Grace Greenwood

“ My youngest brother clung about him longest, crying and sobbing as though his heart would break. It seemed that we should never get the child away. My brother Rufus said that no one should shoot his dog but himself, and while we children were bidding farewell, he stood at a little distance loading his rifle. But finally he also came up to take leave. He laid his hand tenderly on Hector’s head, but did not speak to him or look into his eyes,—those sad eyes, which seemed to be asking what all this crying meant. ”

“ Ellen knew that she was dying; she knew that, young and fair and beloved as she was, she had not long to stay in this bright, beautiful world. But she did not fear, or complain, for she knew also that a kind Father called her away, to a world far brighter and many times more beautiful than ours. It was touching to see her trying to comfort her sister Lucy, whose strength would sometimes give way as she saw that slight form growing weaker every day; or her young brother Willie, when he would leave his book, or his play, and come and lay his face against her bosom and cry ”

“ But when he left me, and I went back to the wigwam and sat down on the hemlock-boughs by myself, somehow I couldn’t keep home out of my mind. I thought first of my mother, how she would miss the little brown face at the supper-table, and on the pillow, by the fair face of my blue-eyed sister. I thought of my young brother, Albert, crying himself to sleep, because I was lost. I thought of my father and brothers searching through the orchard and barn, and going with lights to look in the mill-stream. ”

“ A terrible gossip and busybody was she, talking perpetually and doing all the mischief that lay in her power. She was the terror and torment of all cats and kittens; for, wary and watchful as they might be, Polly was always surprising them by attacks in the rear, and cunning ambuscades and flank movements. Nothing more still and soft-footed could be imagined than her approaches; nothing more sly, sudden, and sharp than the nips she gave with her horrid hooked bill. A cat’s extended tail [145] was especially tempting to her. She generally fought the battle out on that line. ”

“ For some weeks past we have had with us on the sea-shore a beautiful little Virginian girl,—one of the loveliest creatures alive,—who has a remarkable fondness for a pretty black and white kitten, belonging to the house. All day long she will have her pet in her arms, talking to her when she thinks nobody is near,—telling her every thing,—charging her to keep some story to herself, as it is a very great secret,—sometimes reproving her for faults, or praising her for being good. ”

“ Sometimes she would dig a little way into the mound, and bark, or whine, and then listen for the voice of Charlie to answer. But that voice never came, though the faithful Cora listened and waited and pined for it, through many days. She ate scarcely any thing; she would not play with us now, nor could we persuade her to go into the pond. Alas! that fair, sweet child, pale and dripping from the water, was the last lily she ever brought ashore. She grew so thin, and weak, and sick, at last, that she could hardly drag herself to the grave. But still she went there every day. ”

“ My brother said that the dog then began to whine, and run back and forth in a most extraordinary manner, until he set out to follow him to the scene of the accident. Hector dashed on through the thick bushes, as though he were half distracted, every few moments turning back with wild cries to hurry on his master. When my brother came up to where his friend was fixed in the mire, he could see nothing of him at first. Then he heard a faint voice calling him, and, looking down near the water, he saw a pale face looking up at him from the midst of the black bog. ”

“ At about the time when, if he had had a mother, she would have been looking for him, Jack, the drake, presented his bill to the world that owed him a living. He came out as plump and hearty a little fowl as could reasonably have been expected. But what to do with him was the question. After a while, I concluded to take him to a hen who had just hatched a brood of chickens, thinking that, as he was a friendless [60] orphan, she might adopt him for charity’s sake. ”

“ When Toby had finished his meal, he would wipe his beak with his wing, mount on my shoulder, and ride home again; sometimes, when it was a very warm day and he had dined more heartily than usual, he would fall asleep during the ride, still holding on to his place with his long, sharp claws. Sometimes I would come home with my pinafore torn and bloody on the shoulder, and then my mother would scold me a little and laugh at me a great deal. I would blush and hang my head and cry, but still cling to my strange pet ”

“ The illustrious General Tom Thumb once travelled with my brother and this dog, and, falling very much in love with his namesake, offered any price for him. Of course, my brother would not think for a moment of selling his faithful friend, and even had he felt differently, I doubt very much whether Tom, who had been used to looking up to full-grown men, would have shown much obedience or respect, for such a funny little fellow as the General. ”

