Sparrow, the Tramp.

A Fable for Children. By LILY F. WESSELHOEFT.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY JESSIE McDERMOTT.

BOSTON: LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. 1902.

Copyright, 1888, By Roberts Brothers. University Press: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge.

PUBLISHERS’ NOTE.

The lamented author of “Little Women” in her last days read with great delight the manuscript of this little story; and its publication is owing greatly to the interest which she had in it.

Mrs. Polly.

[Pg 7]

SPARROW, THE TRAMP.

——◆——

CHAPTER I.

“Let that sugar-bowl alone, Posy,” said Tom, as Posy extracted a lump while they were waiting for Papa and Mamma to come down to breakfast.

“I’m not taking it for myself,” answered Posy, as plainly as the large lump in her mouth permitted her to speak; “I’m only just getting a lump for Dicky.”

“That’s a story,” said Tom.

“I was only just tasting it to see if it was a real sweet lump,” said Posy very distinctly now, for the lump had disappeared. “I didn’t mean to eat it, but it went all to pieces in my mouth.”

[Pg 8]

“You might have known it would,” said Tom.

“I guess I’d better pick out a real hard lump next time,” said Posy; and she made up her mind not to put that one in her mouth, so she only lapped it a little as she walked towards the canary’s cage.

Just then a noise was heard from the china-closet, and Tom at once went to see what it was.

“Why, there’s a mouse-hole right in the corner of that upper shelf,” he said; “I thought it sounded like a mouse gnawing.”

“Rats! rats!” called the parrot, whose cage hung in the window by the side of the canary’s.

“You’re mistaken, ma’am,” said Tom; “the barn-cat doesn’t give the rats a chance to come into the house,—they live in the barn.”

“Rats!” again cried the parrot.

[Pg 9]

Posy went up to the parrot’s cage and looked in.

“How do you do? How’s your mother?” asked the parrot, with her head on one side.

“Pretty well, I thank you, Mrs. Polly,” answered Posy; and she couldn’t resist the temptation of trying to seize the red feathers in Mrs. Polly’s tail and give them a little tweak. Mrs. Polly always resented such liberties, and made sudden dives at the chubby fingers; but Posy had learned to be careful, and drew them out in time.

“You wouldn’t really bite Posy, would you?” asked the canary.

“No,” said Mrs. Polly, “I wouldn’t; but I guess you wouldn’t like to have your tail pulled every time she gets a chance. It doesn’t hurt, you know, but it’s very disagreeable. She steals the peanuts out of my cage, too, and eats them. She’s a very mischievous child.”

[Pg 10]

“But she’s kind and good,” answered the canary.

Although this conversation took place between the birds, to the children it seemed as if the canary sang his usual song and Polly chattered in her accustomed way.

Just then Mr. and Mrs. Winton appeared, and the family took their places at the breakfast-table.

Soon a slight rattling was heard among the dishes in the china-closet, and Mr. Winton cautiously approached the closet door and suddenly opened it. A large rat whisked into the hole Tom had discovered.

“We never had a rat in the house before,” said Mr. Winton, as he returned to his seat; “I am afraid the house-cat doesn’t do her duty. I never thought her so good a ratter as the barn-cat.”

“Michael must stop up the hole at once with broken glass and mortar,” said Mrs. Winton; “I can’t have rats in the house.”

[Pg 11]

“Posy, run into the kitchen and see if Hannah has any more muffins,” said Papa; for Katie, who had been both waitress and nurse to Posy, had been gone a few days, and her place had not been supplied.

“How long that child stays!” said Papa, when some minutes had elapsed and she did not return.

“Hannah is rather slow,” answered Mamma, “and perhaps the muffins were not quite ready.”

A few minutes more passed, but no Posy appeared.

“What can that thumping be?” said Mamma. “I can’t imagine what Hannah can be doing. I have heard it for some time. Do run and see what it means, Tom.”

“I shouldn’t wonder if Posy were up to some mischief,” said Tom, as he disappeared.

“What in the world can that boy be [Pg 12]doing?” exclaimed Papa, after they had waited some time and neither of the children appeared.

“I will see what the trouble is,” said Mamma; but before she rose from her seat Tom reappeared, laughing, and leading Posy, who appeared somewhat confused as she resumed her seat in silence.

