Anne of the Island
her and Priscilla a fearfully and wonderfully embroidered one. Marilla
had sent a big box of preserves, and darkly hinted at a hamper for
Thanksgiving, and Mrs. Lynde gave Anne a patchwork quilt and loaned her
five more.
“You take them,” she said authoritatively. “They might as well be in
use as packed away in that trunk in the garret for moths to gnaw.”
No moths would ever have ventured near those quilts, for they reeked of
mothballs to such an extent that they had to be hung in the orchard of
Patty’s Place a full fortnight before they could be endured indoors.
Verily, aristocratic Spofford Avenue had rarely beheld such a display.
The gruff old millionaire who lived “next door” came over and wanted to
buy the gorgeous red and yellow “tulip-pattern” one which Mrs. Rachel
had given Anne. He said his mother used to make quilts like that, and
by Jove, he wanted one to remind him of her. Anne would not sell it,
much to his disappointment, but she wrote all about it to Mrs. Lynde.
That highly-gratified lady sent word back that she had one just like it
to spare, so the tobacco king got his quilt after all, and insisted on
having it spread on his bed, to the disgust of his fashionable wife.
Mrs. Lynde’s quilts served a very useful purpose that winter. Patty’s
Place for all its many virtues, had its faults also. It was really a
rather cold house; and when the frosty nights came the girls were very
glad to snuggle down under Mrs. Lynde’s quilts, and hoped that the loan
of them might be accounted unto her for righteousness. Anne had the
blue room she had coveted at sight. Priscilla and Stella had the large
one. Phil was blissfully content with the little one over the kitchen;
and Aunt Jamesina was to have the downstairs one off the living-room.
Rusty at first slept on the doorstep.
Anne, walking home from Redmond a few days after her return, became
aware that the people that she met surveyed her with a covert,
indulgent smile. Anne wondered uneasily what was the matter with her.
Was her hat crooked? Was her belt loose? Craning her head to
investigate, Anne, for the first time, saw Rusty.
Trotting along behind her, close to her heels, was quite the most
forlorn specimen of the cat tribe she had ever beheld. The animal was
well past kitten-hood, lank, thin, disreputable looking. Pieces of both
ears were lacking, one eye was temporarily out of repair, and one jowl
ludicrously swollen. As for color, if a once black cat had been well
and thoroughly singed the result would have resembled the hue of this
waif’s thin, draggled, unsightly fur.
Anne “shooed,” but the cat would not “shoo.” As long as she stood he
sat back on his haunches and gazed at her reproachfully out of his one
good eye; when she resumed her walk he followed. Anne resigned herself
to his company until she reached the gate of Patty’s Place, which she
coldly shut in his face, fondly supposing she had seen the last of him.
But when, fifteen minutes later, Phil opened the door, there sat the
rusty-brown cat on the step. More, he promptly darted in and sprang
upon Anne’s lap with a half-pleading, half-triumphant “miaow.”
“Anne,” said Stella severely, “do you own that animal?”
“No, I do _not_,” protested disgusted Anne. “The creature followed me
home from somewhere. I couldn’t get rid of him. Ugh, get down. I like
decent cats reasonably well; but I don’t like beasties of your
complexion.”
Pussy, however, refused to get down. He coolly curled up in Anne’s lap
and began to purr.
“He has evidently adopted you,” laughed Priscilla.
“I won’t BE adopted,” said Anne stubbornly.
“The poor creature is starving,” said Phil pityingly. “Why, his bones
are almost coming through his skin.”
“Well, I’ll give him a square meal and then he must return to whence he
came,” said Anne resolutely.
The cat was fed and put out. In the morning he was still on the
doorstep. On the doorstep he continued to sit, bolting in whenever the
door was opened. No coolness of welcome had the least effect on him; of
nobody save Anne did he take the least notice. Out of compassion the
girls fed him; but when a week had passed they decided that something
must be done. The cat’s appearance had improved. His eye and cheek had
resumed their normal appearance; he was not quite so thin; and he had
been seen washing his face.
“But for all that we can’t keep him,” said Stella. “Aunt Jimsie is
coming next week and she will bring the Sarah-cat with her. We can’t
keep two cats; and if we did this Rusty Coat would fight all the time
with the Sarah-cat. He’s a fighter by nature. He had a pitched battle
last evening with the tobacco-king’s cat and routed him, horse, foot
and artillery.”
“We must get rid of him,” agreed Anne, looking darkly at the subject of
their discussion, who was purring on the hearth rug with an air of
lamb-like meekness. “But the question is—how? How can four unprotected
females get rid of a cat who won’t be got rid of?”
“We must chloroform him,” said Phil briskly. “That is the most humane
way.”
“Who of us knows anything about chloroforming a cat?” demanded Anne
gloomily.
“I do, honey. It’s one of my few—sadly few—useful accomplishments. I’ve
disposed of several at home. You take the cat in the morning and give
him a good breakfast. Then you take an old burlap bag—there’s one in
the back porch—put the cat on it and turn over him a wooden box. Then
take a two-ounce bottle of chloroform, uncork it, and slip it under the
edge of the box. Put a heavy weight on top of the box and leave it till
evening. The cat will be dead, curled up peacefully as if he were
asleep. No pain—no struggle.”
“It sounds easy,” said Anne dubiously.
“It _is_ easy. Just leave it to me. I’ll see to it,” said Phil
reassuringly.
Accordingly the chloroform was procured, and the next morning Rusty was
lured to his doom. He ate his breakfast, licked his chops, and climbed
into Anne’s lap. Anne’s heart misgave her. This poor creature loved
her—trusted her. How could she be a party to this destruction?
