
moved away. I don’t know their name, as they did not stay in this block
long. But they must have left the cat behind, and she made her way up
to the roof.”
“No, I don’t believe those people had a cat,” said the other lady. “So
I don’t believe they left this one behind. I would have known if they
had a cat, for they lived right across the street from me. This cat
must have come from somewhere else.”
“Of course I did,” said Blackie to herself, as she listened to this
talk. “I ran away from a good home, but I think I have found one almost
as nice, though I shall miss the children. But I don’t know how long I
shall stay here. I may run away farther. I wish I could tell these nice
ladies some of my adventures. But of course I can’t, for they don’t
understand my language very well.”
The two ladies talked more about the black cat, wondering where she
had come from, and all that, and, every once in a while one of them
would lean over and pet Blackie.
“I wonder if she will let me hold her in my lap?” said the lady who had
come to pay an evening visit to Mrs. Thompson. “I hope she will, for I
love cats.”
“Try it,” said Mrs. Thompson. “Blackie seems very nice and gentle.”
The other lady picked Blackie up.
“My! How heavy she is!” she exclaimed.
“Yes, she is a big cat,” spoke Mrs. Thompson.
Blackie was very willing to be held in the lady’s lap, for Arthur and
Mabel often petted Blackie that way. The lady stroked Blackie’s fur and
rubbed her ears, and, as the cat liked that, she purred.
“This is the nice part of my adventures,” thought Blackie to herself.
“I guess I rather like running away after all. But perhaps something
else will happen in the morning.
“I won’t go back home, at least not for a day or two, and by then I
may have many more things to tell Speckle. Maybe he will not think
getting locked in a vacant house much of an adventure. I must have more
exciting ones than that to tell about.”
The two ladies talked for some time longer, taking turns patting
Blackie, until it was time for the lady visitor to go home.
“Good night!” she said to Mrs. Thompson. “I shall come over often to
see your new cat. I hope you can keep her, and that no one comes to
take her away.”
“So do I, though of course I would give her to whoever owned her. If
I had a nice cat I wouldn’t want any one to keep her from me,” Mrs.
Thompson said.
“No, I wouldn’t either. Well, good night. Oh, when do you go to the
country?”
“In a few days now, I think.”
“And will you take Blackie with you?”
“I will if no one comes for her before I go.”
Then the two ladies said good night again (ladies always say it three
or four times, somehow or other) and then Mrs. Thompson locked the
front door.
“It will soon be time to go to bed, Blackie,” said the lady. “I will
get out the cushion my white cat used to sleep on, and you can use
that.”
Blackie wondered what had become of the white cat who used to live with
the kind old lady. Mrs. Thompson brought out the other cat’s cushion.
It was nice and soft, and Blackie liked it.
In the morning Blackie, who had slept well, was given a good breakfast
of milk and oatmeal. Mrs. Thompson seemed to know just what cats like.
“I wonder if you would run away if I let you out in the yard for a
while?” spoke the lady, looking at Blackie. “It is not good for cats,
or other animals, to stay in the house all the while, especially in
Summer. I think I’ll let you run out in the yard a bit.”
She opened the back door, and Blackie, after sniffing a bit, to make
sure there were no dogs about, went out on the back steps. The yard was
not as large as the one where Mabel and Arthur lived, nor did it have
in it a grape arbor.
“But it doesn’t matter,” thought Blackie. “I shall not stay here very
long, especially if I go to the country with the lady. I will be glad
to be on a farm once more. Wouldn’t it be queer if she took me to the
same farm where I used to live? I would like to see my mother, and my
brothers and sisters once more. That little Scratcho was a queer cat!”
And Blackie thought of one brother who was named Scratcho because he
used to scratch his ear in such a funny way.
Blackie sat on the back steps and looked around Mrs. Thompson’s yard.
The cat saw no dogs, nor any other cats, and then, thinking there
might, perhaps, be pussies in the yards on either side, Blackie went
down the steps.
“Now don’t you run away!” called the lady, playfully shaking her finger
at Blackie.
“Pur-r-r-r!” said Blackie, which, I suppose, might be her way of saying
that she would not run off.
Down the walk she went, and she looked up at the fences on either side.
“I wonder if there are other cats over there?” thought Blackie. “That
fence doesn’t look any higher than mine at home. Perhaps I can jump to
the top. I’m going to try.”
Blackie gave a little run, and then jumped for the top of the fence.
To her delight she found that she could reach the top, where she clung
with her sharp claws.
“Now that isn’t so bad!” she told herself. “I am getting to be a better
jumper. Running away did that, I think, just as Speckle said it might.
