BLACKIE A LOST CAT

HER MANY ADVENTURES

BY

RICHARD BARNUM

Author of “Squinty, the Comical Pig,” “Tum Tum, the Jolly Elephant,” “Dido, the Dancing Bear,” “Flop Ear, the Funny Rabbit,” etc.

ILLUSTRATED BY

WALTER S. ROGERS

PUBLISHERS BARSE & CO. NEW YORK, N. Y. NEWARK, N. J.

Copyright, 1916 by BARSE & CO.

Blackie, A Lost Cat

Printed in the United States of America

ILLUSTRATIONS

[7]

BLACKIE, A LOST CAT

CHAPTER I BLACKIE HEARS SOMETHING

Blackie was a cat. Now that I have told you this much I think you can guess why that was her name. It was because she was as black as a coal, or a bit of tar from the barrel which stood on the street when the men were fixing the roof. Blackie did not have so much as a speck, or a single hair, of white in her glossy coat of fur, and on a dark night, if you were to look for Blackie I think you would not have found her. For she looked just like a bit of the dark itself.

When you first looked at Blackie you might have thought she was just like other cats, but she was not. She was a very smart cat, and so many things happened to her, and she had so many adventures, that I am going to tell you about them.

[8]

Once upon a time, not so very many years ago, Blackie lived in a fine large house with a little boy and girl, named Arthur and Mabel. Of course the papa and mamma of Arthur and Mabel lived in the house too, but as the children were the ones who played with Blackie, and looked after her, giving her milk and good things to eat, it seems best to say that Blackie lived with them.

“Now it’s your turn to feed Blackie,” Mabel would call to her brother.

“All right,” Arthur would answer. “I’ll get her the milk right away.”

The children never had to be told twice to look after their pet cat, for they loved Blackie very much. Though the children’s father or mother often had to tell them twice, or perhaps even three times, to go to the store, or run on an errand, just one telling was enough when it was about Blackie.

“I certainly have a good home here,” thought the black cat, “and Arthur and Mabel are very kind to me. Yes, I certainly am a lucky cat.”

Of course Blackie did not say this out loud, for neither cats, nor dogs, nor other animals, can speak as we do. But they can make noises, such as mewing or barking, and I think that is, for them, talking in their own way, just as much as we talk in ours.

[9]

And cats and other animals think, too, I believe. Else how would they know enough to come to the same place many times to be fed, or how would they know how to find their way home when they have gone far off?

Of course cats and dogs often get lost, for they may go so far that they can not find the way back again. So you might say, from that, I suppose, that cats can’t think. But then did you never get lost? Yes, I’m sure you must have, at least once. And you can think, I know, but you could not find your way home alone.

I know cats and dogs think, and that they can talk to one another, too, in their own language. So it isn’t at all strange that Blackie should think about what a good home she had, and how kind the little boy and girl were to her.

“Now, Blackie,” said Mabel one day, as she got ready for school, “be a good cat to-day, and don’t run off.”

“Put the red ribbon with the bell around her neck,” said Arthur as he gathered up his school books. “Then if Blackie goes away we can listen for the bell and find her.”

“Oh, yes! That’s what I’ll do,” said Mabel. “Here, Blackie!” called the little girl, “come and have your ribbon put on.”

There was a pretty red ribbon for Blackie’s neck, and it always looked nice on the cat,[10] because black and red seem to go well together. I think they “match” as the ladies say, though I don’t know much about such things. I know when a team of horses match, and go well together, and when two dogs, or two cats, are well matched, but I am afraid I can’t tell much about ribbons and such things matching.

Anyhow a lady told me black and red matched, or went well together, and I guess she is right. And I know that the red ribbon looked very pretty on Blackie’s neck, for I saw it there myself.

“There!” exclaimed Mabel, as she tied the ribbon into a pretty bow. “Now you won’t get lost, Blackie, and when I come home from school I’ll find you here.”

Blackie lifted one velvety paw, and shook her head. This made the little brass bell tinkle.

“You can hear that a good way off,” said Arthur. “When I come home from school I’m going to try to teach Blackie the trick of standing in the corner.”

“She can do one trick now,” said Mabel. “She can jump through my hands, when I hold them in front of her like a hoop.”

“Can she?” asked Arthur. “Let’s see her do it.”

“Children! Don’t be late for school,” called their mother from the dining room.

