There are often advertis.e.m.e.nts seen in the daily papers and great rewards offered for lost pets,--dogs and cats. Never expect to find them. The doctors will pay more than the offered reward for nice, well-cared-for dogs and cats; and boys have no regard for those who feel the loss of their pets. It is to get the highest price.

Is it not the duty of every one who can have influence to use it in behalf of the dumb creatures who appeal to their mercy? They cannot speak for themselves.

XXV

EVENTIDE

We are still in our pleasant rooms, and life is very quiet and happy.

Each day I grow less able to go about. I have no inclination to leave our nice room. It is really true I am growing old. I can hear only in one ear; but, oh my, don't I hear quickly in the other! The sense of smell has grown stronger. I think I could smell a rat one mile away. My eyesight is good. I do not believe even a Boston-born cat ever wears gla.s.ses. Their literary tendencies do not need to be advertised by gla.s.ses.

But alas! there are other indications of old age. I love to lie quiet, looking in the fire, where I see pictures of the past. My appet.i.te is good, but I am very particular about my food, and if it does not please me, I am irritable. Unless the boys or some friends I love come in, I do not feel inclined to make myself agreeable. It is a real pleasure when Will takes me on his knee, and I can stick my claws in, just as I used to, scratching gently, while he says, "Oh, Daisy, you are at your old tricks!"

But it makes me sad after they have gone. I look in the fire and see the dear little boys of long ago, dressed so cunning and always so full of fun. To know that they are no longer mine! These smart young men have taken their places. Then, indeed, I feel I am an old cat and nearing the end. I have learned now the meaning of "the beginning of the end." I realize that I must finish my book at once, before I get too old to write at all. My thumb is rather stiff and rheumatic, and my "index claw" not quite as sharp a pen as it used to be, but I think I shall be able to finish my work.

There is one thing very true. No one realizes my great age. Friends come in daily, and say, "Oh, Daisy, how lovely you are! and your tail is just perfect." Of course I know it is true. My tail is just lovely, and my fur is as soft and luxuriant as it was years ago. But when they say, "_She_ is beautiful," that arouses all the "old cat Adam" in me, for I suppose that is the part of us that dies last. After having all my life behaved like a gentleman, with all his virtues, and none of his vices, now, in my old age, to be called "She" is more than I can bear. The advanced woman cat may, like her superiors, have a desire to be men; but no gentleman cat would ever care to change his nature or s.e.x. Just because my name is Daisy, they seem to think I am a "Miss Nancy," and adapt their conversation to suit an inferior intellect.

One young girl came to visit us one day, and we were tired enough of her. She had no brains and soon used up all her small talk. Then she gushed over me. It made me sick. I opened my eyes wide at her. This pleased her so much that she nodded just like a donkey, and clucked at me just as if she thought me a hen. Then she repeated that awful silly thing with no sense in at all:--

"'p.u.s.s.y Cat, p.u.s.s.y Cat, where have you been?'

'I've been to London to see the Queen.'"

Her voice was thin and pitched high, and it made me tired and cross. She looked for approval and got disappointed. I backed away from her and swelled up my tail till it was as big as a m.u.f.f. She was rather frightened, but my two friends laughed. They understood that I was insulted by such childish nonsense. As if I had a mind no deeper than that silly stuff!

I wanted her to know that "Washington" and the "President of the United States" and his wife would be much more attractive to me.

London and the Queen! There are sn.o.bs enough to visit them without a cat joining the crowd. I have no doubt the Queen is a nice old lady, but then there are so many nicer ones who earn their own living that I can see every day. Such a journey would be useless. I have never heard she was fond of cats. If she had been, they might be treated better by those who follow after and pin their faith on royalty.

I did get very nervous over that silly "p.u.s.s.y Cat." It ran in my head, and my nice fire pictures were filled with the maudlin trash. And I was heartily glad when Miss Eleanor said, "Now we will have a little of d.i.c.kens to clear the atmosphere." That calmed my nerves, and I fell asleep, and I also fell off of the ha.s.sock, where I had perched myself.

The other day I heard Miss Milly say that she scarcely ever took up a paper without finding some interesting anecdote of a dog or cat. Miss Eleanor said, "What interesting stories we could tell of the pets we have known!"

I just laughed to myself, thinking how surprised they would be when they found my ma.n.u.script containing many of their nice stories. I never forget stories I hear, and I hear many I would like to repeat if I had s.p.a.ce. Here is one, however, I cannot overlook.

A friend of ours had a beautiful maltese cat named Primrose. Primrose had four kittens. They were just perfect, and she was very proud of them. The mistress decided to keep them all, for the children were delighted with them. As they were living that summer in a large old farmhouse, they had plenty of room. Primrose had a large clothes-basket for her nursery, with a nice rug inside. A more luxurious place could not have been found for a home. Indeed, had she been a society cat, feeling the necessity of giving importance to her home, she would, like "human society people," have called her home "Catmore," "The Mewes," or "p.u.s.s.y Villa." But she was content to call it what it really was,--a good homelike clothes-basket, with beauty and goodness enough inside to allow of its being nameless.

