The Calico Cat
C >>
Charles Miner Thompson >> The Calico Cat
THE CALICO CAT
BY
CHARLES MINER THOMPSON
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
F. R. GRUGER
[Illustration: Logo]
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1908
COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY CHARLES MINER THOMPSON
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
_Published October, 1908_
SECOND IMPRESSION
TO MY WIFE
NOTE
I have to make these acknowledgments: to Mr. Ira Rich Kent for many
a helpful suggestion in the framing of the story; to the publishers
of "The Youth's Companion," in which the tale first appeared, for
permitting the use of Mr. Gruger's admirable illustrations, and to
Mr. Francis W. Hight for the very pleasant cat which he has drawn
for the cover.
THE AUTHOR
[Illustration: Cat dozing upon the top of the fence.]
THE CALICO CAT
I
Mr. Peaslee looked more complacent than ever. It was Saturday noon,
and Solomon had just returned from his usual morning sojourn
"up-street." He had taken off his coat, and was washing his face at
the sink, while his wife was "dishing up" the midday meal. There was
salt codfish, soaked fresh, and stewed in milk--"picked up," as the
phrase goes; there were baked potatoes and a thin, pale-looking pie.
Mrs. Peaslee did not believe in pampering the flesh, and she did
believe in saving every possible cent.
"Well," said Mr. Peaslee, as they sat down to this feast, "I guess
I've got news for ye."
His wife gazed at him with interest.
"Are ye drawed?" she asked.
"Got the notice from Whitcomb right in my pocket. Grand juror.
September term. 'T ain't more'n a week off."
The _staccato_ utterance was caused by the big mouthfuls of codfish
and potato which, between phrases, Mr. Peaslee conveyed to his
mouth. It was plain to see that he was greatly pleased with his new
dignity.
"What do they give ye for it?" asked his wife. Solomon should accept
no office which did not bring profit.
"Two dollars a day and mileage," said Mr. Peaslee, with the emphasis
of one who knows he will make a sensation.
"Mileage? What's that?"
"Travelin' expenses. State allows ye so much a mile. I get eight
cents for goin' to the courthouse."
"Ye get eight cents every day?" asked his wife, her eyes snapping.
She was vague about the duties of a grand juror; maybe he had to
earn his two dollars; but she had exact ideas about the trouble of
walking "up-street." To get eight cents for that was being paid for
doing nothing at all, and she was much astonished at the idea.
"Likely now, ain't it?" said Mr. Peaslee, with masculine scorn.
"State don't waste money that way! Mileage's to get ye there an'
take ye home again when term's over. You're s'posed to stay round
'tween whiles."
"Humph!" said his wife, disappointed. "They give ye two dollars a
day"--she hazarded the shot--"just for settin' round and talkin',
don't they? Walkin's considerable more of an effort for most folks."
"'Settin' round an' talkin'!'" exclaimed Mr. Peaslee, so indignantly
that he stopped eating for a moment, knife and fork upright in his
rigid, scandalized hands, while he gazed at his thin, energetic,
shrewish little wife. "'Settin' round and talkin'!' It's mighty
important work, now I tell ye. I guess there wouldn't be much law
and order if it wa'n't for the grand jury. They don't take none but
men o' jedgment. Takes gumption, I tell ye. Ye have to pay money to
get that kind."
"Well," said his wife, with the air of one who concedes an
unimportant point, "anyhow, it's good pay for a man whose time ain't
worth anythin'."
"Ain't worth anythin'!" exclaimed Mr. Peaslee, in hurt tones. "Now,
Sarepty, ye know better'n that. I don't know how they'll get along
without me up to the bank. They've got a pretty good idee o' my
jedgment 'bout mortgages. They don't pass any without my say so."
Mrs. Peaslee sniffed. "I've seen ye in the bank window, settin'
round with Jim Bartlett and Si Spooner and the rest of 'em. Readin'
the paper--that's all _I_ ever see ye doin'. Must be wearin' on ye."
"Guess ye never heard what was said, did ye? Can't hear 'em
thinkin', I guess. They're mighty shreued up to the bank, mighty
shreued."
They had finished their codfish and potato, and Mrs. Peaslee,
without giving much attention to her husband's testimony to the
business acumen of his banking friends and incidentally of himself,
pulled the pale, thin pie toward her and cut it.
"Pass up your plate," said she.
When his plate was again in place before him, Mr. Peaslee inserted
the edge of his knife under the upper crust and raised it so that he
could get a better view of its contents; he had his suspicions of
that pie. What he saw confirmed them; between the crusts was a thin,
soft layer of some brown stuff, interspersed with spots of red.