[11]

“No, we won’t, Mother,” answered Mabel. “I am just going to have Blackie do one trick. Come here, Blackie!”

Blackie always came when the little boy or girl called her, for the black cat knew she would be petted, or given something nice to eat each time. This time Mabel stroked Blackie’s soft fur, and then put the cat down in front of her, behind her arms which she held in a round ring.

“Jump through, Blackie!” called Mabel, and Blackie did.

“See!” said the little girl to her brother. “Didn’t Blackie do that trick nicely?”

“She surely did!” exclaimed Arthur. “And when I come home from school I’ll teach her to stand on her hind legs in a corner.”

“Come now, children, run along!” called the mother, and Arthur and Mabel, having each patted Blackie once more, hurried off to school.

“Well, I think now I will go and take a little sleep,” said Blackie to herself. “Then I will go out and see if I can find another cat to play with until the children come home.”

For Blackie loved to play, and she was sometimes lonesome when the children were not home.

Mabel had made a little cushion for Blackie, and this cushion was kept in one corner of the[12] dining room, where the sun shone a good part of the day. Blackie liked to sleep in the sun.

“Yes, I certainly am a lucky cat,” thought Blackie, “to have such a nice home, and such a good little girl and boy to pet me. I have a nice red ribbon, too, and a bell. Not many cats have things as nice as I.”

Blackie was sure of this, for a number of times she had seen, on the back fence, other cats, whose fur was all scraggly and rough; who looked poor and thin and who seemed scared almost to death. Once Blackie had spoken to one of these cats and the cat had told Blackie how hungry he was.

“Why don’t you go home and eat?” asked Blackie.

“Home? I have no home!” sadly exclaimed the strange cat. “I had one once but the people moved away, leaving me behind, and since then I have eaten as best I can. You are very lucky to have such a nice home. Excuse me, I see a piece of meat!” And with that the strange cat jumped down off the fence and grabbed a bit of meat out of the ash can.

“I’m glad I don’t have to eat that way,” thought Blackie.

As Blackie went to sleep on the soft cushion she thought of the time when she had been a little kitten, and had lived with her mother, and[13] her brothers and sisters, in a barn in the country. For Blackie’s early days were spent on a farm, though she did not now remember very much about that part of it.

Arthur and Mabel’s father and mother had taken the children on a visit to the farm, and it was there the children saw the black cat, which they liked very much. So the farmer gave her to them, and they named her Blackie and brought her home to the city with them.

Since then Blackie had lived in the fine house with her little master and mistress, and, as I say, she had a very easy time of it, never wanting for anything to eat, or for a warm, cozy place to sleep.

For several hours Blackie slept on the cushion, now and then turning around to get more in the sunlight, and when she did this the little brass bell on the red ribbon on her neck would go “tinkle-inkle.”

“Well, I think I’ll take a walk out in the yard, and perhaps I may see another cat to talk to,” said Blackie, as she awakened and stretched first one leg, and then the other, opening her mouth as wide as she could to stretch that too. Blackie was a bit lonesome without the children.

Out in the yard went the black cat. The sun was shining down through the leaves of the grape vine, making dancing shadows on the walk[14] below. Blackie pretended that these shadows were mice, and that she was chasing them. As she was doing this the black cat heard a voice calling to her.

“What are you doing?” the voice asked.

Blackie looked up, and saw another cat looking at her over the back fence. This cat was mixed gray and white in color.

“Oh, I’m just having a little game by myself,” answered Blackie. “I do this to amuse myself when the children are at school, and I am alone. Excuse me, but I think you must be a strange cat around here.”

“I am,” meowed the other. “My folks have just moved in the house next door.”

“I saw loads of furniture going in there yesterday,” said Blackie, “but I did not see you.”

“No, I was shut up in a box,” the new cat said. “They were afraid I would get lost, I guess. They kept me down cellar until a little while ago.”

“Oh, that’s too bad!” exclaimed Blackie. “I guess you are glad to be out again; aren’t you?”

“Indeed I am! But they kept me down cellar so I would not be hurt when the furniture was being set around, I guess.”

“Won’t you come over and have a game of shadow tag?” asked the black cat. “My name is Blackie,” she went on.

[15]

“And mine is Speckle,” said the other. “I suppose you are called Blackie because you are so black.”

“Yes,” answered Blackie, “and I think you must be called Speckle because you are speckled gray and white.”