“What do you suppose Posy has been doing?” said Tom. “She found Hannah down cellar getting coal, and she locked her down; and then she took the house-kittens and dipped their heads in the pitcher of milk on the table and made ’em drink, and then she brought in the barn-kittens and made them drink too. Hannah said Posy made believe she didn’t hear when Hannah pounded on the door and told Posy to let her out. She said she heard Posy running backward and forward, hurrying to get through before anybody came.”

[Pg 13]

“Well,” said Posy, “kittens have to be teached to drink milk, you know.”

Papa laughed, as he was very apt to do when he heard of Posy’s mischief; but when Mamma shook her head at him he stopped and tried to look very serious.

“It was very naughty of you to lock Hannah down cellar, Posy,” he said; “you see I can’t have any more muffins, for it’s time for me to go for the train.”

Posy looked very sad to think she had been the cause of so much trouble, and Papa could never bear to see his little girl unhappy; so he caught her in his arms and kissed her, saying,—

“But I can’t help loving you, if you are naughty.”

“Hannah,” said Posy, as Hannah entered to take away the breakfast, “my papa says it was very naughty in me to lock you down cellar, but that he loves me still.”

[Pg 14]

“Michael,” said Mr. Winton, as the horse was brought around to the door to take him to the depot, “the rats gnawed a hole through the wall in the china-closet last night, and I want you to stop it up with mortar and broken glass.”

“All right, sir,” answered Michael. “If the barn-cat could be in two places to onst, it’s no rats ye’d have in the house. She’s a rale knowing baste, is the barn-cat. If you could only see the sinsible way she has wid them kittens of hers. She kapes thim out of doors in foine weather; and when the jew begins to fall, if it’s shut the door is, she kapes thim walking about, for fear it’s a cold they’ll get.”

“Let’s go and see them,” said Tom; and off ran the children as Mr. Winton stepped into the carriage and drove off.

Then, when all was still in the dining-room, a slight noise might have been heard in the china-closet, and a long nose and a [Pg 15]pair of very sharp black eyes appeared in the now rat-hole.

Looking cautiously around, and stopping every minute to listen, the rat ventured out. He was quite gray about the mouth from age, and had a particularly vicious look in his shrewd old eyes. Finding all still, he ventured out a little farther, and still farther, and at last slid down from the shelf and entered the dining-room.

Mrs. Polly’s quick ears had heard him, and she watched him as he noiselessly moved about, picking up the crumbs that had fallen from the table.

“Hallo!” called out Mrs. Polly.

“Speak a little louder while you’re about it,” snarled the old rat, who had started at the sound of her voice and listened anxiously to hear if there were danger of detection; and as he spoke he gave a very vicious grin that displayed his long yellow teeth, with one of the front ones broken.

[Pg 16]

“I haven’t time to sit for my portrait this morning,” resumed the old rat, as Mrs. Polly continued to gaze steadfastly at him. “You’ll know me the next time you see me, I hope!”

“I know you already,” said Mrs. Polly; “you’re Graywhisker.”

“Whew!” exclaimed the old rat, with another grin that showed the broken front tooth; “there’s nothing like being famous.”

“I’ve heard of you from my friend the barn-cat,” said Mrs. Polly. “She has known you a long time, she says, but you don’t care to become very intimate with her;” and Mrs. Polly gave a short laugh that was very irritating to Graywhisker’s nerves.

“The old fiend!” he exclaimed angrily; “of all the meddlesome old—”

“Don’t get excited,” said Mrs. Polly calmly.

“You’d better mind your own business,” [Pg 17]answered the old rat, “or you’ll find yourself in trouble. The barn-cat and you are two very different individuals, and I shan’t stand on ceremony with you, I can assure you.”

“Do stand on ceremony with me,” said Mrs. Polly, with another laugh.

Graywhisker brought his teeth savagely together; but Mrs. Polly kept her cold gray eye on him in such a very unconcerned manner that he evidently thought better of his intention and resumed his search for food.

“Mean people these,” he muttered; “not a scrap left. Come, don’t be stingy, Mrs. Polly; give me one of your peanuts there. I don’t know when I’ve tasted a peanut,—not since the day Posy left a few and went into the house for a glass of water. She didn’t find many left when she came back, though.”

“Come and get one if you want it,” said [Pg 18]Mrs. Polly, eying five freshly roasted peanuts that lay on the bottom of her cage.

Graywhisker watched her shrewdly for an instant, but couldn’t determine from her expressionless countenance whether she really meant what she said.

“It’s easy enough to pick one out,” he said to himself as he began to climb the drapery that hung by the parrot’s cage.

