“We must chloroform him,” said Phil briskly. “That is the most humane way.”
“Who of us knows anything about chloroforming a cat?” demanded Anne gloomily.
“I do, honey. It’s one of my few — sadly few — useful accomplishments. I’ve disposed of several at home. You take the cat in the morning and give him a good breakfast. Then you take an old burlap bag — there’s one in the back porch — put the cat on it and turn over him a wooden box. Then take a two-ounce bottle of chloroform, uncork it, and slip it under the edge of the box. Put a heavy weight on top of the box and leave it till evening. The cat will be dead, curled up peacefully as if he were asleep. No pain — no struggle.”
“It sounds easy,” said Anne dubiously.
“It IS easy. Just leave it to me. I’ll see to it,” said Phil reassuringly.
Accordingly the chloroform was procured, and the next morning Rusty was lured to his doom. He ate his breakfast, licked his chops, and climbed into Anne’s lap. Anne’s heart misgave her. This poor creature loved her — trusted her. How could she be a party to this destruction?
“Here, take him,” she said hastily to Phil. “I feel like a murderess.”
“He won’t suffer, you know,” comforted Phil, but Anne had fled.
The fatal deed was done in the back porch. Nobody went near it that day. But at dusk Phil declared that Rusty must be buried.
“Pris and Stella must dig his grave in the orchard,” declared Phil, “and Anne must come with me to lift the box off. That’s the part I always hate.”
The two conspirators tiptoed reluctantly to the back porch. Phil gingerly lifted the stone she had put on the box. Suddenly, faint but distinct, sounded an unmistakable mew under the box.
“He — he isn’t dead,” gasped Anne, sitting blankly down on the kitchen doorstep.
“He must be,” said Phil incredulously.
Another tiny mew proved that he wasn’t. The two girls stared at each other.
“What will we do?” questioned Anne.
“Why in the world don’t you come?” demanded Stella, appearing in the doorway. “We’ve got the grave ready. ‘What silent still and silent all?’” she quoted teasingly.
“‘Oh, no, the voices of the dead Sound like the distant torrent’s fall,’” promptly counter-quoted Anne, pointing solemnly to the box.
A burst of laughter broke the tension.
“We must leave him here till morning,” said Phil, replacing the stone. “He hasn’t mewed for five minutes. Perhaps the mews we heard were his dying groan. Or perhaps we merely imagined them, under the strain of our guilty consciences.”
But, when the box was lifted in the morning, Rusty bounded at one gay leap to Anne’s shoulder where he began to lick her face affectionately. Never was there a cat more decidedly alive.
“Here’s a knot hole in the box,” groaned Phil. “I never saw it. That’s why he didn’t die. Now, we’ve got to do it all over again.”
“No, we haven’t,” declared Anne suddenly. “Rusty isn’t going to be killed again. He’s my cat — and you’ve just got to make the best of it.”
“Oh, well, if you’ll settle with Aunt Jimsie and the Sarah-cat,” said Stella, with the air of one washing her hands of the whole affair.
From that time Rusty was one of the family. He slept o’nights on the scrubbing cushion in the back porch and lived on the fat of the land. By the time Aunt Jamesina came he was plump and glossy and tolerably respectable. But, like Kipling’s cat, he “walked by himself.” His paw was against every cat, and every cat’s paw against him. One by one he vanquished the aristocratic felines of Spofford Avenue. As for human beings, he loved Anne and Anne alone. Nobody else even dared stroke him. An angry spit and something that sounded much like very improper language greeted any one who did.
“The airs that cat puts on are perfectly intolerable,” declared Stella.
“Him was a nice old pussens, him was,” vowed Anne, cuddling her pet defiantly.
“Well, I don’t know how he and the Sarah-cat will ever make out to live together,” said Stella pesimistically. “Cat-fights in the orchard o’nights are bad enough. But cat-fights here in the livingroom are unthinkable.” In due time Aunt Jamesina arrived. Anne and Priscilla and Phil had awaited her advent rather dubiously; but when Aunt Jamesina was enthroned in the rocking chair before the open fire they figuratively bowed down and worshipped her.
Aunt Jamesina was a tiny old woman with a little, softly-triangular face, and large, soft blue eyes that were alight with unquenchable youth, and as full of hopes as a girl’s. She had pink cheeks and snow-white hair which she wore in quaint little puffs over her ears.
“It’s a very old-fashioned way,” she said, knitting industriously at something as dainty and pink as a sunset cloud. “But I am old-fashioned. My clothes are, and it stands to reason my opinions are, too. I don’t say they’re any the better of that, mind you. In fact, I daresay they’re a good deal the worse. But they’ve worn nice and easy. New shoes are smarter than old ones, but the old ones are more comfortable. I’m old enough to indulge myself in the matter of shoes and opinions. I mean to take it real easy here. I know you expect me to look after you and keep you proper, but I’m not going to do it. You’re old enough to know how to behave if you’re ever going to be. So, as far as I am concerned,” concluded Aunt Jamesina, with a twinkle in her young eyes, “you can all go to destruction in your own way.”
“Oh, will somebody separate those cats?” pleaded Stella, shudderingly.
Aunt Jamesina had brought with her not only the Sarah-cat but Joseph. Joseph, she explained, had belonged to a dear friend of hers who had gone to live in Vancouver.
“She couldn’t take Joseph with her so she begged me to take him. I really couldn’t refuse. He’s a beautiful cat — that is, his disposition is beautiful. She called him Joseph because his coat is of many colors.”
It certainly was. Joseph, as the disgusted Stella said, looked like a walking rag-bag. It was impossible to say what his ground color was. His legs were white with black spots on them. His back was gray with a huge patch of yellow on one side and a black patch on the other. His tail was yellow with a gray tip. One ear was black and one yellow. A black patch over one eye gave him a fearfully rakish look. In reality he was meek and inoffensive, of a sociable disposition. In one respect, if in no other, Joseph was like a lily of the field. He toiled not neither did he spin or catch mice. Yet Solomon in all his glory slept not on softer cushions, or feasted more fully on fat things.
Joseph and the Sarah-cat arrived by express in separate boxes. After they had been released and fed, Joseph selected the cushion and corner which appealed to him, and the Sarah-cat gravely sat herself down before the fire and proceeded to wash her face. She was a large, sleek, gray-and-white cat, with an enormous dignity which was not at all impaired by any consciousness of her plebian origin. She had been given to Aunt Jamesina by her washerwoman.
“Her name was Sarah, so my husband always called puss the Sarah-cat,” explained Aunt Jamesina. “She is eight years old, and a remarkable mouser. Don’t worry, Stella. The Sarah-cat NEVER fights and Joseph rarely.”
“They’ll have to fight here in self-defense,” said Stella.
At this juncture Rusty arrived on the scene. He bounded joyously half way across the room before he saw the intruders. Then he stopped short; his tail