"Them's the currants we had for supper the night before last, and
that's the dried-apple sauce we had for supper last night," he
announced accurately. "An' ye know how I like a proper pie."
"I ain't goin' to waste good victuals," said his wife, with
decision.
There was silence for a moment; Solomon did not dare make any
further protest.
"I suppose," his wife said, picking up again the thread of her
thoughts, "ye'll have to wear your go-to-meetin' suit all the time
to the grand jury. I expect they'll be all wore out at the end.
That'll take off something. You be careful, now. Settin' round's
awful wearin' on pants. You get a chair with a cushion. And don't ye
go treatin' cigars. And don't ye go to the hotel for your victuals.
I ain't goin' to have ye spendin' your money when ye can just as
well come home. Where ye goin' now?"
Mr. Peaslee was putting on his coat. "Well," he said, "I kind o'
thought I'd step over to Ed'ards's. I thought mebbe he'd be
interested."
"Goin' to brag, are ye?" was his wife's remorseless comment. "Much
good it'll do ye, talkin' to that hatchet-face. He ain't so pious as
he looks, if all stories are true."
But Mr. Peaslee was already outside the door. She raised her voice
shrilly. "You be back, now; them chickens has got to be fed!"
Mr. Peaslee sought a more sympathetic audience. Being drawn for the
grand jury had greatly flattered his vanity, for it encouraged a
secret ambition which he had long held to get into public life.
Service on the grand jury might lead to his becoming selectman,
perhaps justice of the peace, perhaps town representative from
Ellmington--who knew what else? He looked down a pleasant vista of
increasing office, at the end of which stood the state capitol. He
could be senator, perhaps! And he began planning his behavior as
juror, the dignified bearing, the well-matured utterances, the
shrewd cross-questioning. At the end of his service his neighbors
would know him for a man of solid judgment, a "safe" man to be
intrusted with weighty affairs.
Mr. Peaslee was fifty-three years old. He had a comfortable figure,
a clean-shaven, round face, and blue eyes much exaggerated for the
spectator by the strong lenses of a pair of great spectacles. These,
with his gray hair, gave him a benevolence of aspect which somewhat
misrepresented him. As a matter of fact, although good-humored and
not without a still surviving capacity for generous impulse, he was
only less "near" than his wife. Childishly vain, he bore himself
with an air of self-satisfaction not without its charm for humorous
neighbors. They said that they guessed he thought himself "some
punkins."
"Some punkins" most people admitted him to be, although how much of
his money and how much of his shrewdness was really his wife's was
matter of debate among those who knew him best. At any rate, the
Peaslees had made money. A few years before, they had sold their
fat farm "down-river" advantageously, and had bought the dignified
white house in Ellmington in which they have just been seen eating a
dinner which looks as if they were "house poor." That they were not;
they had thirty thousand dollars in the local bank, partly invested
in its stock. In Ellmington Mrs. Peaslee was less lonely, and
through Mr. Peaslee was an unsuspected director in the bank, and a
shrewd user of the chances for profitable investment which her
husband's association with the "bank crowd" opened to her.
As for Mr. Peaslee, he did not know that he himself was not the
business head of the house; and his garden, his chickens, and his
pleasant loafing in the bank window kept him contentedly occupied.
For, in spite of her shrewish tongue, Mrs. Peaslee had tact enough
to let her husband have the credit for her business acumen. "I ain't
goin' to let on," she said to herself, "that he ain't just as good
as the rest of 'em." She had her pride.
As Mr. Peaslee stepped along the straight walk which divided his
neat lawn, and opened the neat gate in his neat white fence, he met
Sam Barton, the broad-shouldered, good-humored giant who was
constable of Ellmington. Sam gave him a smiling "How are ye,
squire?" as he passed.
"Guess he's heard," said Mr. Peaslee to himself, much pleased. Yet,
as a matter of fact, the greeting was not different from that which
Sam had given him daily for the past three years.
Once on the sidewalk, Mr. Peaslee turned to the right toward the
house of his neighbor, Mr. Edwards. Edwards was a younger man than
Peaslee, perhaps forty-seven. His business was speculating in
lumber and cattle, and in the interest of this he was constantly
passing and re passing the Canadian border, which was not far from
Ellmington. In the intervals between his trips he was much at home.
He was a stern, silent, secretive man, and simply because he was so
close-mouthed there was much guessing and gossip, not wholly kind,
about his affairs.
Mr. Peaslee found the front door of the Edwards house standing open
in the trustful village fashion, and, with neighborly freedom,
walked in without ringing. He turned first into the sitting-room,
where he found no one, and then into a rear room opening from it.
