The Project Gutenberg eBook, Pussy-Cat Town, by Marion Ames Taggart, Illustrated by Rebecca Chase

PUSSY-CAT TOWN

Roses of

St. Elizabeth Series

⚜

Each 1 vol., small quarto, illustrated and decorated in color. $1.00

⚜

The Roses of Saint Elizabeth

By JANE SCOTT WOODRUFF

Gabriel and the Hour Book

By EVALEEN STEIN

The Enchanted Automobile

Translated from the French by

MARY J. SAFFORD

Pussy-Cat Town

By MARION AMES TAGGART

⚜

L. C. PAGE & COMPANY

New England Building

BOSTON, MASS.

“They progressed comfortably, hearing without difficulty the story of the founding of Purrington.”
(See page 190)

The Roses of St. Elizabeth Series

Pussy-Cat

Town

BY

Marion Ames Taggart

ILLUSTRATED IN COLOURS BY

Rebecca Chase

L. C. Page & Company

Boston Membi

Copyright, 1906, by

L. C. PAGE & COMPANY

(Incorporated)

All rights reserved

First Impression, September, 1906

COLONIAL PRESS

Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co.

Boston, U. S. A.

To my comforting cats, Bandersnatch-Bandarlog and Kiku-san, sitting close to me now and always when I write; to the memory of my wise Tommy Traddles; to Bidelia Purplay W.; to Wutz-Butz and Madam Laura K., all “really and truly” cats, this book is dedicated by their humble admirer

Marion Ames Taggart

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

CHAPTER I
BAN-BAN, THE BOLD

He was really very beautiful. High-born, too,—a pure Maltese! He had a short, saucy face; a square little nose, with which he was apt to pry into other people’s business; and he saw everything with his bright eyes, and understood most things with his quick wit. But he had almost no patience at all, and he was as full of pranks as a monkey—indeed, that’s what gave him his name.

A boy? Mercy, no! Whoever heard of a pure Maltese boy? A cat, of course, but such a beauty! He was as quick as he could be, and ran very fast, and jumped like a flash—flashes do jump, so that’s all right. Did you never see a flash of lightning jump from one cloud to another? Well, this Maltese kitten was so quick that his little master called him Bandersnatch—out of “Through the Looking-Glass”, you know, where the White King says: “You might as well try to catch a Bandersnatch,” or, in another place: “You might as well try to stop a Bandersnatch.” So that is where quick little Ban-Ban got his first name. And the second Ban was short for Bandarlog, the name of the monkey people in the Jungle Book, because he was so much more like a monkey than a quiet, purry, furry, mild-mannered kitten.

Ban-Ban had the very best home a cat could have; indeed, he was a good deal spoiled. In this home he grew up to be three years old, but it was only his body that grew bigger. Inside that Maltese body he wore a kitten’s heart, getting younger every minute, loving play better, and cutting up more didoes all the time, instead of settling down into a staid cat, as any one would have expected him to do who saw the purple shades in his dark gray suit!

Now Ban-Ban loved his little master very much—not that he ever thought of him as his “master;” no cat ever would admit having a master. Ban-Ban considered the little boy as a friend whom he, a prince of the Maltese Royal Family, allowed to play with him. He was more useful than kitten friends because he could open doors, drag strings around, hide sticks under the edges of rugs, get milk from the refrigerator, cut up meat, play hide-and-go-seek better than cats, and shake up soft knitted things into fine beds on cold days, besides scratching a person under the chin and on the side of the cheek in a way that made a person stick out his little red tongue and purr, no matter how much he felt like playing. But that is not having a master; that is really keeping a very useful and devoted servant. Ban-Ban hated of all things to show that he loved little Rob; he liked to pretend that he was only polite to him, and often, when he meant to get up in Rob’s lap for a little talk, if Rob saw him coming, Ban-Ban would sit down and wash his face, trying to look as if he had never once thought of being loving. You see he was independent.

Because he was independent, and so very impatient, it all came about.

One day Ban-Ban had an idea dart into his brain. Ban-Ban’s ideas always darted, they never came slowly; they were just like everything else about him, “as fast as a Bandersnatch.” “If two-legged people can build towns and live in them without asking the help of us cats, why can’t we cats have a town of our own, and not ask the help of the two-legged people? They are more clumsy and stupid than we are—except Rob; he isn’t clumsy or stupid.”

It was such a wonderful thought that it half-stunned even Ban-Ban. For as much as five minutes he sat perfectly still, with only the tippest tip of his tail moving. Then he started up with a leap, as if he were jumping after those lost five minutes just as he jumped for butterflies, and away he ran down the garden to find some of his friends.

Bidelia was one of these friends. She was a little creature, very young, a tortoise-shell cat, not pretty, but so clever that no one who didn’t know her could believe how clever she was. Her cat acquaintances suspected that she wrote stories on the sly, for her sides were always spattered with big black spots on a yellow ground, and her friends believed she got ink on her yellow clothes writing stories for the magazines, because she was so very clever, and people who are very clever and write books are apt to be untidy with their ink.

Though she was younger than Ban-Ban by nearly two years she had three children, and they were already two months old: Nugget, all yellow, Puttel, black with a white thumb-mark under her chin, and Dolly Varden, with a tortoise-shell dress like her mother’s. Bidelia had good reason to be as proud of her children as she was!

Nugget.

