The Second Cat Megapack: Frisky Feline Tales, Old and New

by Pamela Sargent

  His friendship was rather constant than demonstrative. When we returned from an absence of nearly two years, Calvin welcomed us with evident pleasure, but showed his satisfaction rather by tranquil happiness than by fuming about. He had the faculty of making us glad to get home. It was his constancy that was so attractive. He liked companionship, but he wouldn’t be petted, or fussed over, or sit in anyone’s lap a moment; he always extricated himself from such familiarity with dignity and with no show of temper. If there was any petting to be done, however, he chose to do it. Often he would sit looking at me, and then, moved by a delicate affection, come and pull at my coat and sleeve until he could touch my face with his nose, and then go away contented. He had a habit of coming to my study in the morning, sitting quietly by my side or on the table for hours, watching the pen run over the paper, occasionally swinging his tail round for a blotter, and then going to sleep among the papers by the inkstand. Or, more rarely, he would watch the writing from a perch on my shoulder. Writing always interested him, and, until he understood it, he wanted to hold the pen.

  He always held himself in a kind of reserve with his friend, as if he had said, “Let us respect our personality, and not make a ‘mess’ of friendship.” He saw, with Emerson, the risk of degrading it to trivial conveniency. “Why insist on rash personal relations with your friend?” “Leave this touching and clawing.” Yet I would not give an unfair notion of his aloofness, his fine sense of the sacredness of the me and the not-me. And, at the risk of not being believed, I will relate an incident, which was often repeated. Calvin had the practice of passing a portion of the night in the contemplation of its beauties, and would come into our chamber over the roof of the conservatory through the open window, summer and winter, and go to sleep on the foot of my bed. He would do this always exactly in this way; he never was content to stay in the chamber if we compelled him to go upstairs and through the door. He had the obstinacy of General Grant. But this is by the way. In the morning, he performed his toilet and went down to breakfast with the rest of the family. Now, when the mistress was absent from home, and at no other time, Calvin would come in the morning, when the bell rang, to the head of the bed, put up his feet and look into my face, follow me about when I rose, “assist” at the dressing, and in many purring ways show his fondness, as if he had plainly said, “I know that she has gone away, but I am here.” Such was Calvin in rare moments.

  He had his limitations. Whatever passion he had for nature, he had no conception of art. There was sent to him once a fine and very expressive cat’s head in bronze, by Frémiet. I placed it on the floor. He regarded it intently, approached it cautiously and crouchingly, touched it with his nose, perceived the fraud, turned away abruptly, and never would notice it afterward. On the whole, his life was not only a successful one, but a happy one. He never had but one fear, so far as I know: he had a mortal and a reasonable terror of plumbers. He would never stay in the house when they were here. No coaxing could quiet him. Of course he didn’t share our fear about their charges, but he must have had some dreadful experience with them in that portion of his life which is unknown to us. A plumber was to him the devil, and I have no doubt that, in his scheme, plumbers were foreordained to do him mischief.

  In speaking of his worth, it has never occurred to me to estimate Calvin by the worldly standard. I know that it is customary now, when anyone dies, to ask how much he was worth, and that no obituary in the newspapers is considered complete without such an estimate. The plumbers in our house were one day overheard to say that, “They say that she says that he says that he wouldn’t take a hundred dollars for him.” It is unnecessary to say that I never made such a remark, and that, so far as Calvin was concerned, there was no purchase in money.