This obviously was a boy's "den." On the table in the centre were a
checkerboard, some loose string, a handful of spruce gum, some
scattered marbles, a broken jack-knife, a cap, a shot-pouch, an old
bird's nest, a powder-flask, a dog-eared copy of "Caesar's
Commentaries," open, and a Latin dictionary, also open. In a corner
stood a fishing-rod in its cotton case; along the wall were ranged
bait-boxes, a fishing-basket, a pair of rubber boots, and a huge
wasp's nest. Leaning against the sill of the open window was a
double-barreled shotgun, and on the sill itself were some black,
greasy rags and a small bottle of oil.
Various truths might be inferred from the disarray. One was that Mr.
Edwards was generous to his son Jim, and another was that there was
no Mrs. Edwards. Further, it might be easily enough guessed that Jim
had been lured from the study of Latin, in which pretty Miss Ware,
who was his teacher at the "Union" school, was trying to interest
him, by the attractive idea of oiling his gun-barrels, and that
something still more attractive--perhaps a boy with crossed fingers,
for it was not too late for swimming--had lured him from that. At
any rate, Jim was not there.
Mr. Peaslee, still bent on finding Mr. Edwards, moved toward the
open window. But he could see no signs of life anywhere. None of the
household was, however, far away. Jim was in the loft of the barn,
where he was carefully examining a barrel of early apples with a
view to filling his pockets with the best; the housekeeper had
merely stepped across the street to borrow some yeast, and Mr.
Edwards, who had a headache, was lying down in the chamber
immediately above Jim's den.
Mr. Peaslee stood and gazed. He eyed in turn the kitchen ell, the
shed, and the barn, and then gazed out over the "posy" garden, where
still bloomed a few late flowers, of which he recognized only the
"chiny" asters. He looked toward what he himself would have called
the "sarce" garden, with its cabbages, turnips, rustling
corn-stalks, and drying tomato-vines. Seeing no one there, he sent
his gaze to the distant rows of apple trees, bright with ripening
fruit. Disappointed, he was about to turn away, but he could not
resist taking a complacent, sweeping view of his own adjoining
possessions.
There, on the right, ran the long line of his own dwelling,
continued by the five-foot board fence separating his garden from
Mr. Edwards's. This stood up gauntly white until near the orchard,
where it was completely hidden by the high, feathery stalks of the
asparagus-bed, by a row of great sunflowers, now heavy and bent with
their disk-like seed-pods, and by a clump of lilac bushes. As his
eye traveled along the white expanse, he gave a quick start, and his
face clouded with vexation.
There in the sun, prone upon the top of the fence, dozed the bane of
his life--_the Calico Cat_.
Her coat was made up of patches of yellow and white, varied with
a black stocking on her right hind leg, and a large, round, black
spot about her right eye, which gave her a peculiarly predatory and
disreputable appearance. Solomon had disliked her at sight. Ever
since he had bought the house in Ellmington he had been trying to
drive her from the premises, but stay away she would not. Not all
the missiles in existence could convince her that his house was not
a desirable place of abode. And she was a constant vexation and
annoyance.
She jumped from the fence plump into the middle of newly planted
flower-beds; she filled the haymow with kittens; she asked all her
friends to the barn, where she gave elaborate musical parties at
hours more fashionably late than were tolerated in Ellmington.
Whenever she had indigestion she ate off the tops of the choicest
green things that grew in the garden; but when her appetite was good
she caught and devoured his young chickens.
Moreover, when at bay she frightened him. Once he had cornered the
spitting creature in a stall. Claws out, tail big, fur all on end,
she had leaped straight at his head, which he ducked, and, landing
squarely upon it, had steadied herself there for a moment with
sharp, protruding claws; thence she had jumped to a feed-box, thence
to a beam, thence to the mow, from the dusky recesses of which she
had glared at him with big, green, menacing eyes. Not since that
experience, which, in spite of his soft hat, had left certain marks
upon his scalp, had he ever attempted to catch her. Instead, he had
borrowed a gun, and a dozen times had fired at her; but although he
counted himself a fair shot, he had never made even a scant bit of
fur fly from her disreputable back.
And now he knew she laughed at him. Yes, laughed at him, for she had
more than human intelligence. There was something demoniac in her
cleverness, her immunity from harm, her prodigious energy, her
malevolent mischief, her raillery. Actually, he had grown morbid
about the beast; he had a superstitious feeling that in the end she
would bring him bad luck. How he hated her!