Another of Ban-Ban’s friends was Mr. Thomas Traddles, a tiger cat, who was so wise and had such remarkable judgment that every one came to him for advice. He was older than Ban-Ban, and he was one of that queer sort of friends which we all have: people whom we do not really like, but whom we respect heaps and heaps, and without whom we cannot get along. Not that there was any reason why Ban-Ban should not like Tommy Traddles; his disposition was perfect, and his manners of the best. Perhaps it was because Tom was so sensible and grave, and Ban-Ban was such a little firebrand, for we none of us really like people who make us feel that we are in the wrong, not unless we are far more humble-minded folk than was proud little Ban-Ban.

Puttel.

There, too, was Wutz-Butz, whose name didn’t mean much, but that the little girl who owned him liked to mix up letters and call him by queer sounds. He was a gray and white cat who would let the little girl whom he thought he owned, but who thought that she owned him, do anything under the sun to him, and he would stand it with a perfect mush of patience, but out among the cats he was a warrior. He fought every one that he happened to dislike, and Ban-Ban was always thankful Wutz-Butz liked him—and Ban-Ban was not a coward, either. Wutz-Butz had a big, round head, and a short, thick-set body, and his complexion was apt to get rumpled up—can complexions get rumpled? Well, at any rate this cat’s complexion looked rumpled—because of the many strong arguments he had with Ruth’s grandmother’s big white cat with the gray ears. Ruth was the little girl who owned Wutz-Butz, or whom he owned, according to whether you believe from her or his side of the question.

Ban-Ban had another friend to whom he was bound by ties of the highest respect and gratitude. This was Madam Laura, a sweet, kindly middle-aged lady,—perhaps a trifle past middle age,—to whom all the cats went for comfort and teaching. She was a widow lady, so she wore a great deal of black over her white sides and back, laid on in big spots. She had had a great many sons and daughters, but they had all gone to make their own way in the world, and Madam Laura was said to be quite wealthy, with no one dependent upon her for mice. She was a cat with a mother’s heart for all the mewing world, and no cat could be so scratchy as not to love this gentle lady.

The last and dearest of Ban-Ban’s friends was Kiku, the snow-white cat, whose name was a Japanese word that means chrysanthemum, and whose nature was as flower-like as his name. He lived next door to Ban-Ban, and played with him most of the time. His little mistress was Rob’s dearest friend, his cousin, and her name was Lois. She was a year younger than Rob, which made her only seven years old, but she was not the least bit careless or rough with her pets, as some children are, and Kiku was a very lucky “kitteny-wink, little white lambkin,” as Lois called him.

Kiku was always called “Kiku-san,” because “san” is a mark of honour among the Japanese, and white Kiku was so gentle and lovely-mannered that no one could deny him the respectful title that his Japanese name suggested. Kiku-san wore white garments with pink trimmings, and he kept them snowy white, for he only went out to play in the grass in fine weather, and slept at night cuddled close in Lois’s arms. He puckered his mouth when he was spoken to, and brought his lids down over his amber eyes as if he knew he was most sweet and lovable, fully deserving all the praise which he received—and so he did, for nothing would tempt him to scratch; he never lost his temper, unless he had lost it for good and all when he was born, and had never found it again, which seemed to be the case, for no one had ever seen him cross.

These were Ban-Ban’s friends, and it was to find them, or all of them that he could find, that he ran so fast down the garden after his wonderful idea struck him.

He came upon Bidelia, who was sitting in the sunshine letting the children play with her tail.

“Oh, Bidelia!” cried Ban-Ban, “have you seen any of the others?”

“How out of breath you are!” said Bidelia, reproachfully. She was so little that she could jump about all day and never lose her breath. “Tommy Traddles is sunning himself on the fence. Madam Laura is singing a few Felines on the garden bench.” A Feline is a kind of cat hymn.

“Do you think you could trust one of the kittens to hunt up Wutz-Butz, and Kiku-san, and ask them to join us here? I have something catelovelant to tell them,” said Ban-Ban. “Catelovelant” means “lovely for cats.”

“I think Nugget could go; he is getting very plump and reliable,” returned Bidelia. “Puttel, go and ask Madam Laura if she would kindly come over here when she has finished her Felines. And, Dolly Varden, go waken Mr. Traddles and ask him to come. If he is very sound asleep you may stand up on your hind legs and pull his tail—very gently,” she added, as Dolly spun around three times rapidly, “and with the greatest respect.”

The three kittens scampered off, and Ban-Ban with much effort kept himself from pouring out to Bidelia the Great Idea. Fortunately the kittens so quickly got together the cats for whom they were sent that Ban-Ban was saved from choosing between telling or having a fit.

Dolly Varden.

“You had something to say to us, my dear?” hinted Madam Laura after they were all seated. Her voice sounded like rolls of butter rolling, it was so soft and smooth.

“Yes,” said Ban-Ban, his fur beginning to stick up all over and his tail to swell, as it always did when he was excited. “I have had a Great Idea.”

“You were clever from your kittenhood, Bannie,” said Madam Laura, who had known his grandmother.

“‘I have had a Great Idea.’”

“Human beings,” Ban-Ban continued, trying to keep back the little puffing spits which he often gave when he was stirred, “Human beings build towns and live in them. They never ask our help; they feel that they own the towns. Very likely they do; but as their cats always own the human beings, it doesn’t matter. What I have to suggest is that there is no reason why cats should not build and own a city just as the human beings do. I think that we should be the ones to do this. Let us, all of us here, go away to some lovely spot and build a city. Let us ask all the poor, homeless cats, who don’t own any human beings, and so have very little food and no warm places to live, to join us. Let us have a city of cats, and let us hand our names down in all future categories and catalogues and histories as the Fathers—and Mothers”—he added, bowing to Madam Laura and Bidelia—“of Our Country, Glory of Our Race.”

“Hear, hear!” cried Wutz-Butz. He pronounced it: “He-ar, He-ar!” It sounded like a mew.

