in the back hallway, up stairs, there was a long wooden chest, half full of old magazines. behind it mice had established a home. i did not know this at the time, but was to learn it a few minutes after the constable left.
we stood in the kitchen, ethel and i, listening to the heavy foot-falls of minerva. she was evidently packing her trunk. suddenly there came a mewing at the kitchen door, and i opened it for the entrance of miss pussy, who made a bee line for up stairs, one of her hunting grounds.
“we might hide miss pussy,” said i, “and then minerva wouldn’t go.”
minerva’s voice has a penetrating quality, and in a minute we could hear her making a confidant of miss pussy.
“miss pussy, you an’ me is go’n’ back to the lovely city. country’s ba-ad ’nough, but livin’ with the frien’s of burglars is wuss. what you want, miss pussy?”
the voice came out into the hall; minerva had evidently followed the cat out.
“yeah, you’ll get a mouse behin’ there. you wait—”
we heard a grunt such as some people make when they lift something heavy, and then a characteristic chuckle, and then a half agonized,
“ooh, come out, come out, miss pussy. you’ll git squished. i can’t hold it. come out.”
“what is happening now?” said i to ethel.
“oh, some of her tomfoolery. i’m out of patience with her.”
“mist. vernon! mist. vernon! quick! qui-i-ck! i can’t hol’ much longer! pussy’ll be squished!”
i rushed up those familiar stairs, followed by ethel, and there stood minerva, her eyes nearly popping out of her head as she tried with bare success to hold up the heavy chest full of magazines.
of the cat nothing was to be seen except a twitching tail that told me she was underneath the chest watching a mouse in calm obliviousness of the fact that her mistress was using all her strength in an effort to save her from becoming only a map of a cat.
“hold on a minute,” i cried, rushing to her assistance, but just as i reached her the chest slipped from her fingers.
but a cat with all its nine lives fresh within its young frame, is not easily “squished,” even by so heavy a thing as a chest full of magazines, and miss pussy’s body darted out just in time. not so the tip of her tail which, whisking behind her as she turned to rush out, was caught between chest and floor, and acted like a push button on a call bell, for she emitted a continuous yawp that lasted until i had lifted the chest again.
cats generally see where they are going, but miss pussy had been looking behind her at the spectacle of her imprisoned tail, and when i released her she sprang high in the air and landed compactly and dexterously on a sheet of sticky fly paper.
never can i forget the look she gave us over her shoulder as her feet struck the gluey mass. to give herself a leverage by which to pull her dainty fore-paws out of the entanglement, she sat down—temporarily, as she thought—permanently, as the fly paper decided.
we were sorry for the cat, but being americans we gave ourselves over to mirth at the picture she presented. the pencil of a frost is needed to adequately represent her agonized twisting on the sticky sheet. at last, by a herculean effort, she extricated her fore paws and walking glue-ily to the head of the stairs she dragged herself along on the fly paper as if she were part sled, part cat. coming to the head of the stairs she attempted to walk down in the manner of trick cats, but not being used to the exercise she turned a series of summersaults instead, and landed at the foot so completely enmeshed in sticky fly paper that it would have been a small fly, indeed, who could have found a place for his own little feet upon its yellow surface.
i have often derided the witless persons who found amusement in what i call pantomime catastrophes, but this simple conjunction of cat and fly paper was as funny as anything i ever looked at.
“it’ll spoil her nice fur,” said minerva, running down stairs after the cat and overtaking her at the kitchen door, which i had fortunately closed. a sympathetic hand picked up the papered cat and attempted to divorce her from her adhesive mantle, but when i came down it looked to me as if there were far more fur on the “tanglefoot” than pussy had herself, and the ungrateful animal had scratched her benefactress as well as she could with glue covered talons. then spitting and swearing, miss pussy dashed through the kitchen window, not waiting for it to be opened, and went to her first retreat, where she remained for the rest of the day, ridding herself, after the manner of cats, of as much as she could of the flies’ last resting place.
it suddenly occurred to me that the time was ripe for more diplomacy, that even now, at the eleventh hour, i might save minerva to the house of vernon, and things would continue to go on as smoothly—as before.
“minerva, you saved miss pussy’s life by holding on as you did,” said i. (i said nothing about her asininity in lifting the chest for miss pussy to creep under it.)
“might as well be dead as all gawmed up with that fly paper stuff.”
“well, she has a cat’s tongue, and she knows how to use it. she’ll be as sleek as sealskin by to-night. minerva!”
“yas’r.”
“minerva, if i raised your wages, do you think you’d stay with us? of course, you know i never saw that man until last night.”
“then how’d he know so much about them children and all them people?”
“that was just his funny way. he was making believe—just—just to make talk. but you haven’t answered my question. ‘would you stay if i raised your wages?’”
“how much?”
there was no use in my being mealy mouthed now, and so i flung economy to the four winds of heaven and said:
“thirty dollars a month.”
minerva gasped. the bait was in her throat.
“thirty dollars a month right through the summer,” said i.
“i’ll stay, mist. vernon, jes to help you out, but i do hate the country and the night time. if it was all day long all the time, i could stan’ it. if i could git to bed about eight o’clock, i wouldn’t mind it so much, but you have dinner so late, i don’t get the dishes washed in time.”
i pondered, and just then ethel came into the kitchen.
“ethel, minerva is going to stay with us for the summer, but she is afraid of the dark, and thinks that if we could have dinner earlier she would like it better.”
ethel sniffed. she sniffed disdainfully.
“when would you like to have it, minerva?” said i, hoping that the sniffing would cease. sniffs are not a part of diplomacy, by any means.
“if you had it at five o’clock, i’d get to bed at eight.”
“five o’clock is ridiculous,” burst out ethel. i looked at her warningly, but she did not pay any attention to my signal.
“no, minerva,” said she. “six o’clock is plenty early enough.”
“well,” said minerva, actually putting her hands on her hips, a new attitude for her, “i’m on’y staying now to oblige, and i’ll have to go back, i reckon.”
now this was a little too much, but for the sake of keeping her and the health of my wife at any cost, i said:
“well, minerva, i suppose that in spite of mrs. vernon’s objection to the hour we’ll have dinner at five, but i tell you plainly that it is because i do not want mrs. vernon to be left without a servant.”
“you’re a very ungrateful girl, minerva,” said ethel with a strange lack of tact. “mr. vernon has put up with a great deal from you, and you act as if you were ill treated.”
“i’m kep’ a prisoner in the country, an’ that’s ill treatment all right,” said minerva, sullenly, and i motioned to ethel and we left the kitchen together.