There she lay, with eyes shut, unsuspecting, comfortable, and
basked in the warm September sunshine. Here at his hand was a
double-barreled shotgun. The chance was too good. This vagrant,
this outlaw, this trespasser, this thief--he catalogued her
misdeeds in his mind as he clanged the ramrod down the barrels
to see if the piece was loaded.
It was not. But ammunition was at hand. He put in a generous charge
from Jim's powder-flask and rammed it home with a paper wad. He
grabbed up the shot-pouch and released the proper charge into his
hand. He was disappointed; it was bird shot. Scattering as it would
scatter, it could do _that_ cat no harm. Nevertheless, he poured the
pellets into the barrel. As he rammed home the paper wad on top of
these, his eye caught the marbles lying on the table. He took one
that fitted, and rammed that home also--for luck. He placed a cap,
lifted the gun to his shoulder, and fired.
With a leap which sent her six feet into the air the Calico Cat
landed four-square in Mr. Peaslee's chicken-yard, almost on the back
of the dignified rooster, which fled with a startled squawk. She
dodged like lightning across the chicken-yard, between cackling and
clattering hens, went up the wire-netting walls, leaped to the roof,
paused, considered, began to reflect that she had been shot at
before and to wonder at her own fright, stopped, and, sitting down
on the ridgepole, looked inquiringly in Mr. Peaslee's direction. She
was, of course, entirely unharmed.
But other matters were claiming Mr. Peaslee's attention. Out
from behind the screen formed by the asparagus plumes, the
currant-bushes, the sunflowers, and the lilacs, all of which
grew not so far from the spot on the fence where the Calico
Cat had been sitting, fell a man!
Solomon had a mere glimpse. Standing behind taller bushes, the
stranger had fallen behind lower ones, and only while his falling
figure was describing the narrow segment of a circle had he been
visible.
But the glimpse was enough. Mr. Peaslee's jaw dropped, his face
turned white. But the next moment he gave a great sigh of relief. He
saw the man rise and slip into cover of the bushes, and so disappear
through the orchard. He had not, then, killed the fellow!
Relieved of that fear, he thought of himself. What would people say
were he charged with firing at a man--he, a respectable citizen, a
director in the bank, a grand juror? They must not know!
He silently laid the gun back against the window-sill, turned with
infinite care, and tiptoed quickly back into the sitting-room, into
the hall, into the street.
Not a soul was visible. Nevertheless, such was Mr. Peaslee's
agitation, so strongly did he feel the need of silence, that,
placing a shaking hand upon the fence to steady himself, he tiptoed
along the sidewalk all the way to his own house. There the fear of
his wife struck him. He was in no condition to meet that sharp-eyed,
quick-tongued lady!
He softly entered the front door and penetrated to the dark parlor,
where, as no one would ever enter it except for a funeral or a
wedding, he felt safe from intrusion. There he sank down upon the
slippery horsehair lounge, and, staring helplessly at the severe
portrait of Mrs. Peaslee, done by a lugubrious artist in crayon,
wiped the sweat from his forehead and tried to collect his scattered
faculties.
"Whew!" he breathed. "Whew!"
[Illustration: Cat licking paw.]
II
Meanwhile, at the Edwards house, life had grown suddenly
interesting.
When the report of the gun reached Jim, he had stopped pawing over
the apple barrel, and was sitting on the upper step of the staircase
at the extreme end of the loft, slowly munching an apple and
thinking.
Jim was a healthy, active boy, with no more sense than naturally
belongs to a boy of fifteen, and with a lively imagination, which
had been most unfortunately overstimulated. Without a mother, and
with a father who paid him scant attention, he read whatever he
liked, and as a result, his head was full of romantic road-agents
delightfully kind to little crippled daughters at home, fierce
pirates who supported aged and respectable mothers, and considerate
bandits who restored valuable watches when told that they were
prized on account of tender associations.
His imagination had been still further fed by certain local legends
and happenings, highly colored enough to excite the keenest
interest. Ellmington is, as has been said, near the Canadian border.
The place abounds in tales of smuggling, and the popular gossip, as
gossip everywhere has a pleasing way of doing, associates the names
of the most respectable and unlikely people with the disreputable
ventures of the smugglers.
Of course a story of contraband trade is the more striking if the
narrator can hint that the judge of probate or the most stern of
village deacons might tell a good deal if he were disposed, and
there are always persons ready to give this sort of interest to
their "yarns."
In Ellmington lived Jake Farnum, an ex-deputy marshal and an
incorrigible liar, about whom gathered the boys, Jim among them, to
hear exciting stories of chase and detection, exactly as boys in a
seaport town gather about an old sailor to hear tales of pirates and
buccaneers. And Jake loved to hint darkly that the best people
shared in the illicit traffic.