“Bandersnatch-Bandarlog, you are indeed A Great Mind,” said Tommy Traddles, gravely.

“It will be lovely!” cried Bidelia, joyously. “I want a more extended field.”

“And more field-mice,” added Laura, who was not clever, only good, which is better than mere cleverness, as all properly taught cats know.

“Then you agree?” asked Ban-Ban, not able, this time, to keep from ending in a “P-pst!” of pure excitement.

“Yes, yes,” cried all the cats together.

“Yes,” added Kiku-san alone, “but I am afraid that Lois will need me.”

“Our human beings will soon get other cats,” said Ban-Ban, wisely. “I have always noticed they soon get another cat to wait upon, when they lose the one they have had. Not that I shall leave Rob long without me,” he added. “Rob and I are friends. But the founding of this city is a duty; it will be a haven for oppressed cats. When shall we go?”

“On the third day from this one,” said Tommy Traddles, promptly. “In the meantime we will eat all that we can, and get together as many provisions as we can carry.”

“Before we part,” said Bidelia, “let us sing a song. Wait; I will make one for this occasion.”

It was the custom of these cats to sing each night before separating, so the others all willingly sat down to wait while Bidelia wrote the words which were to commemorate their newly taken and important resolution.

Singing the song.

Soon that clever little cat announced the song ready, and they sang the following words to the air of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic:”

“We’ll put our fur in order and brave Pilgrim-cats we’ll be;

With whiskers out and tails erect we’ll march courageously.

We’ll found a town for other cats, less fortunate than we:

Each cat shall have his day!

“We love the friends that love us, and our hearts to them are true;

We’ll ne’er forget the kindly folk beside whose hearths we grew,

But though our friends are good to us, mankind is cruel, too:

Each cat must have his day!

“Then, onward, Pilgrim-cats, nor pause to cast a look behind,

For duty calls our velvet paws our kindred’s wounds to bind;

In Pussy-Town all homeless cats a home and peace may find:

Each cat shall have his day.”

CHAPTER II
SIX SMALL CATS DO GREAT THINGS

Three days later the moon looked down on a more wonderful sight than she had seen since the cow had jumped over her,—more wonderful even than she had seen then, for this sight was much more than one cat with a fiddle.

Six cats and three kittens led a procession of at least a dozen more cats out of the town and along the wooded country roads. Ban-Ban was ahead. He had a big red bow on his collar, which poor Rob had tied on, intending the Maltese cat to look his best when expected company should come that evening. He little thought that he was adorning Ban-Ban for a journey, and a parting that was going to cost himself keen grief!

But Ban-Ban had no room in his mind for Rob’s anxiety; he trotted proudly along, with his short, velvety ears pricked up, his nose alert for dangers. Close behind him marched Wutz-Butz, in case he was needed for a fight. Tommy Traddles came next, in case he was needed for advice. Kiku-san—he wore a beautiful pink ribbon, because Lois loved to see him well dressed—Kiku walked between Bidelia and Madam Laura, the only one of the party with a regret. His thoughts dwelt on Lois, and how troubled she would be when he did not come to bed that night, and she could not find him in the morning. Behind Bidelia came the three kittens, driving their young mother half crazy with their antics. They would not walk soberly, but frisked and played, and ran out of sight into the shadow, and sometimes half-way up a tree, until little Bidelia was sure that she would be quite as gray as Ban-Ban, but with another sort of grayness, from her worry, by the time she got to wherever they were going.

The stranger cats walked behind their leaders. They were all thin and sad-looking, for they had had no homes, and life had been most hard to them. They were glad enough to think that they were on their way to make their fortunes in a city of cats, where there would be no stones thrown, no dogs to chase them, no cruel boys to frighten and hurt them.

One of the stranger cats.

The six cat leaders all carried something. Ban-Ban had a big piece of beef. He had not stolen it, because it had been bought for him, but he had whisked it out of the refrigerator when the cook left the door open for a moment.

Wutz-Butz had dragged along a piece of red flannel. He was inclined to be stiff in his legs from rheumatism and his frequent battles, and he had no mind to sleep on the cold ground, though many a soldier before him has had no better bed.

Tommy Traddles had a pail of milk fastened over his shoulders,—Laura had tied it on for him,—and in his paws he carried an umbrella, because he knew that if it rained they would all hate to be out in the wet.

Bidelia, like the gay young thing that she was, brought only neck-ribbons for her children, and some worsted balls with which they—and she, too, if she would own it—loved to play. But Madam Laura, like an older and wiser mother, brought catnip roots, as well as some dried catnip to start on, in case the kittens were ill. She also had a little bottle of castor-oil, because she knew how good that was for kittens when they overate themselves.

Kiku-san carried his crocheted shawl. It was one that had been dyed red, and which Lois kept in a rocking-chair for Kiku’s daytime naps. Kiku wore it now around his shoulders, and wondered doubtfully if he could get another crocheted shawl in Pussy-Cat Town when this one was worn out.

They walked and they walked for what seemed a long, long distance even to the cats. As to the kittens, they had long ceased frisking, and crawled along slowly, mewing pathetically, and taking hold of Bidelia’s tail to help themselves as they went.

“Little Dolly Varden fell asleep.”

Tommy Traddles looked around and saw how tired they were. “If some of you gentlemen in the back there, who have no food or beds to carry, would lay your forepaws on one another’s shoulders, and take turns in letting the children sit on them, you would be able to get the poor little kitlets over the ground, saving them suffering, and not hurting yourselves,” he said.