One day one of the children tied a red ribbon around the neck of Primrose. She looked so charming that the other children gave up their pretty hair ribbons to decorate the kittens. There were pink, blue, and yellow. The fourth one was red, like the mother's. It was a beautiful sight. The basket looked like one huge bouquet.

Primrose was away when they were decorated, and on her return she looked with surprise at the brilliant objects in her home. She gave one "cat call" of surprise. This aroused the kittens, and they climbed up the side of the basket and mewed for their dinner. Primrose looked at each one, as if to make sure they were her kittens. Then she jumped into the basket, boxed all their ears, and tore off every ribbon, with the exception of the red one like her own. This was her way of saying; "Stick to your mother's color; it is red. I will not allow children of mine to indulge in such foolish masquerading!" She only made them naughty little kittens, for they did crowd their little sister, with the red ribbon, almost out of the basket. They whispered and licked and played with each other, but would not speak to her.

The next day, however, the children, finding that Primrose preferred her own taste in ribbons to theirs, brought red ribbons for them all. Then the mother was satisfied. Was not that a proof that Primrose could tell one color from another?

I have one great pleasure--I can go out every fair day. I climb on the fence, but do not go away from our garden: for in the next house is a dog, and he is a poor, evil-dispositioned creature. He seems to hate me.

Why he should want to make me answerable for his unhappiness, I cannot understand. Just as soon as I appear on the fence, he barks and barks till all the neighborhood is disturbed. I do not notice him, for I know it is a free country, and I have as good a right to the fence as he has to his garden.

Norah, the girl where we live, is very kind to me. She keeps the window open, and I can jump in just when I please. The good kind old "gentleman of the house" speaks very kindly to me, and I know he understands me, for one day when I reached over when that dog was barking, and hissed right in his face once or twice just to aggravate him, this nice old gentleman laughed, and said, "Smart Daisy!" And I enjoyed it. When I got over my madness at night, all alone in my basket, all asleep around me, I did think how sad it was, when I ought to be at peace with all the world, knowing that my life would soon end, to go and irritate that poor dog by hissing at him; it made me feel ashamed. But then, I suppose I shall do it again unless I stay in when he barks.

There was a very nice cat belonging to some people who had recently moved into one of the houses near. He was a real "out and outer." I never heard such a voice or such sentiments before. He said he wanted to kill! It was his mission! Let the rats and mice in the neighborhood beware! He was there. That was enough; they were doomed. He would make that back yard a battle-field.

I was carried right off my feet by his eloquence. "Good heavens!" I thought, "is his name 'Gladstone' or 'Bismarck'? What a loss to me! I shall never find another rat; he will kill them all."

When weeks and weeks pa.s.sed on, and I had killed a few, though I did not tell him, he bl.u.s.tered so, I thought he had killed dozens. The nice cat in the next house told me that he had never killed one. She said, "He is a real coward." He is just like some men--all talk and brag, "great cry and little wool."

I did like that cat. She said she was very soon going into the country to live. She preferred it to the city. She said where she had lived there were six cats. She liked them, but preferred a change. They were all old cats and did not care to play. Three of them had no teeth, and all the soft pieces of meat were given to them. But they were very poor company. She could not help them, and was glad of a change; it was too much like "The Old Ladies' Home" for her. One of them, she said, was so crazy after valerian that it was given to her all the time, and it made her just ugly and very quarrelsome.

"Well," I remarked, "I am very glad to know of cats that are cared for.

There are enough suffering around us to make our hearts ache."

"Yes," she said, "and I could tell you tales that would chill your blood."

I begged her not to. I told her I had seen enough to make me very unhappy, as I could not help them; but she would tell me one.

She said: "On this very street I saw a nicely dressed young man chase a poor cat, a half-starved creature, into a sewer hole and beat her in with his cane; then some boys joined him, and the boys filled in the opening and stayed there shouting and yelling till she must have been suffocated. And this fiend in shape of man came away, laughing. If we could read the papers and knew his name," she added, "probably we should read he had battered his wife's head with a shovel or killed his old father."

I went home with a heavy heart. I had not felt well for some time, and I could not bear to live in such a wicked world. I did not look out of the window very often, for fear I should see that sewer hole and the ghost of that poor cat peeping out.

I cannot help them. All I can think of to comfort me is that I am with people who have all their lives done all they could to help and protect the poor and afflicted, and every animal they could do for has been made happy. And I rest in peace, for I believe that a higher power has guided me, a poor cat, to write this little book, that my life and the many tales of woe I have listened to and here repeat may go forth and do their mission.

I feel that the end is near, and I know that the loving care I have had through my happy life will be mine, for I know we shall meet again. I shall watch for my loved ones at the gate of Paradise.

It is eventide. The glowing tints have faded from my life picture, but the beautiful twilight remains. And when I have crossed to the "golden sh.o.r.e," I hope my memory will come back to my loved ones like the beautiful afterglow of a perfect sunset.

To all the dear friends who have known and loved Daisy I would say an affectionate good-by till we meet again.

THE END