her cramped paws and tail on the most beautiful plush sofa that she had
ever seen,—and gaze with interested green eyes on the pictures and
statuary around her. There were several long mirrors in the room, and
Weejums admired herself in each by turn, until she came to what seemed
another, when, greatly to her astonishment, her own reflection slanted
back its ears and spit at her.
“What cat is this?” asked a strange voice, and Weejums saw her
reflection hastily picked up by a lady in a lace gown, while the
reflection continued to spit and growl.
“We thought ’twas Octavia,” faltered Marian; “but that must be Octavia
in your arms, and, oh, I’m afraid we’ve carried off somebody else’s
cat!”
“She’s the living image of Octavia, if you have,” said Mrs. Slocum,
kneeling down to examine Weejums. “Where did you find her, Marian?”
And the story of Weejums’ discovery was told, while Mrs. Slocum thanked
and petted Marian for all the trouble that she had taken.
“It might be Octavia’s own kitten,” Mrs. Slocum said, “except that
Octavia never had one so like herself.”
“Your house may be beautiful,” said Weejums to Octavia; “but your
manners are certainly common,” and before any one could interfere, she
had dabbed Octavia on the nose, with a most unlady-like spit.
“Fennels—Fennels!” called Mrs. Slocum. “Marian dear, would you mind
putting the strange cat in her basket for a minute? That’s right, thank
you, dear. Now, if you don’t know whose she is, why not take her back
to Montrose and put an advertisement in the paper? Somebody must be
feeling terribly at losing her, and I should really like to know where
she came from.”
“Marian was going to spend the night with me, and go to the Cat Show
to-morrow,” said Mrs. Armstrong. “I suppose there is no great hurry
about returning the cat. It isn’t as if ’twas a baby.”
“Oh, Auntie, I hope no one will answer the advertisement,” said Marian,
squeezing the basket. “Only think of having an Octavia for my very own!”
“Well, we’ll see you to-morrow,” said Mrs. Slocum, as her guests took
their leave, and parting spits were exchanged between the two ladies of
tortoise-shell complexion.
So it happened that when Mrs. Wood and her children stopped, in utter
joy and astonishment, before Octavia’s cage at the Cat Show, they
received a cordial welcome from two strange ladies and a little girl.
“It’s Weejums!” exclaimed Mrs. Wood, and Franklin in the same breath.
“It’s Weejums!” said Kenneth. “Somebody stole her and fixed her up for
the show!”
“Doesn’t she look whacking!” said Franklin. “They’re not going to keep
her, though. Somebody will be arrested for this!”
“It’s not, either,” said Eunice, struggling to keep back the tears, for
at first she too had thought it was. “Don’t you see—her expression is
entirely different?”
It’s a wise child that knows its own cat, and Eunice, the little
mother, could not be deceived in her Weejums.
“Have you lost a kitty?” asked Marian, taking Eunice by the hand. “A
sweet kitty that looks just like this one? And do you live in Montrose?
I think I saw your brother on the street.”
“Yes—yes, yes,” answered Eunice to each question. “Weejums fell
through the floor on to an old lady’s head, and—” this was almost too
much to recount—“the old lady chased her out of the house. She didn’t
come home last night.”
“Well, I found her!” said Marian, triumphantly; “so don’t feel bad any
more. I found her—do you hear? She’s at Auntie’s house now, and you
can take her right home.”
“Would you mind telling me where you got the cat?” asked Mrs. Slocum,
politely, of Mrs. Wood.
“In Alleston, where we lived,” was the answer. “She came to us in such
a strange way—” and she started to tell the story of the Alley Cat,
but Mrs. Slocum interrupted her quite excitedly.
“In Alleston, did you say? Why, we have relatives in Alleston, and
Octavia has visited there with us, haven’t you, pusskins? And she
had some kittens there too, but they all died, that is, all except a
hideous brindled thing that ran away. We’ve always felt ashamed of that
kitten.”