The stranger cats were glad to do this, though they would never have been wise enough to have invented this way of carrying the babies. Little Dolly Varden fell asleep the instant she was put up on the paws of a big black cat and a black and white one, who offered to carry her. “She was that done out,” said the black and white cat. He had a kind heart, but his English was not very good, because he had learned it in the streets.

It was about twenty minutes past ten when the cat pilgrims reached a lovely spot. It was a clearing in a wood, almost an acre wide. It stood right on the bank of a tiny stream, which Bidelia called a river, but which was really rather a small and quiet brook. All around this cleared spot were beautiful woods, and only a grass-grown road ran through it, such as is made by broad wagon wheels when men go to cut down trees in the woods.

“This is the very place for us,” declared Ban-Ban, looking around him with great content.

“It isn’t far from the town,” objected the black cat, who was helping carry Dolly Varden. His name was ’Clipsy, short for Eclipse. He had not always been poor; he was born in a very nice home, where he had been given his name, but he had got lost when he was very young, and had had a hard time ever since. He was a gentleman always, though; the cat leaders all saw that he was the best of all the stranger cats who had joined them.

“I know it is not far from town,” said Tommy Traddles, planting his umbrella in the ground, and setting down his pail of milk beside it, with a wink at Wutz-Butz to keep his eye on it—no one could tell what some thirsty stranger cat might be tempted to do. “It is not far from town, ’Clipsy, but it is rather better for that. Did you never notice that when human beings have lost something they always look everywhere else for it before they look near home? I suppose you haven’t noticed that, because you have not lived with human beings since you were so little, but it is quite true that when anything is lost and can’t be found, it always turns out that it is because no one looked just at hand, where the lost thing always hides. So it is better for us to settle nearer our old human town than to go away off—to another State, for instance.”

There was no disputing with a cat that could allude so carelessly to “another State.” ’Clipsy at once gave up arguing; he didn’t know what “another State” meant, and he wondered greatly how Tommy could be so wise.

“Oh, it’s all right as to that,” said Ban-Ban, speaking in his quick way. He understood about states, because he had so often sat by Rob when he was learning his lessons. “I don’t think any one would find us in this place; but I wonder if there is a good market here.”

“There ought to be fish in that river,” said Madam Laura, who liked fish even better than most cats. “I know how to catch fish with my paw.”

“There are fish in that stream,” said Tommy Traddles, decidedly. “And field-mice in the woods; the market here will be excellent. I am convinced that the guardian fairies of good cats have led us here. It is well to be near town, because our city must be easily reached by homeless cats who may wish to join us. I advise you, my friends, to decide upon this spot at once as the site of the city. Do you agree to stay here?”

“Yes, yes, yes!” cried all the cats together, their voices making a chorus of soprano, alto, bass, baritone, and tenor. Even the kittens joined with their thin little pipes, though they may have been crying from sleepiness.

“We’ll make a camp!” cried Ban-Ban, putting up his back and dancing around on his toes the way he had always done when Rob offered to play with him. “We will camp out for the night, and in the morning we will ask the carpenter cats to begin to build our houses.”

“It won’t take us long,” cried the carpenter cats, five of the strangers who had joined the party.

“I told a friend of mine I would write at once after we settled on a site to let him know where he could join us. What are you going to call the town?” asked one of these cats.

“Purrington!” cried Bidelia, triumphantly, looking around for the praise she felt sure that this happy name would win from all her companions. She had been thinking up a name during the three days that she was getting together her kittens’ neck-ribbons, mending their clothes, and packing for the journey.

All the cats raised such a yowl of delight that if there had been any human being within hearing he would certainly have thought that some awful thing had happened to all the cats in the world at once. But it was merely keen pleasure that such a fashionable-sounding, yet happy, homelike, catified name had been hit upon by Bidelia, whom they now felt surer than ever must secretly be a successful author.

“Purrington by all means,” said Tommy Traddles, with the grave approval of a great scholar. “I should suggest that we also give this stream a name, and call it the Meuse. Purrington-on-the-Meuse will be a delightful heading for our note-paper.”

“Mews! Yes, that is a nice name for our river,” said Madam Laura. “Yet I don’t like, don’t quite like, calling the river after mews only. We are often so unhappy when we mew!”

“My dear lady,” said Doctor Traddles,—Tommy Traddles had been honoured with the title of Doctor of Claws by a feline college,—“we are not calling it after our own mews; we do not spell it that way. This is M-E-U-S-E, not M-E-W-S, and there is a river with that name in France. I confess I had the double sound of the word in my mind when I suggested the name, however.”

“How did you become so learned, Tommy?” sighed Madam Laura, much impressed.

“I used to sit on a dictionary a great deal of the time while I was growing,” said Thomas Traddles. “I then lived with a student of law, and I absorbed learning, and especially a knowledge of words, by sitting, and even napping, on his dictionary.”

“We are going to live in Purrington-on-the-Meuse!” cried Ban-Ban, with a flirt of his tail. “Wutz-Butz, bring your red flannel over here. Those kittens must be put to bed. Kiku-san, will you let Dolly Varden and Puttel sleep with you in your crocheted shawl, while Nugget curls up with Wutz-Butz in this red flannel?”

Before Kiku-san could reply, Bidelia started to say that she must keep her children with her, and Wutz-Butz to say that he intended to watch all that night with ’Clipsy and some others of the stranger cats; but nobody could hear a word that either of them said, for all three kittens set up a perfectly deafening trio of miaous:

“We want mamma, we want mamma; we won’t sleep with Y-O-U-U-U!” they shrieked.

“Oh, dear,” sighed Bidelia, “they are so tired you must pardon them! My darlings, you are going to sleep with mamma; please, please be quiet.” And she gave three hasty but tender licks down the noses of each of them, which quieted the kittens and comforted them.

