THE KITTEN WHO LOST HERSELF
"I think," said the Blind Horse, "that something is the matter with myears." He and the Dappled Gray had been doing field-work all themorning, and were now eating a hearty dinner in their stalls. They werethe only people on the first floor of the barn. Even the stray Doves whohad wandered in the open door were out in the sunshine once more. Oncein a while the whirr of wings told that some Swallow darted through thewindow into the loft above and flew to her nest under the roof. Therewas a deep and restful quiet in the sun-warmed air, and yet the BlindHorse had seemed to be listening to something which the other did nothear.
The Dappled Gray stopped eating at once. "Your ears?" said he. "What iswrong with them? I thought your hearing was very good."
"It always has been," was the answer, "and finer than ever since I lostmy sight. You know it is always so with us blind people. We learn tohear better than we could before losing our sight. But ever since wecame in from the field I have had a queer sound in my ears, and I thinkthere is something the matter with them."
The Dappled Gray stopped eating and stood perfectly still to listen. Hedid not even switch his tail, although at that minute there were threeFlies on his left side and one on his neck. He was trying as hard as hecould to hear the queer sound also, for if he did, it would prove thatthe noise was real and that the Blind Horse's hearing was all right.
He could not hear a thing. "What is it like?" he asked.
"Like the loud purring of a Cat," was the answer, "but everybody knowsthat the Cat is not purring anywhere around here."
"She might be," said the Dappled Gray. "Where does the sound seem tobe?"
"Above my head," said the Blind Horse; "and she certainly would not bepurring up there at this time. She would either be sound asleep, or offhunting, or else out in the sunshine, where she loves to sit."
The Dappled Gray felt that this was so, and he could not say a word. Hewas very sorry for his friend. He thought how dreadful it would seem tobe both blind and deaf, and he choked on the oats he was swallowing.
"Now don't worry," said the Blind Horse; "if I should be deaf, I couldstill feel the soft touch of the breeze on my skin, and could taste mygood food, and rub noses with my friends. I wouldn't have spoken of it,only I hoped that you could hear the noise also, and then I would knowthat it was real." That was just like him. He was always patient andsweet-tempered. In all the years he had been blind, he had never oncecomplained of it, and many times when the other Horses were about to sayor do some ill-natured thing, they thought of him and stopped. They wereashamed to be impatient when they were so much better off than he.
The Horses kept on eating their oats and resting from their hard work.In the hay-loft above their heads, the Cat lay and purred and purred andpurred, never dreaming that her doing so made trouble for her friendsdownstairs.
She had been hunting all the night before, creeping softly through thebarn and hiding behind bags and boxes to watch for careless Mice andyoung Rats. They were night-runners as well as she, and many thingshappened in the barn and farmyard while the larger four-legged peoplewere sound asleep and the fowls were dreaming with their heads tuckedunder their wings. Sometimes there were not so many Mice in the morningas there had been the evening before, and when this was so, the Catwould walk slowly through the barn and look for a comfortableresting-place. When she found it, she would turn around three times, asher great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother used to do totrample a bed in the jungle, and then lie down for a long nap. She saidshe always slept better when her stomach was full, and that was thehabit of all Cats.
Sometimes she hunted in the fields, and many a morning at sunrise theCows had seen her walking toward the barn on the top of the fences. Shedid not like to wet her feet on the dewy grass when it could be helped;so, as soon as she was through hunting, she jumped on to the nearestfence and went home in that way.
Yes, last night she had been hunting, yet she was not thinking of itnow. Neither was she asleep. A Rat gnawed at the boards near her, andshe hardly turned her head. A Mouse ran across the floor in plain sight,and she watched him without moving. What did she care about them now?Her first Kittens lay on the hay beside her, and she would not leavethem on this first day of their lives unless she really had to.
Of course she had seen little Kittens before--Kittens that belonged toother Cats--but she was certain that none of them had looked at all likeher three charming babies. She could not decide which one of them wasthe most beautiful. She was a Tortoise-shell Cat herself, and her furwas spotted with white, black, and yellow. The babies had the samecolors on their soft coats, but not in just the same way as hers.
At first she thought her largest daughter was the beauty of the family;she was such a clear yellow, with not a hair of any other color on her."I always did like yellow Cats," said the young mother, "and they aresaid to be very strong."
Then she looked at her smaller daughter, who was white with tiny yellowand black spots on neck and head. "Such a clean-looking baby," sheexclaimed, "and I am sure that when her eyes are open I shall find themblue like my own."