“Then if Octavia’s kitten was brindle, our cat that the little girl
found is Octavia’s grandchild,” said Mrs. Wood; “we’ve always felt
that Weejums must have good blood, although she is sometimes a little
brusque in her manners.”
“Can’t you all come home to luncheon with me?” asked Mrs. Armstrong,
“and see your cat? After all, it may not be the same one. It would be
too extraordinary if it was.”
“We’ll come and see you with pleasure,” said Mrs. Wood, thanking her;
“but the children were to meet their uncle for luncheon at Dorlon’s. He
has promised them a lobster, and I’m hoping that this excitement over
Weejums will make them forget it.”
So after they had admired a few more of the cats, particularly the
Angoras, which looked, Kenneth said, “as if their fur needed weeding,”
the whole party took the Elevated to West 81st Street, and walked
over to Mrs. Armstrong’s house, opposite the Park, where, in an upper
window, lined with Nile-green pillows, a familiar form was balanced
upon a pot of white azalea, catching flies.
“It _is_!” cried Eunice, giving Marian a hug. “Yes, it is!”
“Are you sure?” asked Marian, a little disappointed. “I was almost
hoping it wouldn’t be, so that I could keep her. She’s so sweet, you
know!”
“I know better than any one,” said Eunice, seriously. “You see, she’s
_my_ cat. Of course you wouldn’t exactly understand my feelings about
her—if you never had a cat.”
Weejums was delighted to see Eunice, but howled wrathfully when, after
luncheon, she was thrust into her basket and carried back to the hated
boarding-house.
“It won’t be for long,” Eunice whispered in her ear, as she was
banished to the laundry, instead of being allowed to spend the evening
in the parlor.
The children pleaded for her, and explained to the old lady that it
must have been much more painful for Weejums to fall heavily on a hard
bald head, than it was for the head to catch a nice furry Weejums. But
when the old lady took off her cap it really did seem, judging from
the appearance of the head, as if Weejums had danced a hornpipe on it
before reaching the floor.
“The cat mustn’t come into the front of the house again,” the landlady
decided, and was not at all moved when Eunice said pitifully, “It’s an
accident that might happen to any one who tried to lie down on a hole.”
Both cats slept in the laundry; but, as Weejums was in disgrace, Mrs.
Winslow would not speak to her, and, ignoring the other half of their
bed, went off and lay down gingerly on some bars of soap.
It was in the middle of the night that Mrs. Winslow waked herself with
a great sneeze, and saw Weejums sniffing nervously around a crack in
the floor.
“Mice?” asked Mrs. Winslow, quite forgetting that they were not on
speaking terms.
“No, smoke,” answered Weejums, with contempt. “It is evident that the
two sides of your nose don’t match any better than your eyes.”
“There shouldn’t be smoke at this time of night,” said Mrs. Winslow,
uneasily, “should there?”
“No,” said Weejums, “there never has been before.”
“There’s a broken pane of glass in the outside window,” said Mrs.
Winslow, jumping up. “The smoke is getting so thick we’d better go out
in the garden.”
“I think we ought to tell somebody about it,” said Weejums.
“Why should we?” asked Mrs. Winslow, lazily. “No one else sleeps in the
laundry. Besides you couldn’t get upstairs.”
“Yes, I could, through the hole where they pass the dishes in the
butler’s pantry. Hannah left it open last night.”
“If I’d known that,” said Mrs. Winslow, crossly, “we could have slept
in the parlor to-night. Why didn’t you—”
But at that moment a larger puff of smoke came up through the crack,
and Mrs. Winslow made a leap for the window, found the broken pane of
glass, and was gone. Weejums ran into the butler’s pantry, took a still
higher leap to the little window, and in another minute was scratching
and mewing at Mrs. Wood’s door.
“Be still, Weejums!” she called softly, so as not to wake the children.
“Go downstairs, bad cat!”
“Oh, please come!” called Weejums again and again, “please, please
come!”