  As I look back upon it, Calvin’s life seems to me a fortunate one, for it was natural and unforced. He ate when he was hungry, slept when he was sleepy, and enjoyed existence to the very tips of his toes and the end of his expressive and slow-moving tail. He delighted to roam about the garden, and stroll among the trees, and to lie on the green grass and luxuriate in all the sweet influences of summer. You could never accuse him of idleness, and yet he knew the secret of repose. The poet who wrote so prettily of him that his little life was rounded with a sleep, understated his felicity; it was rounded with a good many. His conscience never seemed to interfere with his slumbers. In fact, he had good habits and a contented mind. I can see him now walk in at the study door, sit down by my chair, bring his tail artistically about his feet, and look up at me with unspeakable happiness in his handsome face. I often thought that he felt the dumb limitation which denied him the power of language. But since he was denied speech, he scorned the inarticulate mouthings of the lower animals. The vulgar mewing and yowling of the cat species was beneath him; he sometimes uttered a sort of articulate and well-bred ejaculation, when he wished to call attention to something that he considered remarkable, or to some want of his, but he never went whining about. He would sit for hours at a closed window, when he desired to enter, without a murmur, and when it was opened he never admitted that he had been impatient by “bolting” in. Though speech he had not, and the unpleasant kind of utterance given to his race he would not use, he had a mighty power of purr to express his measureless content with congenial society. There was in him a musical organ with stops of varied power and expression, upon which I have no doubt he could have performed Scarlatti’s celebrated cat’s-fugue.

  Whether Calvin died of old age, or was carried off by one of the diseases incident to youth, it is impossible to say; for his departure was as quiet as his advent was mysterious. I only know that he appeared to us in this world in his perfect stature and beauty, and that after a time, like Lohengrin, he withdrew. In his illness there was nothing more to be regretted than in all his blameless life. I suppose there never was an illness that had more of dignity and sweetness and resignation in it. It came on gradually, in a kind of listlessness and want of appetite. An alarming symptom was his preference for the warmth of a furnace-register to the lively sparkle of the open woodfire. Whatever pain he suffered, he bore it in silence, and seemed only anxious not to obtrude his malady. We tempted him with the delicacies of the season, but it soon became impossible for him to eat, and for two weeks he ate or drank scarcely anything. Sometimes he made an effort to take something, but it was evident that he made the effort to please us. The neighbors—and I am convinced that the advice of neighbors is never good for anything—suggested catnip. He wouldn’t even smell it. We had the attendance of an amateur practitioner of medicine, whose real office was the cure of souls, but nothing touched his case. He took what was offered, but it was with the air of one to whom the time for pellets was passed. He sat or lay day after day almost motionless, never once making a display of those vulgar convulsions or contortions of pain which are so disagreeable to society. His favorite place was on the brightest spot of a Smyrna rug by the conservatory, where the sunlight fell and he could hear the fountain play. If we went to him and exhibited our interest in his condition, he always purred in recognition of our sympathy. And when I spoke his name, he looked up with an expression that said, “I understand it, old fellow, but it’s no use.” He was to all who came to visit him a model of calmness and patience in affliction.

  I was absent from home at the last, but heard by daily postal-card of his failing condition; and never again saw him alive. One sunny morning, he rose from his rug, went into the conservatory (he was very thin then), walked around it deliberately, looking at all the plants he knew, and then went to the bay-window in the dining-room, and stood a long time looking out upon the little field, now brown and sere, and toward the garden, where perhaps the happiest hours of his life had been spent. It was a last look. He turned and walked away, laid himself down upon the bright spot in the rug, and quietly died.

  It is not too much to say that a little shock went through the neighborhood when it was known that Calvin was dead, so marked was his individuality; and
his friends, one after another, came in to see him. There was no sentimental nonsense about his obsequies; it was felt that any parade would have been distasteful to him. John, who acted as undertaker, prepared a candle-box for him, and I believe assumed a professional decorum; but there may have been the usual levity underneath, for I heard that he remarked in the kitchen that it was the “driest wake he ever attended.” Everybody, however, felt a fondness for Calvin, and regarded him with a certain respect. Between him and Bertha there existed a great friendship, and she apprehended his nature; she used to say that sometimes she was afraid of him, he looked at her so intelligently; she was never certain that he was what he appeared to be.