“I was about to say that Bidelia may use my blanket to-night,” said Wutz-Butz. “I shall stay awake and watch. By to-morrow night she will have her own house all furnished.”

“You are most kind, Wutz-Butz,” said Bidelia, feeling rather ashamed that she had looked down on Wutz-Butz, thinking him only a stupid soldier. She curled herself down at once on his red flannel and drew the three kittens to her, one under her forepaw, one close to her head, and one tucked away under her chin—this was Dolly Varden, the smallest and sweetest of the three.

Kiku-san and Ban-Ban laid down close together in Kiku’s crocheted shawl. Kiku was very silent, and even Ban-Ban had nothing to say, but drew the white cat’s gentle face close to his saucy one. They remembered Rob and Lois, and it is more difficult to be brave at night, than it is in the broad daylight, when the sun is shining.

“We will sing you to sleep,” said Madam Laura and Tommy Traddles, kindly, guessing that these petted cats might be lonely. And they sang to the tune of “Santa Lucia:”

“Little cats, dearest cats, sleep on your pillows,

Under the stars and ’neath green pussy-willows.

Sweet should your rest be and peaceful your slumber,

Dreaming of cream-pans and mice without number;

Rich your reward for your courage and pity,

Giving the homeless a home and a city.

Ban-Ban and Kiku-san, all cats shall bless you,

Lois and Robin again will caress you;

Bravest cats, dearest cats, sleep on your pillows,

Kissed by the winds and the soft pussy-willows.”

Sung to a low, sweet tune, this song proved soothing, and Kiku-san and Ban-Ban fell asleep as soon as it ceased, borne away to dreamland by the rise and fall of many purrs mingling with the murmur of their rippling river Meuse.

CHAPTER III
THE PURRERS OF PURRINGTON

No one can imagine how fast cat carpenters work, for very few indeed have ever seen them work. And so it would be hard to make any one believe how fast Purrington-on-the-Meuse grew. Why, in a week those five cat carpenters had built all the houses which were needed to start with! Of course the other cats helped in all ways that they could, such as bringing boards, laying up bricks, and puttying in windows, but even with this help it was wonderful the way the town grew.

There did not have to be many houses to begin with. There was one big house, rather like a city apartment-house for single gentlemen, in which the stranger cats, all of them unmarried, were to live. Madam Laura offered to keep house for them, because they never could take care of themselves without a lady at the head of their domestic affairs, and there never could be another more fitted in every way to keep house for them than was kind Madam Laura. It was most good of her to do it, however, for being a lady of means, she could have gone off and lived selfishly by herself, without a care in the world.

Ban-Ban and Kiku-san lived with Bidelia and the children; Thomas Traddles and his new friend ’Clipsy had another house to themselves; and there was a fourth house put up for a widow lady who came with her son to Purrington from the human city. She was a white and yellow lady named Alloy, because she was not all gold, and her son, who was about a month older than Bidelia’s children, was named Scamp, and if ever a name just suited its bearer it was this kitten’s, for he was such a scamp that all the cats were worried for fear his example would lead Nugget into bad ways.

So they built a schoolhouse at once, and opened a school for the children, with Doctor Traddles for teacher, and some others to come in during the week to teach extra branches. Madam Laura, for instance, taught Fishing and Deportment; Bidelia taught Dancing; Kiku-san taught French, which he had learned from Lois’s French nurse; Wutz-Butz taught Boxing; and ’Clipsy was to give a course in Business Methods, which he had learned during his life in the streets.

S. KATZ
FRESH
MICE
DAILY.

Then there were the shops. One where you could buy ribbons, collars, bells, catnip, balls, cushions, and all such elegant trifles; and another which was the market. Here you could buy asparagus tips, string beans, peas, fish, and meat. This was kept by a gentleman named Schwartz Katz, one of the stranger cats who had joined the party. He was very round and stout, and was of German descent, having been born in a delicatessen shop in the human city. He had the nicest, cleanest market you ever saw, and over his door was his tempting sign: “S. Katz, Butcher. Fresh Mice Daily.” He had many customers among the citizens of Purrington who were too busy or too lazy to hunt their own game. He was a black cat, as his name showed, but he wore a white front and had white forelegs, so that he looked precisely like a human market-man—at least in his clothes—who had put on a white apron and drawn white linen sleeves over his coat sleeves. He often sat in his doorway, watching for customers, looking big and fat and prosperous, just like a nice German butcher.

Dr. Thomas Traddles had said that all the citizens of Purrington should be spoken of as Purrers, both because they were so very happy in their beautiful new city, and because it was the best way he knew of shortening the word Purrington. So Purrers they were called, and they lived up to it beautifully.

One day a most wonderful thing happened, and one that made the cats of Purrington even more Purrers than they were before. Everything had been made comfortable, and there was no lack of anything a cat could want in Purrington, save one thing, but that was a sad lack. This was milk. There was no milk to be had in Purrington, and no prospect of a way to get any. The Purrers were feeling very grave about it when, one day, a cow came walking along the grass-grown road that led through the woods beside the city, and stopped to look at the houses, as well she might, for there was not one higher than three feet, and even the apartment-house was not more than ten feet square.

Ban-Ban saw the cow considering, and he guessed in a moment that she must be the cow of whom he had heard Rob read in Mother Goose, who belonged to a piper who bade the cow consider. He knew this, because that was the only cow of whom he had ever heard who considered. So he ran straightway out to the edge of the woods to speak to her.