“That’s it,” Speckle answered, as he jumped down off the fence.

Then the two cats had a nice time playing shadow tag under the grape arbor. After a bit, as they lay down to rest on the grass, Speckle asked: “Did you ever run away?”

“Run away!” exclaimed Blackie. “What’s that?”

“Why, don’t you know?” went on Speckle in some surprise. “To run away is to leave your home, and go off to have adventures.”

“What are adventures?” Blackie wanted to know.

“Oh, things that happen to you,” replied Speckle.

“Did you ever run away and have adventures?” Blackie wanted to know.

“Indeed I did,” Speckle said, somewhat proudly. “I have run away more than once, and many things happened to me. It was fun, only I got hungry sometimes.”

“How do you run away?” asked Blackie.

“Why, you just run,” Speckle said. “You[16] walk out of the house, just as if you were going out in the yard to play as we did now, and, when no one is looking, you walk off down the street as far as you like.”

“Oh, I thought you said run!” exclaimed Blackie. “Now you are talking about walking away.”

“It’s all the same thing,” Speckle explained. “You can’t run all the time you are running away; you have to walk part of the time or you would get very tired. You just try it some day.”

“Perhaps I shall,” Blackie said. “I’ll think about it. I have certainly learned something to-day. Arthur spoke about teaching me a new trick when he came home from school, but I have learned something all by myself, and that is how to run away. I believe I’ll try it!”

“Do,” said Speckle. “Let me know when you are going and perhaps I’ll go with you. Excuse me!” said the mixed-color cat, “but I hear them calling me. I guess my dinner is ready,” and with that the other cat jumped back over the fence.

[17]

CHAPTER II BLACKIE RUNS AWAY

“That cat is a good jumper,” thought Blackie when her new friend had gone. “He went over that fence easily. I wonder if I could do it?”

Blackie tried, but she could not jump all the way to the top of the fence as Speckle had done.

“I suppose it must be because he ran away once or twice,” thought Blackie, as she again went back to rest in the shade, after having tried two or three times to leap to the top of the fence in one jump.

“It must be that running away makes one a good jumper. Yes, I certainly must run away, or walk away, as Speckle called it. I wonder what would happen to me? I suppose Mabel and Arthur would miss me, and I would miss them. But I need not run very far away, and, and I can run back when I want to.”

Blackie did not know much about things outside of her own nice home, you see. Running away never made a cat a good jumper that I ever heard of, though some cats, who have no[18] homes, learn to jump fences easily because, I suppose, they are chased by dogs or boys so often that they just have to know how to make big jumps.

“Yes, I certainly must try what running away will teach me,” thought Blackie as she went in the house where, near the stove in the kitchen, set her saucer of milk. “Then I will have things to tell Speckle when I come back. I must ask him more about it the next time I see him.”

That afternoon, just before Arthur and Mabel came home from school, Blackie saw Speckle out on the fence again.

“Wait a minute, Speckle!” called the black cat. “I want to ask you about running away,” and she hurried out in the yard.

“Oh, I’m not going to run away for some time,” said the other cat. “I’ve just moved here and I want to see what sort of a place it is before I run away. Perhaps I shan’t run away at all. Anyhow I shall not for a long time. I never run away until I get tired of a place, and then I don’t often stay away more than a day or so.”

“Oh, I wasn’t going to ask you to run away,” said Blackie. “But I want to know if running away makes a cat a good fence-jumper?”

Speckle thought for a few seconds and then said, slowly:

“Well, yes, I suppose it does. I know the first[19] time I ran away I could not jump very well. And then a dog chased me. I ran into a yard, and in front of me was a fence. The only chance to get out of the dog’s way was by jumping the fence. I had never jumped so high a fence before, but I did that time, and the dog could not get me, so I got away.”

“My gracious!” exclaimed Blackie. “Something happened to you that time! Was that an adventure?”

“Yes,” answered Speckle, thinking a moment, “I suppose you could call that an adventure. But I had many more after that.”

“Do dogs always chase you when you run away?” Blackie wanted to know.

“Oh, no, not always,” answered the gray cat. “But that is one of the things that may happen when you run away.”

“I shan’t like that part of it,” spoke Blackie. “There is a dog in the house on the other side of ours, and the family that lived in the house into which your folks just moved also kept one. He used to chase me until I scratched his nose with my sharp claws one day, and after that he let me alone. I was sorry to scratch him, but it was the only thing to do.”