Mrs. Polly watched him as he nimbly pulled himself up, and sat with her head inclined slightly forward, following every motion of his. When opposite the cage, he seized it with one of his forepaws, and with the other tried to fish out a particularly fat peanut; but before he could draw it out Mrs. Polly’s sharp beak pounced down on the paw, and he gave a squeal of pain.

“Did it taste as well as those you stole from Posy?” asked Mrs. Polly.

“You old vixen!” began Graywhisker, “you—”

[Pg 19]

“Don’t swear,” said Mrs. Polly coolly.

The canary had been a silent spectator all this time, and hardly dared to breathe; but when Mrs. Polly pounced on the old rat’s paw she gave a nervous flutter.

“Oh! I hadn’t noticed you before, my friend,” exclaimed Graywhisker, with his horrible grin; “you’re a very tender morsel, and I’m not a bit afraid of your soft little beak;” and the old villain began to descend the curtain on Mrs. Polly’s side and ascend the one that hung by the canary’s cage.

Poor Dicky was completely paralyzed with terror. Up came the gray nose and wicked-looking eyes nearer and nearer, and yet poor Dicky sat without stirring, his terrified eyes fastened on the horrible monster that could crush him with one grasp of his paw. At last he was opposite the cage, and was about to reach out his paw to seize it, when the spell that kept Dicky [Pg 20]silent seemed broken, and he fluttered about, uttering cries of terror. The strong paw still held the cage, and the other paw reached in between the wires; but as the frightened bird, in his agitation, fluttered within reach of the relentless paw, Mrs. Polly gave a shrill whistle, and then another louder still.

A rustling was heard in the bushes outside the window, and at the sound Graywhisker descended the curtain and scurried into the closet, disappearing into his hole as the house-cat, with gleaming eyes, jumped on the window-sill and glared around.

“Which way did he go?” she demanded.

The gray nose was pushed cautiously out of the hole, and a voice said,—

“Mrs. House-cat, did you ever get left?”

[Pg 21]

CHAPTER II.

When Posy caught up the kittens to carry them back to their nest in the barn, it was no wonder that the barn-cat followed her with a distressed and anxious countenance. Posy had been in such a hurry that she had taken one of the barn-kittens and one of the house-kittens!

The barn-cat tried very hard to make the little girl understand her mistake, and ran about her with her tail in the air and crying dismally; but Posy didn’t understand, and ran back to the house after putting the kittens in their nest. How the barn-cat did wish she could speak! She looked at the kitten that belonged to the house-cat. It was very pretty,—maltese, with a little [Pg 22]white on the breast and about the nose, very like its mother.

“It’s rather a good-looking kitten, there’s no doubt about that,” said the barn-cat, “but to my mind not half so pretty and cunning as my little tiger-kitten that Posy left in the kitchen. That house-cat doesn’t know how to bring up a family; she’ll spoil this one just as she has all of her others. It’ll grow up as vain and indolent as she is herself. I’m sure I don’t want it here. Come,” she said, poking the kitten with her paw, “you just run home again, will you?”

The house-kitten didn’t seem to understand what the barn-cat said, for she evidently thought the cat wanted to play with her, and she tried to catch the big paw in both of her little ones.

“Well, you are cunning,” said the barn-cat. “It’s too bad to have you grow up a spoilt child. You’ll never be as smart as [Pg 23]my kittens, of course, but I’ve a great mind to keep you and see what you’ll make if you are properly brought up.”

She didn’t like to show the kitten that she was watching her, for it might make her vain; so she pretended to be looking very intently at something out in the yard and gently moved the tip of her tail, but she looked out of the corners of her eyes and saw the little house-kitten at once try to catch it.

“Pretty well,” she said to herself, “considering you’ve never had any instruction. When you’re a little older I’ll teach you how to crouch and spring, the way I do my own kittens.”

Now that the barn-cat had decided to keep the house-kitten, she set about washing it; for Posy had dipped its head so far into the milk-pitcher that it presented a very untidy appearance.

She washed it in a most thorough manner;[Pg 24] but the barn-cat was not so gentle in her ways as the house-cat, and the little house-kitten thought her pretty rough.

“You mustn’t be a baby and cry for nothing,” said the barn-cat, when the kitten gave a mew as the rough tongue lifted her off her feet; “I see you’ve been coddled too much already.”

Just then a plaintive cry was heard from the kitchen, and with one leap the barn-cat was out of her nest and running up to the kitchen door. She didn’t dare go in; for there was Hannah, and she knew by experience that she would be driven out if she attempted to enter. What was to be done?