“Dear Madam,” Ban-Ban began most politely, for he had always moved in the best society and had heard no end of books read aloud, “you can’t imagine how glad I am to meet you. Did you like ‘Corn Rigs Are Bonny’ better than the first tune after you had bade the piper play it to you?”

The cow stared. “Yes, I always liked that tune best of all,” she said. “But how did you know?”

“That you were that piper’s cow?” asked Ban-Ban, twirling his moustache with, it must be confessed, considerable self-satisfaction. “Oh, I recognized you at once, because I saw you considering. May I ask whither you are going and whence you came?”

You will see that Ban-Ban was trying to express himself elegantly, because he wanted to impress the cow, and hoped to get her to see things his way.

“I came from the piper,” said the cow, “but I have no idea where I am going. I have left him for good and all. He had nought to give me—”

“Yes; I know,” interrupted Ban-Ban.

“Well, of course I am fond of music and all that,” the cow went on, “but a person cannot live on piping, and corn is better than the tune, ‘Corn Rigs Are Bonny.’ So I had to leave the piper, and now I am looking for a home. When I see a comfortable farm, and a farmer that looks good-tempered, and as if he would be kind to animals, I shall turn in at his gate and chew my cud until he takes me to keep.”

Ban-Ban fairly quivered with eagerness. “We are not farmers,” he began, and as the cow stared more than ever at the cat who made such an unnecessary statement, he stopped and went back to the beginning of his story.

“We are cats,” he said, “who have built this city of Purrington on this river Meuse for a place where all poor, abused cats can come and live happily all their nine lives. We have everything we want, except milk. Don’t you think you could be happy if you joined us? There would not be any one to bother you all day long; you could wander where you might choose—and wherever a cow chews—with no one to drive you, or turn you into a poor pasture, or out of a good one. We would be honoured by your presence, and would build you a house all to yourself, and all we would ask would be that every morning and night you would let down your milk to us.”

“That would be like my friend Cusha-Cow Bonny. Her master asked her to let down her milk to him, and he promised her in return a gown of silk and a silver tee,” remarked the cow, thoughtfully.

“I don’t know what a silver tee is,” said Ban-Ban, “but it doesn’t sound like anything that a cow would care for, and I’m sure you would rather have a nice house and your freedom all the long summer days than a gown of silk. Any sensible person would, especially we who already have such beautiful gowns of fine fur and glossy brown hair,—yours is a lovely colour, if you will pardon a personal remark,” added artful Ban-Ban.

The cow smiled. “Not as beautiful as yours,” she said, not to be outdone in politeness. “Yours is silver on the high line of your back, and almost purple in the shadow; I never saw a more beautiful coat.”

“Thank you,” said Ban-Ban. He did not pay as much attention to compliments as the cow did, because he had been praised ever since he had had his eyes open, and he could not help knowing how beautiful he was. “Don’t you think that you would rather stay with us, in Purrington, than to go farther, only to be again the slave of some man?”

The cow seemed to be struck by this way of putting the case; she no longer hesitated. Shifting her cud to the left cheek, the cheek on which a cow always chews when her mind is fully made up, Mrs. Brindle said, decidedly: “I am quite sure that I should. And I will!”

“Good!” cried Ban-Ban. “Follow me, then!”

Making his tail very stiffly erect to do honour to such an important occasion as was this one, when he was to lead into Purrington its supply of much needed milk, Ban-Ban wheeled around and trotted rapidly down

“The shout of welcome which all the Purrers of Purrington raised.”

the main street, followed by Mrs. Brindle, who looked more round-eyed than ever, as if she could not quite understand being adopted by a cat.

The shout of welcome which all the Purrers of Purrington raised as they espied Ban-Ban and his companion nearly lifted little Dolly Varden off her feet. But when she ran to the window and saw what was coming she raised her piping voice and cried: “Mamma, Mamma Bidelia! Come quick! Ban-Ban’s bringing home something awful, with horns! It’s bigger than men and looks crosser!”

Bidelia ran to the window.

“Why, that’s milk, my Furry-Softness!” she cried, joyfully.

“Milk!” cried Nugget, scornfully. He was not nearly as respectful in his manner since he had played with Scamp. “Milk comes in cans, mamma; not in big, hair-covered horny things, with legs!”

“That is a cow, Nugget; you will see to-night whether you know more than your mother. Cows give milk, just as pumps give water,” said Bidelia, severely.

“Then I’m glad Ban-Ban brought her,” said Puttel, licking her lips thirstily. “I’m so tired not having milk I ’most want to go back to our old place.”

“Poor Puttel!” said Bidelia, feeling of the kitten’s nose. “You are feverish. Never mind, my babies; to-night you shall have a long, creamy, blessed drink, and I’m going to cook a fish for Ban-Ban’s supper for bringing the cow here. What a genius Ban-Ban is! Nugget, run around to Mr. Schwartz Katz’s and ask him to let you have his best fish. Tell him Ban-Ban has brought the cow to Purrington, and that the fish is for him.”

“A long, creamy, blessed drink.”

“He knows it,” growled Nugget, flattening his ears sulkily, for he did not like to go on errands since Scamp had told him his mother took too much of his play-time for her service. It was far from true, for Bidelia was a most indulgent little mother.

“Nugget, go at once, and lift your ears. I will not allow you to flatten your ears when I ask you to do something for me. Oh, dear,” sighed Bidelia. “How dreadful it is to have kittens fall in with bad comrades! Nugget has always been such a good boy! And now that Scamp is changing him for the worse every day!”

“Don’t worry, mamma,” purred dear little Dolly, putting her forelegs around Bidelia’s neck. “Nugget isn’t bad, like Scamp; he only thinks it’s smart to spit and flatten his ears. He thinks that makes him catly, and a soldier like Wutz-Butz.”