“Here, take him,” she said hastily to Phil. “I feel like a murderess.”
“He won’t suffer, you know,” comforted Phil, but Anne had fled.
The fatal deed was done in the back porch. Nobody went near it that
day. But at dusk Phil declared that Rusty must be buried.
“Pris and Stella must dig his grave in the orchard,” declared Phil,
“and Anne must come with me to lift the box off. That’s the part I
always hate.”
The two conspirators tip-toed reluctantly to the back porch. Phil
gingerly lifted the stone she had put on the box. Suddenly, faint but
distinct, sounded an unmistakable mew under the box.
“He—he isn’t dead,” gasped Anne, sitting blankly down on the kitchen
doorstep.
“He must be,” said Phil incredulously.
Another tiny mew proved that he wasn’t. The two girls stared at each
other.
“What will we do?” questioned Anne.
“Why in the world don’t you come?” demanded Stella, appearing in the
doorway. “We’ve got the grave ready. ‘What silent still and silent
all?’” she quoted teasingly.
“‘Oh, no, the voices of the dead Sound like the distant torrent’s
fall,’” promptly counter-quoted Anne, pointing solemnly to the box.
A burst of laughter broke the tension.
“We must leave him here till morning,” said Phil, replacing the stone.
“He hasn’t mewed for five minutes. Perhaps the mews we heard were his
dying groan. Or perhaps we merely imagined them, under the strain of
our guilty consciences.”
But, when the box was lifted in the morning, Rusty bounded at one gay
leap to Anne’s shoulder where he began to lick her face affectionately.
Never was there a cat more decidedly alive.
“Here’s a knot hole in the box,” groaned Phil. “I never saw it. That’s
why he didn’t die. Now, we’ve got to do it all over again.”
“No, we haven’t,” declared Anne suddenly. “Rusty isn’t going to be
killed again. He’s my cat—and you’ve just got to make the best of it.”
“Oh, well, if you’ll settle with Aunt Jimsie and the Sarah-cat,” said
Stella, with the air of one washing her hands of the whole affair.
From that time Rusty was one of the family. He slept o’nights on the
scrubbing cushion in the back porch and lived on the fat of the land.
By the time Aunt Jamesina came he was plump and glossy and tolerably
respectable. But, like Kipling’s cat, he “walked by himself.” His paw
was against every cat, and every cat’s paw against him. One by one he
vanquished the aristocratic felines of Spofford Avenue. As for human
beings, he loved Anne and Anne alone. Nobody else even dared stroke
him. An angry spit and something that sounded much like very improper
language greeted any one who did.
“The airs that cat puts on are perfectly intolerable,” declared Stella.
“Him was a nice old pussens, him was,” vowed Anne, cuddling her pet
defiantly.
“Well, I don’t know how he and the Sarah-cat will ever make out to live
together,” said Stella pesimistically. “Cat-fights in the orchard
o’nights are bad enough. But cat-fights here in the livingroom are
unthinkable.” In due time Aunt Jamesina arrived. Anne and Priscilla and
Phil had awaited her advent rather dubiously; but when Aunt Jamesina
was enthroned in the rocking chair before the open fire they
figuratively bowed down and worshipped her.
Aunt Jamesina was a tiny old woman with a little, softly-triangular
face, and large, soft blue eyes that were alight with unquenchable
youth, and as full of hopes as a girl’s. She had pink cheeks and
snow-white hair which she wore in quaint little puffs over her ears.
“It’s a very old-fashioned way,” she said, knitting industriously at
something as dainty and pink as a sunset cloud. “But _I_ am
old-fashioned. My clothes are, and it stands to reason my opinions are,
too. I don’t say they’re any the better of that, mind you. In fact, I
daresay they’re a good deal the worse. But they’ve worn nice and easy.
New shoes are smarter than old ones, but the old ones are more
comfortable. I’m old enough to indulge myself in the matter of shoes
and opinions. I mean to take it real easy here. I know you expect me to
look after you and keep you proper, but I’m not going to do it. You’re
old enough to know how to behave if you’re ever going to be. So, as far
as I am concerned,” concluded Aunt Jamesina, with a twinkle in her
young eyes, “you can all go to destruction in your own way.”
“Oh, will somebody separate those cats?” pleaded Stella, shudderingly.
Aunt Jamesina had brought with her not only the Sarah-cat but Joseph.
Joseph, she explained, had belonged to a dear friend of hers who had
gone to live in Vancouver.
“She couldn’t take Joseph with her so she begged me to take him. I
really couldn’t refuse. He’s a beautiful cat—that is, his disposition
is beautiful. She called him Joseph because his coat is of many
colors.”
It certainly was. Joseph, as the disgusted Stella said, looked like a
walking rag-bag. It was impossible to say what his ground color was.
His legs were white with black spots on them. His back was gray with a
huge patch of yellow on one side and a black patch on the other. His
tail was yellow with a gray tip. One ear was black and one yellow. A
black patch over one eye gave him a fearfully rakish look. In reality
he was meek and inoffensive, of a sociable disposition. In one respect,
if in no other, Joseph was like a lily of the field. He toiled not
neither did he spin or catch mice. Yet Solomon in all his glory slept
not on softer cushions, or feasted more fully on fat things.
Joseph and the Sarah-cat arrived by express in separate boxes. After
they had been released and fed, Joseph selected the cushion and corner
which appealed to him, and the Sarah-cat gravely sat herself down
before the fire and proceeded to wash her face. She was a large, sleek,