The barn-cat jumped on the window-sill and looked in. There was her darling in the box by the stove and crying helplessly for her. The mother cat gave a low mew, which the baby kitten heard and understood just as a human baby understands when its mother speaks soothingly to it.

[Pg 25]

“Oh dear!” exclaimed the barn-cat, “if I could only get into that kitchen! I know what I’ll do. I’ll tell Mrs. Polly about it, and see what she advises; she’s very wise.”

So the barn-cat jumped down from the kitchen window and on the sill of the dining-room window, which stood open. Posy was in the room, and so was Mrs. Winton; but they couldn’t understand the language animals converse in.

“Why, there is the barn-cat,” cried Posy, “right on the window-seat!”

“Don’t frighten her away, but watch her quietly,” said Mamma; “I like to have her come about the house;” and Posy was very careful not to make any noise.

“I do believe that barn-cat is telling Polly something, Mamma,” said Posy in a low tone; “her keeps mewing, and Polly looks just as if her was listening.”

“Polly is certainly very talkative this [Pg 26]morning,” answered Mamma; “it really does seem as if they were talking together.”

“I wish I knew what they were saying,” said Posy.

This is what they said:—

“I’m in trouble, Mrs. Polly,” began the barn-cat, “and I want you to help me out of it.”

“Well,” answered Polly, with her very wisest expression, “what’s the matter?”

Then the barn-cat told about Posy’s mistake, and how anxious it made her to have her kitten away from her.

“It’s just like Posy,” answered Polly; “she’s a very mischievous child. She always tweaks my tail whenever she gets a chance.”

“But she’s a dear, loving child,” said the barn-cat warmly. “How she did cry when they gave away my last kittens!”

“Yes, she’s a good little thing,” said Polly. “If ’twas anybody else that pulled [Pg 27]my tail, I’d give ’em such a nip that they wouldn’t try it again in a hurry; but nobody could hurt Posy. She does fish some of my peanuts out of my cage and eat ’em up sometimes, but then she doesn’t mean any harm.”

“What I want to know is whether you can think of any way for me to get my kitten back,” said the barn-cat. “I tried to make Posy understand what a dreadful mistake she’d made, but she was in such a hurry she didn’t see it.”

Mrs. Polly put her head on one side in a very knowing and contemplative manner. After a few moments’ reflection she said, “The thing to do is to get Hannah out of the kitchen for a while.”

“That’s very evident,” said the canary, who had been listening attentively and didn’t like to be left out of the conversation.

“If it’s so very evident,” said Mrs. [Pg 29]Polly, bristling up, “why don’t you do it?”

“I didn’t say I could do it; but if I could talk as you can, I would,” answered the canary good-naturedly.

“How would you do it, pray?” asked Mrs. Polly in an irritable tone.

“Why, I’d call Hannah the way Mrs. Winton does. I heard you call her the other day, and I declare I wouldn’t have believed it wasn’t she. I never knew a bird that could talk as plainly as you do.”

The canary was so good-natured that Mrs. Polly was rather ashamed of her ill-temper, and gave a sneeze and cough to hide her embarrassment.

“Well,” she said, after a pause, “perhaps that’s as good a way as any other. I did think of yelling to make her think I’d got my head caught between the wires, but Posy doesn’t like to hear such a noise. You go ’round to the kitchen door,” she [Pg 29]said to the barn-cat; “and when Hannah leaves the kitchen you just dart in, seize your kitten, and run off with it.”

The barn-cat hardly waited to hear the last words, and ran around to the kitchen door. She had hardly arrived there when she heard Polly call “Hannah!” so exactly like Mrs. Winton that Hannah dropped the broom with which she was sweeping the floor, and answering, “Yes, ma’am,” hurried into the dining-room.

In darted the barn-cat, caught up her darling in her mouth, and had it back in her own nest in the barn before Hannah had discovered how Polly had “fooled” her, as she called it.

But when the house-cat came home from her visit, imagine what was her surprise and grief to find one of her babies gone!

“That barn-cat!” she exclaimed, “I believe she has stolen it because it’s so much prettier than her common-looking babies. [Pg 30]She was always as jealous as she could be of them!” and out to the barn went the house-cat.

“I never visited her before,” she said to herself, “she’s so countrified in her ways and lives in a barn; but I must see if she’s got my baby.”

The barn-cat knew what she was coming for as soon as she caught sight of her.