  When I returned, they had laid Calvin on a table in an upper chamber by an open window. It was February. He reposed in a candle-box, lined about the edge with evergreen, and at his head stood a little wine-glass with flowers. He lay with his head tucked down in his arms—a favorite position of his before the fire—as if asleep in the comfort of his soft and exquisite fur. It was the involuntary exclamation of those who saw him, “How natural he looks!” As for myself, I said nothing. John buried him under the twin hawthorn-trees—one white and the other pink—in a spot where Calvin was fond of lying and listening to the hum of summer insects and the twitter of birds.

  Perhaps I have failed to make appear the individuality of character that was so evident to those who knew him. At any rate, I have set down nothing concerning him but the literal truth. He was always a mystery. I did not know whence he came; I do not know whither he has gone. I would not weave one spray of falsehood in the wreath I lay upon his grave.

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  MARGARET ST. JOHN BATHE (1911-2003) was a native of Ryde, Hampshire, England. She founded the Blackpool Writers Circle in 1935, which included such local authors as John Russell Fearn, Iris Weigh, and the sisters, Doris and Muriel Howe. She became best-known in the 1950s and ’60s as a romantic novelist and contributor to England’s leading women’s weekly magazines.

  AMBROSE BIERCE (1842-1914?), an American newspaper writer, is best-known today for his Civil War stories (“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”), supernatural stories, and his sardonic humor (The Devil’s Dictionary)—although his greatest tale may be his own disappearance in Mexico at the end of 1913, never to be heard from again.

  REGINALD BRETNOR (1911-1992) was born in Russia, but came to the U.S. as a boy. He penned many humorous science-fiction short stories, as well as books on military theory, and literary criticism on fantastic literature (of which he was a pioneer). His best-known series ran for almost a hundred installments as “Through Time and Space with Ferdinand Feghoot,” each contribution of which ended with an horrendous (but often quite funny) pun.

  GUY WETMORE CARRYL (1873-1904), an American poet, humorist, and essayist, sold his first piece at the age of twenty, and never looked back, eventually becoming Editor of Munsey’s Magazine. He also wrote for all the popular publications of his day.

  R. N. CURRY was a translator; nothing further is known of his work.

  JACK DANN is an award-winning American novelist and short story writer, best-known for his international bestseller, The Memory Cathedral. His work for the Borgo Press includes Decimated: Ten Science Fiction Stories (with George Zebrowski; 2012), Da Vinci Rising (2011), The Diamond Pit (2011), The Economy of Light (2010), and Jubilee (2010). He lives on a farm in Australia and “commutes” to Los Angeles and New York.

  JOACHIM DU BELLAY (1522?-1560) was a French poet and critic. The son of a nobleman and cousin of Cardinal Jean du Bellay, he wrote many of his works in Latin.

  ERNEST DUDLEY (1908-2006) was a British crime writer, best-known for his Dr. Morelle series. His Borgo Press books include: The Mind of Dr. Morelle (2013), More Cases of a Private Eye (2013), The Amazing Martin Brett (2012), The Private Eye (2012), The Return of Sherlock Holmes (with Philip Harbottle, 2012), New Cases for Dr. Morelle (2012), Dr. Morelle Investigates (2012), Dr. Morelle Meets Murder (2012), and Department of Spooks (2011).

  BENJAMIN F. FERRILL (1897-1960), an American writer, published more than 300 stories and articles during his career, many of them having Western themes. He won an O. Henry Prize in 1932 for his tale, “Dead Man’s Vengeance.”

  TOM GODWIN (1915-1980) was an American writer whose best-known work was the classic hard SF story, “The Cold Equations” (Astounding Science Fiction, 1954).

  CHARLES ALLEN GRAMLICH has written one thriller, Cold in the Light, but is best-known for his Talera Trilogy of fantasy novels—Swords of Talera, Wings Over Talera, and Witch of Talera (Borgo Press, 2007). His other books for Borgo Press include: Under the Ember Star: A Science Fantasy Novel (2012); In the Language of Scorpions: Tales of Horror from the Inner Dark (2011); Midnight in Rosary: Tales of Vampires and Werewolves (2011); Bitter Steel: Tales and Poems of Epic Fantasy (2011), and the nonfiction guides, Write with Fire: Thoughts on the Craft of Writing (2009) and Writing in Psychology: A Guidebook (with Y. Du Bois Irvin and Elliott D. Hammer, 2009). He lives and works in Louisiana.