With it all, Jim's sense of right and wrong was in a fair way to
become hopelessly "mixed." Exactly as boys at the seashore are prone
to believe that a pirate is, on the whole, an admirable character,
so these border boys, and especially Jim, had come to feel--only
with more excuse, because of the generally indulgent view of the
community--that smuggling is an occupation in which any one may
engage with credit, and which is much more interesting than most.
Now it is not likely that Jim's father, a stern, secretive,
obviously prosperous man, with an intermittent business which
took him back and forth across the border, could in all this
gossip escape a touch of suspicion. No one, of course, denied
that he really did deal in lumber and cattle; the fact was
obvious. But there were hints and whispers, shrewd shakings
of the head, and more than one "guessed" that all Edwards's
profits "didn't come from cattle, no, nor lumber, neither."
Latterly these whispers had become more definite. Pete Lamoury,
a French-Canadian, whom Mr. Edwards had hired as a drover, and
abruptly discharged, was spreading stories about his former
employer which made Blackbeard, the pirate, seem like a babe by
comparison. Pete was not a very credible witness; but still,
building upon a suspicion that already existed, he succeeded in
adding something to its substantiality.
These stories had come to Jim's ears, and Jim was delighted. The
consideration that, were the stories true, his father was a criminal
did not occur to him at all. Like the foolish, romantic boy he was,
he was simply pleased to think of his father as a man of iron
determination, cool wit, unshakable courage, whom no deputy sheriff
could over-match, and who was leading a life full of excitement and
danger--the smuggler king! The only thing that Jim regretted was
that his father did not let him share in these exploits. He knew he
could be useful! But his father's manner was habitually so
forbidding that Jim did not dare hint a knowledge of these probable
undertakings, much less any desire to share them.
Poor Mr. Edwards! He loved his boy, but did not in the least know
how to show it. Silent, with a sternness of demeanor which he was
unable wholly to lay aside even in his friendliest moments, much
away from home, and unable to meet the boy on his own level when he
was there, deprived of the wife who might have been his interpreter,
he had no way of becoming acquainted with his son. Anxious in some
way to share in Jim's life, he took the clumsy and mistaken method
of letting him have too much pocket-money.
Yet if Jim, thus unguided and overindulged, had gone astray in his
conduct, Mr. Edwards was not the man to know his mistake and take
the blame. He had in him a rigidity of moral judgment, a dryness of
mind which made it certain that if Jim did do what he disapproved,
he would visit upon him a punishment at once severe and
unsympathetic. The man's air of cold strength excited in the son
fear as well as admiration; his reserve kept his naturally
affectionate boy at more than arm's length. Poor Mr. Edwards! Poor
Jim! Misunderstanding between them was as sure to occur as the rise
of to-morrow's sun.
Pat on Jim's speculations about his father's stirring deeds, the
gunshot came echoing through the silent barn. Jim ran to the loft
door and looked out. He saw smoke curling up from the window of his
"den," and knew that it was his own gun that had been fired. Back in
the room, a vague masculine figure moved hastily out of the door.
Jim looked toward the orchard, and caught sight of another man
disappearing in the trees. He was wild with excitement. As he knew
that his father was the only person in the house, he was sure that
his father had fired the shot.
The tales that he had heard, his belief in his father's life of
adventure, made him conclude that here was some smuggler's quarrel.
So vividly did the notion take possession of his inflamed
imagination that nothing henceforth could shake it. He simply
_knew_ what had happened.
And his father had fled, leaving all the evidences of his shot
behind him! Jim's loyal heart bounded; here he could help. He
turned, raced across the loft, clattered down the steep, cobwebby
stairs, slipped through the shed passage, through the kitchen, and
on into his own room.
He knew what to do. Nothing must show that the gun had ever been
used! He set feverishly to work. He swabbed out the weapon, and hung
it on its rack over the mantel. He tossed the rags into the
fireplace and covered them with ashes. He put the shot-pouch and the
powder-flask into their proper drawer. Then he pulled a chair to the
table and set himself to a pretended study of Caesar. If any one
should come, it would look as if he had been quietly studying all
the morning.
All this had cost considerable self-denial; for of course he boiled
with curiosity about the man in the orchard. He did not dare to go
out there, but now, stealthily glancing out of the window, he saw
his father returning from the garden with long strides. Jim
understood. His father, going out at the front door, had slipped
round to the side of the house, so that it would look as if he had
come from the street.