"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.