Just at this moment, the warm, dark little bunch of fur between herforepaws moved, and she looked lovingly down upon him, her only son. "Heis certainly a very remarkable one," she said. "I never before saw sucha fine mixture of yellow and black, first a hair of one and then a hairof the other, so that, unless one is very close to him it looks like arich brown. And then his feet!" She gave him a loving little poke withone forefoot and turned him onto his back. This made him wave his tinypaws in the air. The thick cushions of skin on each were as black asblack could be, and that is very uncommon. They are usually pink, likethose of his sisters.
The little fellow lay there, wriggling very feebly, until his mothergave him another poke that turned him over. Then he stretched andcrawled toward her, reaching his head first one way and then another. Hewas so weak that he could not raise his body from the hay, but draggedit along by taking short and uncertain steps with his four shaking legs.It was only a short time since he found that he had legs, and he hadn'tany idea how to use them. He just moved whichever one seemed most in hisway.
He didn't know where he was going, or what he was going for, but hislittle stomach was empty and he was cold. Something, he didn't knowwhat, made him drag himself toward the big, warm creature near by. Whenhis black nose touched the fur of her body, he stopped pushing ahead andbegan to feel from side to side. He did not know now for what he wasfeeling, yet when he found something his tiny mouth closed around it anda stream of sweet warm milk began to flow down his throat and into hisempty stomach. He did not know that it was milk. He did not knowanything except that it was good, and then he fell asleep. His sistersdid in the same way, and soon the happy mother could look down and seeher three babies in a row beside her, all sound asleep. Their pointedlittle tails lay straight out behind them, and their soft ears were bentforward close to their heads.
"I wonder," said she, "if I was ever as small as they are, and if mymother loved me as I love them." She stretched out one of her forepawsand looked at it. It was so much larger, so very much larger, than thepaws of the Kittens. Such a soft and dainty paw as it was, and soperfectly clean. She stretched it even more, and saw five long, curved,sharp claws slide out of their sheaths or cases. She quickly slid themback into their sheaths, for fear that in some way they might happen totouch and hurt her babies.
A Swallow flew down from his nest and passed over her head, then out ofthe open window. "Kittens!" said he. "Kittens!" He flew over the fieldsand saw two Horses standing by the fence while the farmer was oiling hismachine. "We have new neighbors in the barn," said he, "and the Cat ispurring louder than ever."
"Who are the neighbors?" asked the Dappled Gray.
"Kittens!" sang the Swallow. "Oh, tittle-ittle-ittle-ee."
The Blind Horse drew a long breath. "Then I did hear her purr," said he;"I am so glad." He never made a fuss about his troubles, for he wasbrave and unselfish,
yet the Dappled Gray knew without being told howmuch lighter his heart was since he heard that the Cat had really beenpurring above his head.
The days passed by, and the Kittens grew finely. They got their eyesopen, first in narrow cracks, and then wider and wider, until they wereround and staring. The White Kitten had blue ones, the others brown. Inthe daytime, they had long, narrow black spots in the middle of theireyes, and as the bright light faded, these black spots spread outsideways until they were quite round. When it was very dark, these spotsglowed like great Fireflies in the night. Then the Mice, who oftenscampered through the loft when the Cat was away, would see three pairsof eyes glowing in the hay, and they would squeak to each other: "See!The Kittens are watching us."
And the Kittens, who were not yet old enough to go hunting, and who wereafraid of everything that stirred, would crowd up against each other,arch their little backs, raise their pointed tails, stand their fur onend, and say, "Pst! Ha-a-ah!"
Sometimes they did this when there was not a person in sight and whatfrightened them was nothing but a wisp of hay, blown down by the wind.Afterward, when anything moved, they sprang at it, held it down withtheir sharp little claws, and chewed on it with their pointed whiteteeth. When they were tired of this game, they played hide-and-seek, andwhen they were tired of that they chased their tails. It was so nicealways to have playthings with them. Sometimes, too, they chased eachother's tails, and caught them and bit them hard, until the Kitten whoowned the tail cried, "Mieow!" and tumbled the biter over.
They were allowed to play all through the loft except over the mangers.Their mother was afraid that if they went there they would fall throughthe holes which had been left in the floor. During the winter, thefarmer used to throw hay down through these to the hungry Horses. Whenthe Cat saw her children going toward these places, she called them backand scolded them. Sometimes she struck them lightly on the ears with herforepaw. "I don't like to," said she, "but they must learn to keep away.It is not safe for them to go there."