Bidelia licked Dolly tenderly. “I only wish he were not so weak as to want to copy bad kittens. As though it were not much more grown-up to be strong, and good, and obedient! If he wants to be catly why doesn’t he imitate Doctor Traddles, or sweet Kiku-san, our gentle white friend, or clever Ban-Ban, or even Wutz-Butz, if he does fight sometimes? It is so silly to swagger!” And Bidelia sighed again, feeling that she was too young to manage such a great yellow kitten as Nugget was growing to be.

Just then there arose in the street a great chorus. To human ears it would have sounded like a chorus of mews, but it was not.

All the cats were shouting, just as they had heard human beings shout at election time, and this was what they were saying:

“What’s the matter with Ban-Ban?” “He’s all right!” “Who founded Purrington?” “Ban-Ban!” “Who brought the cow to Purrington?” “Ban-Ban!”

And then they sang, to the tune of Yankee Doodle:

“Bannie-Ban, with coat of silk,

Got poor thirsty cats their milk!

Bannie-Ban, he knows how

Best to argue with a cow.

Purrers, we, of Purrington,

Without milk could not get on.

Who went out, the cow to catch?

Our noble Bandersnatch!

Who brought Brindle, jogging-jog?

Our noble Bandarlog!

Cheer, then, cheer, all cats who can,

Cheer your best for great Ban-Ban!”

CHAPTER IV
A FIVE O’CLOCK CATNIP TEA

When Purrington was started there were a great many who thought that it must fail. Cats who would not join the pilgrims to the new city sat on back fences and mewed over the certain disappointment awaiting those who went, sometimes spitting in their wrath that any cat should be so foolish as to go on such a wild-goose chase after happiness, just as human folk croak over other people’s experiments. It is too much to expect that cats can always be better than human beings, at least that all cats can.

But Purrington was not a failure; on the contrary it was a great success; and, when it had been built in two weeks, and everything was in running order, and the Purrers were quite sure that their plan was working well, Bidelia and Madam Laura resolved to give a tea to celebrate the founding of the city.

A great many ladies had come to the town by this time, so there was no trouble about getting together plenty of guests for the tea. Doctor Thomas Traddles’s school was by this time grown to thirty scholars, for most of the ladies who had moved to Purrington, like Bidelia, brought with them two or three children—and one came to town with five kittens!

The cards to the tea were issued three days in advance, and were delivered at each house—there were more houses built by this time to shelter all the new arrivals—by a small, gray cat called Posty, whose duty it was to deliver the mails and to keep the post-office.

“One came to town with five kittens.”

“A small, gray cat called Posty.”

The cards ran thus: “Mrs. Bidelia Purplay requests the pleasure of your company to tea on June 10th, from four to six. Music.”

There was not a cat omitted in these invitations, because the founders of Purrington had talked the matter over in private and had agreed that it would never do to allow any division and jealousy in the town such as is caused by social sets, and one person looking down upon another, and snubbing him. It was not easy for Ban-Ban, Kiku-san, Bidelia, and Tommy Traddles to bring themselves to treat everybody exactly alike, for there is nothing on earth so lofty by nature as a cat, and these four had been used only to fashionable society. However, they made up their minds that they must do whatever was for the general good, and treat all the Purrers of Purrington with the same neighbourly kindness.

Bidelia hoped that by having her tea continue from four to six she would escape crowding her parlour, in which there was not any too much room; but, by five minutes to four, there was a stirring in the streets, heads poking out of windows and doors to see if any one were starting, and before the French clock on Bidelia’s parlour cabinet had struck half-past four, all her guests had arrived.

Of course nobody would have missed this first social event in Purrington for their whiskers, but there had been a good deal said from one to another about Bidelia’s giving a tea. Nobody seemed to think that tea would be very enjoyable.

“It’s all very well to be fashionable,” said the mother of the five kittens—Daisy Bell was her name—“but tea! Whoever heard of a cat that would so much as smell of tea? I should have thought that Mrs. Bidelia Purplay could have found something better to have asked us to than tea! I told my eldest daughter not to be surprised if I came home down sick. Tea! Of all things!”

This was said as Daisy Bell came to the tea—one of the very earliest to arrive she was, too, in spite of her dislike for tea—and her neighbour, Mrs. Blotch, to whom she was talking, fully agreed with her.

Judge, then, the pleasure of these ladies when, on entering Bidelia’s house, a strong odour of catnip met their twitching noses. Here is where breeding tells; Daisy Bell’s manners were not proof against this surprise and the tempting odour.

“Dear me!” she cried, as she came in,—before she had so much as inquired after her hostess’s children, mind you,—“Dear me! How strong that catnip smells! Are you giving a catnip tea? I wouldn’t have dreaded coming if I’d have known that!”

“Did you dread coming?” inquired Bidelia, pleasantly. “I am very sorry. Of course it is a catnip tea. I never thought of stating it on my cards, because I thought everybody would understand. A Five O’Clock Catnip Tea. Why, of course it is. What other kind of a tea would I care to give, or you care to come to?”

“No other kind,” said Daisy Bell, promptly. “What do we do?”

“If you will go into my bedroom you will find Puttel there to take your things, and help you in any little way that you may need help; she acts as my maid to-day. Then, when your fur is arranged and you are quite ready, if you will be so kind as to come back to me I will take you to the dining-room. Madam Laura is good enough to pour for me to-day.”

Daisy Bell did not know what Bidelia meant by pouring for her, but she kept silent, for there was something in little Bidelia’s easy and gracious manner that made Daisy Bell, and Mrs. Blotch, too, conscious that they had not her advantages of education and social experience.