I’m glad I left home, though I do miss those children. Never mind, I
shall go back to them some day.”
Perched on top of the fence, Blackie looked down in other yards. She
hoped to see another cat with whom she might talk, but none was there.
Blackie did see something which she did not like very well, and that
was a big dog asleep in front of his kennel.
“Hum!” thought Blackie. “He seems to be a savage chap. I hope he
doesn’t get after me. It’s lucky he’s chained. He doesn’t look as
though he liked cats.”
Just then, from behind her, on the fence at the other side of the yard,
Blackie heard a voice saying, in cat language:
“Hello, Blackie, where did you come from, and how did you get here, if
I may ask?”
Blackie turned and saw a yellow cat sitting on the other fence.
“How do you do?” asked Blackie politely. “I just happened to come here,
but how did you know my name, and what is yours?”
“I guessed your name was Blackie because you are so black,” said the
other cat. “My name is Topaz, for I am colored like a yellow topaz
stone, you see. I live here. Do you live there?”
“Well, I am staying with Mrs. Thompson for a while,” Blackie answered.
“I ran away from my own home. Did you ever run away?”
“Never!” exclaimed Topaz. “I’d never _dream_ of doing such a thing.”
“Did you ever have any adventures?” asked Blackie.
“No, I never did――”
“Well, that’s because you never ran away,” went on Blackie. “You _have_
to run away to get adventures. I’ve had two or three already, and I’m
expecting more. I’ll come over and tell you about them.”
But just then something happened. The big dog in the yard awakened, and
seeing Blackie perched on the fence, up he jumped with a growl and a
bark, and made a rush for the black cat.
“Oh, my goodness!” cried Blackie, jumping down quickly and fairly
scooting into the house. “Oh, if that dog should get me!”
“Don’t be afraid!” called Topaz. “That dog is a bad one, but he is
chained.”
Blackie had forgotten about the chain when she leaped off the fence so
quickly.
“He might break his chain and then he’d get us,” said the black cat,
when she was safely on her own back stoop once more.
“He could not get over the fence,” Topaz said. “Don’t be afraid. He
always barks at me, and tries to get me when I go on his fence.”
“I don’t like that kind of a dog,” said Blackie, who was breathing
fast. “I’ll not go on his fence again.”
“Come over and talk to me,” invited Topaz. “There are no dogs here.”
So Blackie went over and had a nice talk with the yellow cat. Blackie
told about her adventures, and how she got on the roof and was taken in
by Mrs. Thompson.
“Yes, she is a good lady, and kind to cats,” said Topaz. “I go over to
see her once in a while, and she gives me nice things to eat. She had a
white cat once.”
“What happened to her?” asked Blackie.
“Oh, while Mrs. Thompson was out one day a bad boy tied a tin can to
the white cat’s tail, and it frightened her so that she ran away, and
never came back. We never saw her again.”
“That was too bad,” said Blackie. “It was an unpleasant adventure.”
“It’s best to stay home,” spoke the yellow cat. “No adventures for me!”
“If you don’t have adventures you will never be a good fence-jumper,”
Blackie said. “Speckle, the cat who lived next door to me in my other
home, told me so.”
“Well, jumping fences isn’t all there is in life,” spoke Topaz, as she
washed her face with her paw.
“Here, Blackie! Blackie!” called Mrs. Thompson, from the back step.
“It’s time for your dinner. Come and get it!”
“Excuse me,” said Blackie to the yellow cat. “I have to go now. I’ll
see you this afternoon.”
That afternoon, and several other times later, on different days,
Blackie and Topaz met on the back fence and talked. Blackie was getting
to like it more and more in her new home. But still she was thinking
that she did not have adventures enough.
[Illustration: Whenever he saw her he barked and growled, and tried to
break his chain to get loose.]
Every once in a while she would get up on the fence to look at the big
dog, and whenever he saw her he barked and growled, and tried to break
his chain to get loose. But he could not.
One day something new happened to Blackie. Mrs. Thompson had been very
busy packing trunks and getting ready to go to the country. And this
day she said:
“Come, Blackie. If you are going to travel with me I must put you in a
traveling basket, so I can take you on the train.”
She lifted Blackie up in her arms, and the next thing the black cat
knew was that she found herself in a basket, with a cover shut tightly
over the top.
“Well, this isn’t so very nice,” thought the black cat. “But still
if we are going to the country it may be all right. It’s part of the
adventure, I suppose.”
Then Blackie felt herself being lifted up and carried along.
“I wonder what is going to happen now?” thought the black cat.