“Yes, of course,” agreed Speckle. “It is a good thing we have sharp claws. They are especially for scratching dogs that chase us.”

[20]

“I wonder if there is any other way of scaring a dog besides scratching him?” asked Blackie.

“Perhaps there may be,” said Speckle.

“It would be nice if there was. I may learn how to do that if I run away to look for adventures.”

“Oh, so you are going to run away; are you, Blackie?”

“Well, I’m thinking of it. Will you come?”

“Not right away—at least I think I will not,” said the other cat. “Still you might call over the fence to me when you go, and perhaps I’ll come along. Hello, who are they?” asked Speckle quickly as he saw a boy and girl coming in the yard.

“Oh, that’s Arthur and Mabel, my little master and mistress,” explained Blackie, but Speckle did not stop to listen. With a jump he was on top of the fence.

“Excuse me!” called the gray cat to Blackie, “but that boy looks just like one who once tied a tin can to my tail!”

“The idea!” meowed Blackie. “Arthur is a good boy, and loves cats. He’d never do anything like that to me, nor to you or any other animal.”

“You never can tell,” said Speckle. “Safety first, as I hear they are teaching the children in school. I’ll just stay on my side of the fence[21] until I see what kind of a boy he is,” and though Blackie kept saying that Arthur was a good boy, and would not plague cats, Speckle would not stay.

Of course Mabel and her brother did not understand what their cat said to the other one, for they did not know animal language, though Blackie and other cats know what boys and girls say to them, or a great deal of it, I think.

“Did you see that strange cat?” asked Mabel of her brother.

“Yes, I guess it belongs to the folks next door,” spoke Arthur. “Now I am going to teach Blackie to stand on her hind legs.”

Arthur picked Blackie up, and rubbed her under the ears. Cats like to be rubbed under the ears, and they will purr if you do it to them. And when a cat purrs it shows it is happy.

Just why cats like to be rubbed, or tickled, under the ears I do not know, any more than I know why a pig likes to be scratched on his back. I only know that this is so. A hoptoad likes to be scratched on his back, also. Many a time I have gone quietly up to a toad in the grass, and, with a little twig, have scratched his back. And Mr. Toad will sit there quietly, and will puff himself out like a little balloon, because he is so pleased to have his back scratched. But you[22] must do it very gently. And poll parrots like to have their heads rubbed. But don’t ask me why, for I don’t know.

Anyhow Arthur rubbed Blackie under her ears, and the black cat liked it and purred in the boy’s arms.

“And now for your trick, Blackie,” said Arthur.

It is not easy to teach a cat to stand on her hind legs, as Arthur very soon found out. Cats do not learn tricks as easily as dogs do, though I have seen performing cats on the stage of a theater. They climbed ladders, walked a tight rope, and did many other little tricks.

Blackie did not know exactly what Arthur wanted her to do. The little boy put the black cat in a corner, so she could lean her back against the sides of the room, and not fall over. Then he lifted her front feet off the floor so that she was resting on her hind ones.

“Now stand up that way!” Arthur said, speaking kindly.

Blackie did it, for a few seconds, and then she got down on all four feet as she was in the habit of standing.

“No! Not that!” said Arthur, lifting her up again. “Stand on your hind legs, Blackie.”

But Blackie did not do it very well.

[23]

[24]

“Let me try,” said Mabel, who was watching her brother. “She will jump through my hands, and perhaps she will stand up for me.”

“I’ll try once more,” said Arthur, “and then you may have a turn, Mabel.”

But neither Arthur nor his sister could make Blackie stand up on her hind legs. Blackie just did not want to do it, or perhaps she could not.

“Maybe when I come back, after having run away, I’ll do it for them,” thought the black cat, as she rubbed up against Mabel’s legs.

“Now jump through my hands, Blackie!” called Mabel, and she made a loop of her arms in front of Blackie. This trick the black cat knew very well.

“If she would only do the standing on her hind legs trick as well as she does yours she would be a fine cat,” Arthur said.

“Blackie is a nice cat anyhow, and I love her,” spoke Mabel, cuddling the cat in her arms.

That night, when the children were studying their lessons, Blackie lay on a soft cushion at their feet, purring happily. And, all the while, the black cat was thinking about running away.