And at last Mrs. Wood went; but before Weejums could guide her to the
laundry, she had smelled the smoke, and in a few minutes the household
was roused. People bundled out of their beds, and into the street just
in time, before the flames came up through the laundry floor, and the
engines were in the yard. The fire was soon out, owing, as the firemen
said, to its having been discovered so early, and all the boarders
gathered around Weejums with embraces and grateful tears.
“It’s bad to have your head clawed,” said the queerest of the old
ladies, who had left her room attired in a flannel petticoat and a
seal-skin jacket, “but it’s much worse to be burned alive.”
And before Weejums went away, all the old ladies clubbed together, and
bought her an uncomfortable silver collar with her name on it, and a
jingling padlock that scared the mice.
But something had happened that more than made up to Weejums for having
to wear this collar and seem grateful for it.
When the fire was over, Mrs. Winslow was found in the back yard, up a
tree!
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHRISTMAS EVE
It was Christmas Eve again, and Mrs. Wood sat alone with Weejums before
the fire downstairs. Franklin had stayed up to help fill the stockings;
but now he too was gone, and the ticking of the clock sounded very loud.
It was the first Christmas Eve that she had ever spent by herself, and
her thoughts went back to the time when the children’s father had been
with her, and the last few hours of this day were the most beautiful in
all the year.
When Grandmother was there, she kept one from thinking too much,
although she too may have remembered other Christmases, spent with
him who had been the children’s father, and her little boy. But
Grandmother was not here to-night, and there was nothing to keep one
from thinking—nothing at all.
[Illustration: “A CHRISTMAS PRESENT, WITH EUNICE’S LOVE”]
Down on the rug Weejums was busily washing Octavius, the beautiful
kitten who was to go as a Christmas present, with Eunice’s love, to
Marian Armstrong. Weejums did not know why he was named Octavius, or
that it was her own grandparent on whom she had called in New York, and
at whom she had spit.
“Weejums!” called Mrs. Wood, softly, “dear little kitty, come and speak
to me!”
Weejums rose with an answering purr, and, leaving Octavius asleep in a
ring of his own baby tail, leaped upon her lap. It seemed to Mrs. Wood
that Weejums’ attitude towards the children had changed since she grew
older, and her kittens came. At first she had thought Eunice was her
mother; but now she realized that Eunice was only a kitten, after all,
and that Mrs. Wood was nearer her own age.
They sat watching the fire together until the coals whitened, and the
clock slowly struck twelve. Then Mrs. Wood gave a few last touches
to the stockings hung in the shadows, and went upstairs. But as she
entered her room, there was a sound of soft little paws beside her, and
a comforting “Pu-r-r-eow!” in the darkness, for Weejums had left her
kitten, and gone with the companion who needed her most.
“She never followed me like this before,” Mrs. Wood thought. “Is
it possible that she knew I was lonely to-night,—that she felt a
difference?”
Weejums did not explain what she thought, but when Mrs. Wood was in
bed, curled down beside her with a drowsy purr most soothing to hear.
“I’m glad she’s here,” thought Eunice’s mother. “I don’t feel much like
sleep to-night, and it’s nice to have—somebody.”
“Purr-pu-r-r,” said Weejums, softly. “Purr-r-r-r.”
“It was just six years ago to-night—” Mrs. Wood began thinking.
“Pur-r-pu-r-r-r.”
Why, how loud that purr was growing! ever so much more like an
alarm-clock than a purr, and it ended with a sharp “bu-r-r Ting!” Mrs.
Wood sat up and rubbed her eyes. Yes, it _was_ the alarm-clock that she
had set last night; Weejums was no longer there, and she heard a joyous
shout from Kenneth’s room.
“Why, I’ve been asleep!” she said with a laugh.
The Alley Cat’s kitten had done her work; for it was six o’clock, and
Christmas morning.
[Illustration: WEEJUMS]
[Illustration]
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IRMA AND NAP. A Story for Younger Girls. By HELEN LEAH REED,
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