  MARY ROCKER-GRAMLICH is a native of southern Louisiana. She was born and lived most of her life in the Greater New Orleans area, but currently resides in the Louisiana “Strawberry Capital of the World.” She has one adult son. She came up with the idea for “Legend of the Cat” from watching her two cats at play.

  HELEN HUNT JACKSON (1830-1885) is famous today as the author of the classic AmerIndian romance novel, Ramona, which was one of a series of her works that highlighted the systematic oppression faced by America’s indigenous population. She also penned many short stories for the popular U.S. magazines of her time.

  THOMAS A. JANVIER (1849-1913) was an American writer of stories, novels, and historical nonfiction. The son of a poet, he spent many years traveling abroad, living in Mexico, France, and England before returning to the U.S.—and frequently used these locales in his fiction.

  RUDYARD KIPLING (1865-1936) was a British writer born in India, and heavily influenced by his experiences there. He’s best-known today for such soldiers’ stories as “The Man Who Would Be King” (1888), and for his children’s tales, especially The Jungle Book (1894), Just So Stories (1902), and Kim (1901). He was the first English-language author to win the Nobel Prize for Literature (1907).

  H. P. LOVECRAFT (1890-1937), an American writer, is generally regarded as the creator of the modern tale of weird and supernatural fiction, primarily through his “Cthulhu Mythos” tales, many of them set in his native New England.

  GARY LOVISI is an American writer of mystery, suspense, horror, western, and noir stories, and the influential editor of the magazines Hardboiled and Paperback Parade. His Borgo Press books include The Great Detective: His Further Adventures (editor, 2012), Battling Boxing Stories (editor, 2012), Driving Hell’s Highway (2011), Murder of a Bookman (2011), Violence Is the Only Solution (2011), Mars Needs Books! (2011), Gargoyle Nights (2011), and Attitude: Stories (2013). He was honored with a Spur Award from the Western Writers of America.

  FRANÇOIS-AUGUSTIN PARADIS DE MONCRIF (1687-1770) was a French writer, poet, and humorist. At his induction ceremony into the Académie Française, a member let loose a cat—which promptly miaowed. The members began miaowing in turn, and then began laughing. This affected him for the rest of his life!

  A. R. MORLAN, an American writer, is best-known for her two riveting novels of horror, Dark Journey and The Amulet, plus her short story collections, The Chimera and the Shadowfox Griefer and Other Curious People, Ewerton Death Trip: A Walk Through the Dark Side of Town, The Fold-O-Rama Wars at the Blue Moon Roach Hotel and Other Colorful Tales of Transformation and Tattoos, The Hemingway Kittens and Other Feline Fancies and Fantasies, Of Vampires and Gentlemen: Tales of Erotic Horror, ’Rillas and Other Science Fiction Stories, and The Second Most Beautiful Woman in the World and Other Fantastic Ladies, all available from Borgo Press. More collections of her unique visions of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and tattoos are forthcoming.

  FRANK J. MORLOCK
is a retired American jurist living in México. The Borgo Press has published 150 volumes of his translations of French seventeeth-, eighteenth-, and nineteenth-century comedies and dramas, including numerous little-known works by such well-known writers as Alexandre Dumas, Voltaire, Jules Verne, and many others.

  E. NESBIT (1858-1924), a British author, is best-known today for her children’s novels and stories, especially the Bastable Series (1897-1904), the Psammead Fantasy Trilogy (particularly Five Children and It, 1902), and the House of Arden series (1908-09).

  ELLIOTT O’DONNELL (1872-1965) wrote dozens of supernatural short stories and novels early in his writing career, but later became a well-known (and very popular) “ghost-hunter,” giving well-attended lectures on the topic, and producing numerous books claiming to document actual encounters with ghosts and similar phenomena.