They had not got their things off and their fur smoothed down, and their ribbons retied, before other ladies came, and still others, until Bidelia’s small bedroom was crowded, and Puttel had to give the first comers a hint to go out to her mother, for everybody seemed to dread to make the first move to go back to the parlour.

In the meantime the gentlemen had been arriving, hardly less prompt than the ladies, which is not strange, because it was curiosity that brought them all so early, and cats are the most curious of creatures, the gentlemen just as curious as the ladies among them—wherein they are very different, you know, from human creatures.

Bidelia was busy receiving her guests, and ushering them out to the dining-room, where Madam Laura was pouring catnip tea at the table out of a very big urn indeed. The table was beautifully set with charming saucers and plates of glass and silver, and decorated with bunches of catnip in the centre and at each corner, connected by long loops of sky-blue ribbon. There were thin slices of cold meat, little cakes of puppy biscuits, cut into fancy shapes, crackers, cheese, cream in a large bowl, like a punch-bowl on a side-table, and ice-cream—melted ice-cream, of course, as all sensible people with good, catlike tastes prefer it.

Bidelia had cups for the catnip tea which had come down to her from her greatest of grandmothers, nobody knows how many generations ago, for the cups were nearly a hundred years old, and in a hundred years cats lay by a great length of grandmothers. These cups were small at the bottom and flaring at the top, like little bowls, and they had no handles. They were a grayish china, with dark blue border and little sprigs of dark blue flowers in the bottoms, which the guests could not see until they had lapped up their tea to the last drop.

Dolly Varden handed around tea and the other refreshments. The crowd grew so great that there was not room after awhile to set the cups on the floor. Ever so many were waiting to be served, and one could see from their rising fur that this was annoying them dreadfully.

Tommy Traddles saw this, too, and he whispered to Bidelia.

“Certainly,” she said aloud, and Tommy Traddles turned to the guests.

“Our hostess has provided us with an entertainment, in which I have the honour to be of some assistance, as the master of the Purrington school,” he said. “When you have enjoyed sufficiently the hospitality of this room will you please go out upon the lawn, where the music announced on the cards of invitation will be given.”

The instant Doctor Traddles had finished speaking more than half the guests hastened out on the lawn, anxious to secure the best places to see and hear, for cats do not always behave unselfishly; perhaps they have followed the bad example of human beings, of whom a few are always trying to get the best of everything for themselves.

Here the fond and proud parents found all the kittens of Purrington, little girls and little boys, drawn up in a row, their eyes as bright as they could be, their noses quivering with nervous impatience, and their little tails all straight up in the air above their backs like so many fur-covered slate-pencils. The kittens all wore ribbons crossed under the left foreleg and tied in a bow on the right shoulder. The boys wore pink, the girls blue ribbons, and the scholars who had done well in school had each a little silvered bell tied around the throat by a narrow ribbon, matching in colour the wider one around the shoulder.

The murmurs that arose from the guests on the lawn reached the ears of those remaining in the dining-room, who hastily finished their catnip tea and swallowed their last bites of cold meat and puppy biscuit cakes, lapped the final drops of their ice-cream, and hurried after the ladies and gentlemen on the lawn.

“Dear friends,” said Bidelia in a faint little voice, for she was frightened to speak to so many cats, all with their eyes fixed on her and with their tails slightly waving. “Dear friends, with Doctor Traddles’s help I have got together our blessed kittens to help me entertain you, and to prove what great progress they are making in school. First, my dancing class will show you a figure, a new figure, in the cotillion. It is called: The Chase of the Tails.”

’Clipsy, who, being black, had a natural talent for music, and particularly for playing the violin, took his place with his fiddle over his shoulder, precisely as you see the cat in “High, Diddle, Diddle.” Nearly all the kittens stepped out into the middle of the lawn, stuck their tails out straight, and waited. ’Clipsy played a few bars softly and then dashed into a lively air, that made every eye in the place spread its pupil ’way to the beginning of its white line, so exciting was this music.

The Dance.

Instantly every kitten made a rapid, low bow, and then danced a few steps to the right, a few to the left, leaped into the air, turned its soft body half-way around as it came down, and slapped at its own tail with its right forepaw. The music changed into other time, and with it the dancing steps of the kittens changed also. Swinging and swaying, the kittens began to spin around after their tails, keeping perfect time to the exciting music, whirling faster and faster, until all one could see were so many soft, varied-coloured balls of graceful kits, spinning, dashing, running, skipping, snatching after the tails that they never quite caught, never losing the swing of the dance, never losing the fun of the thing, until all the cats looking on were quite wild themselves with the delight of it and pride in their children. Fancy, if one kitten running after its tail is funny and charming, what it must have been to have seen twenty-two kittens, in a circle, trying to catch their tails in a mazy dance, perfectly performed!

“We’ve had the time of our lives!” cried Posty, jumping up in the air himself, and giving a wild mew, because he could not help doing it.

“Let us give Mrs. Bidelia a vote of thanks,” proposed Ban-Ban, remembering how he had been publicly thanked for bringing the cow into Purrington.

“Three cheers instead!” cried Wutz-Butz, who wanted to let off steam in some way.

The three cheers were instantly given, for all the cats felt precisely as Wutz-Butz did, that they must give vent to their feelings, so wrought up by the dance, or fly into small pieces on the spot.

Bidelia dropped a beautiful curtsey. “Thank you, dear friends,” she said. “I am glad that you consider our first social event in Purrington a success. Before you go will you join in a song? The kittens will lead us, because they know it best.”