Drusilla usually referred to her firstborn brood of children collectively as the Numbers and to the second litter as the Months, all of whom—the nine boys plus April, May, and June—had now left home. What she would call the coming litter would depend on their quantity.
“Yes, I remember,” said Cuthbert, “but it’s long past strawberry time now.”
“More’s the pity. I really fancy fresh fruit just now. A lovely juicy ripe blackberry from that bush in the farm garden—that would be yummy,” said Drusilla, and she waddled off back to her hole. Cuthbert followed, casting wary glances about him.
Martin lay in the manger for a while, savoring what he had just overheard. She had spoken quite kindly of him! She should have her blackberry!
He jumped down and set off for the farm.
How would his family feel, he wondered, to see him back again?
He soon found out.
By this time, with nothing but a dishful of hedgehog’s milk inside him and that many hours ago, Martin was not only thirsty again but very hungry.
First he went to the duck pond for a drink. The farmer was already driving the cows in for milking, but the ducks had not yet been let out, and the pond was still and mirrorlike. Martin, crouching at the edge to lap, saw not only his own reflection but also that of another cat. Because of its tortoiseshell-and-white coloring he thought at first that it was his mother, but then he heard Lark’s voice.
“Look who’s here!” she sneered. “It’s the wimp! Going paddling, wimp, are you?”
How she’s grown, thought Martin, and then he looked closely into the mirror and saw that he too had grown, even more. He was quite a big cat. He was quite an angry cat too, he discovered, who did not like being spoken to in that manner, and he whipped around and hit his sister such a smack across the nose that she ran off yowling.
Martin took a long satisfying drink, and then he went to the back door of the farmhouse, where the farmer’s wife had not long since put out a dish of chicken-flavored Happipuss. Hardly had he taken a mouthful when he heard behind him the voice of his brother.
“Look who’s here!” sneered Robin. “It’s the wimp! Clear off, wimp, and leave that meat alone!”
Martin said nothing. He simply turned around, slowly, and began to move, very slowly, toward his brother. He flattened his ears and drew back his lips from his teeth and inched, very, very slowly, forward, until the tabby head and the black head were almost touching. All the time he was making a kind of rasping singsong, rising and falling in a way that sounded unpleasantly threatening.
Robin’s nerve broke, and he fled.
Martin enjoyed a long satisfying meal and went down to the garden to inspect the blackberry bush. The farmer’s daughter had just fed her rabbits, and as she went back into the farmhouse, Dulcie Maude came out of it.
Martin walked past the rabbit hutches (where there was a lingering smell of fox) and was busy looking for a really juicy blackberry when he heard his mother’s voice.
“Martin!” she said sharply.
“Yes, Mother?”
“Where on earth have you sprung from? Why have you come home? Why are you eating blackberries, eh? Why aren’t you catching mice, like an ordinary normal cat?”
“Because, Mother,” said Martin firmly, “I am not an ordinary normal cat.”
“You can say that again!” said Dulcie Maude.
Martin said it again.
“Pah!” spat Dulcie Maude angrily, and she stalked off, lashing her tail.
“Typical,” said a familiar voice.
“Dad!” cried Martin, and “Martin, lad!” growled Pug, and they rubbed their round tabby faces together, purring with simple happiness.
“How did you find your way home?” Pug asked, and Martin told him all about his adventures and his escape and how a kindly fox had guided him home.
“A fox, eh?” said Pug.
“Yes and, Dad, he got his back quite nastily scratched, too.”
“Did he?” said Pug. “Well, well.”
“And, Dad,” said Martin excitedly, “I’ve found Drusilla and Cuthbert!”
“Ah, you came back that way? Past the field shed?”
“Yes. They should be pretty safe right out there, shouldn’t they?”
“They are quite safe,” said Pug. “I have made it perfectly plain to the rest of the family that the field shed is my territory, not to be trespassed upon.”
“You hunt there?”
“Yes.”
“But not…?”
“No, no, not your precious Drusilla and her husband.”
“But what about all their children? What about Eight?”
“No, Eight’s quite safe. Married a nice young chap from the pigsties. Living down there now. Going to have babies of her own.”
“Gosh!” said Martin. “Drusilla a grandmother! Imagine! But how do you mean, she’s safe? Mother might catch her, or Robin or Lark.”
“She has to take her chance on that, Martin,” said Pug. “At least she’s in no danger from me. I’ve given her a password and told her to tell it to all Drusilla’s other children. Then, if I catch them, they shout it out, and I let ’em go.”
“What’s the password?”
“ ‘Martin’s Mice!’ Caught a youngster in the chicken house the other day and I was just going to bite his head off when he squeaked, ‘Martin’s Mice!’ ‘That was a narrow squeak,’ I said to him. ‘What’s your name?’ I said. ‘March,’ he said. ‘Well, quick march,’ I said, ‘and don’t let me catch you in here again.’ I sometimes wish I hadn’t thought of the password idea. Amazing number of mice seem to have belonged to you.”
“I shan’t ever keep any more, Dad,” said Martin, “now that I know what it’s like to be shut up. But I’d like to keep in touch with them. Can we go over to the field shed now? Drusilla fancies a nice blackberry, you see.” And he put his face up and carefully mouthed off a large dark fruit.
Father and son walked together across the dewy fields in the morning sunshine. They were silent, Martin because his mouth was full, Pug because he was simply enjoying the return of his favorite, but when they came near to the shed he said, “You go on alone, Martin, lad. She’ll like to see you by yourself. I’ll join you later,” and he lay down in the grass.
Martin walked quietly into the open-fronted shed and sat beside the hole down which he had seen Drusilla disappear. He placed the blackberry on the floor in front of him.
“Drusilla!” he called softly.
From the depths of the hole came a squeak and then silence. That’s Cuthbert, thought Martin. Hope he hasn’t fainted again.
He called once more, and after a little while a familiar face appeared in the mouth of the hole.
“Hello, Drusilla,” said Martin. “I hear you’re expecting another happy event. Many congratulations! I’m sure you’ll be glad when it’s all over—it must be so tiring for you. I don’t know if you’d like it, but I’ve brought you a nice fresh juicy blackberry.”
Drusilla squeezed herself out of the hole.
“Oh, Martin!” she said. “There never was a cat like you!”
Martin's Mice Page 7