One morning when she was away, they were playing hide-and-seek, and theWhite Kitten was hunting for a good hiding-place. "I'll hide near one ofthese holes," she said, "and they won't dare come there to look. Then,after they have hunted a long, long time, I'll get another place andlet them find me." She did hide there, and after a long, long time, whenher brother and sister were in the farther end of the loft, she tried torun over to another dark corner. Instead of that, the hay began to slipand slide under her and she went down, down, down, through a long darkbox, and hit with a hard thud at the bottom.
She was so scared that she couldn't have told how many toes she had onher forefeet. Of course, she had five on each, like all Kittens, andfour on each hind-foot, but if anybody had asked her then, she wouldhave been quite likely to say "three."
She was sore, too, and when she felt a warm breath on her and opened hereyes, she saw that some great creature had thrust his nose through ahole in the side of the dark box. "It must be a Horse," she thought,"and my mother says that they are kind to Cats. I think I'd better tellhim who I am. I don't want him to take me for a Pig, because he may notlike Pigs." You see, she forgot that Horses had been living in the greatworld and could tell to what family a person belonged the very firsttime they saw him. The only people she had ever seen were Swallows andMice.
"If--if you please, sir," she said, "I am the White Kitten, and I justtumbled down from the hay-loft, but I didn't mean to."
"I am the Blind Horse," answered a strong and gentle voice outside, "andI hope you are not hurt."
"Not very much," answered the Kitten. "I just feel ache-y in my back andscared all over."
"Come out into the manger, White Kitten," said the Blind Horse, "andperhaps you won't be so scared. I won't touch you, although I shouldlike to. You know I am blind, and so, unless I can touch people Idon't know how they look."
I AM THE WHITE KITTEN.]
The White Kitten crawled out and saw him, and then she wasn't afraid atall. She was so sorry for him that she couldn't be afraid. Sheremembered the time before her eyes opened when she had to feel foreverything she wanted. It was not so hard then, because she did not knowanything different, but now she could not bear to think of not beingable to see all that was around her. "If you will put your nose down inthe other end of the manger," she said, "I will rub up against it, andyou will know more how I look."
The Blind Horse did this, and who can tell how happy it made him whenher warm and furry back rubbed up against his nose? "Thank you," hewhinnied; "you are very good."
"Would you know I was a Kitten if I hadn't told you?" she said.
"Indeed I would," he answered.
"And you wouldn't have thought me a Pig?" she asked.
"Never!" said he; "I wouldn't even have believed you if you had told methat you were one."
The Blind Horse and the White Kitten became firm friends, and when shetried to wash off the dirt that got into her fur she sat in the verymiddle of the manger and told him all about it.
"My mother always has washed me," she said, "but my tongue is gettingbig enough to wash with now. It is getting rougher, too, and that is agood thing. My mother says that the reason why all the prickles on Cats'tongues point backward is because then we can lick all the meat off frombones with them. I'm 'most old enough to eat meat now. I can't wash thetop of my head though. You have to wet your paw and scrub it with that.Can you wash the top of your head?"
Then the Blind Horse told her how the men kept him clean; and while hewas telling this the Cat came into his stall, crying and looking for herchild.
"Oh, mother," cried the White Kitten, "I tumbled down, but I didn't meanto, and I'm sorry I didn't mind you, and the Blind Horse can't wash thetop of his head, and he knew that I wasn't a Pig."
The Cat was so glad to find the White Kitten that she didn't scold atall, but jumped into the manger and washed her clean, and then caughtthe loose skin of the Kitten's neck between her teeth and carried herthrough the stalls, across the barn-floor, and up the stairs to theirhome. That made the Kitten much ashamed, for she thought that she wasold enough to go alone.
For two whole days after this the White Kitten was so lame from her fallthat she could only lie still on the hay, and she could see that hermother did not treat her as before. "I won't ever go near those placesagain," she said. "I never will."
"You promised me before that you would stay away," said her mother, "andyou broke your promise." She did not punish the White Kitten, but shefelt very sad and she could not help showing it. There was a dreadfulache in her child's little Kitten-heart that was a great deal worse thanthe lameness in her back or in her neck or in her legs.
At last there came a day when the whole family walked downstairs, andthe Cat showed her three children to the farmyard people and spoke a fewwords about each. "The yellow Kitten, my big daughter," said she,"promises to be the best hunter: she is a wonderful jumper, and herclaws are already nearly as long as mine. My son, the brown one, has aremarkable voice. And this White Kitten, my little daughter, is the mostobedient of all. She has never disobeyed me since the day she fell intothe manger, and I can trust her perfectly."
Then the White Kitten knew that she was quite forgiven, and she was thehappiest person on the farm.
Among the Farmyard People Page 13