“ Thus he is content to sleep ingloriously, when he ought to be roosting on some lofty perch, ready to greet the first streak of dawn with a brave crow, prophetic of the day.
A few weeks ago another hen, a young pullet, dressed gayly every day in gold and brown, with a gorgeous top-knot, came, one morning, triumphantly out from under the porch, with a large flock of charming little chicklings, who toddled along after her, and glanced up at the [159] sky, and round on the earth,—that vast sandy plain of the back-yard,—in a most knowing and patronizing manner. ”

“ A gentleman farmer owned a Bantam of this sort, that was always full and bubbling over with fight. He would go at any gentleman-fowl in the yard, with beak and spur. He would defy the fiercest old gander, and challenge the biggest “cock of the walk” to mortal combat. At last he grew so uncomfortably quarrelsome, and presented such a disreputable appearance,—having had the best part of his tail-feathers torn out, and his spurs broken off,—that his master was obliged to put him out to board with a nice old lady who had no fighting fowls for him to contend with. ”

“ Poor Katrina will have a time with him, I fear, as he is sadly petted and indulged. Such a lazy rascal as he is too,—don’t earn the salt of his porridge, that is, if he took it salted,—and, though quite old enough to “go on the war path,” has never yet killed his mouse, or brought home a rat’s scalp, or a ground-squirrel’s brush, or as much as a feather from a tomtit’s wing. Ah! of all the darlings in the world, an aunty’s darling is the likeliest to be spoiled.
This is all I know about this curious [134] cat-family. ”

“ My brother Rufus, who was a great sportsman, brought him home to me one night in spring. He had shot the mother-hawk, and found this young half-fledged one in the nest. I received the poor orphan with joy, for he was too small for me to feel any horror of him, though his family had long borne rather a bad name. I resolved that I would bring him up in the way he should go, so that when he was old he should not destroy chickens. At first, I kept him in a bird-cage, but after a while he grew too large for his quarters, and had to have a house built for him expressly. ”

“ But I knew that hawks must live, and say what they might, my Toby never prowled about hen-coops to devour young chickens. I taught him [26] better morals than that, and kept him so well fed that he was never tempted to such wickedness. I have since thought that, if we want people to do right, we must treat them as I treated my hawk; for when we think a man steals because his heart is full of sin, it may be only because his stomach is empty of food. ”

“ Tom is a dog of extraordinary beauty, sagacity, and good feeling. He is very large, and, with the exception of his feet and breast, jet black, with a thick coat of fine hair, which lies in short curls, glossy and silken. He has a well-formed head, and a handsome, dark eye, full of kindness and intelligence. ”

“ My brother William, however, who was very obliging, and quite a mechanic, made a nice little house, or “cat-cote,” as he called it, in the back-yard, and put in it some clean straw for her to lie on. I then gave her a plentiful supper of new milk, and put her to bed with my own hands. It was long before I could sleep myself that night, for thinking of my pet. I remember I dreamed that little angels came to watch over me, as I had been told they would watch over good children, but that, when they came near to my bedside, they all turned into white kittens and purred over my sleep. ”

“ Just at this interesting period of pussy’s life our family moved from the old place to a house in the country, about a mile away. My mother was ill, and was carried very carefully on a bed from one sick-room to another. In the hurry, trouble, and confusion of that time, poor pussy, who lodged with her family in an attic, was quite forgotten. But early in the morning of the first day in the new house,—a pleasant summer morning, when all the doors and windows were open,—as my mother lay on her bed, in a parlor on the first floor, she saw her cat walk into the hall and look eagerly around. ”

“ My youngest brother, Albert, drew her on his little wagon to the grave, which was dug under a large elm-tree, in a corner of the yard. The next day I planted over her a shrub called the “pussy-willow.”
After that I had many pet kittens, but none that ever quite filled the place of poor Keturah. Yet I still have a great partiality for the feline race. I like nothing [15] better than to sit, on a summer afternoon or in a winter evening, and watch the graceful gambols and mischievous frolics of a playful kitten. ”

“ A dear young friend of ours has a lovely pair of turtle-doves, that are constantly making love to each other, these soft spring days, in that delicious, drowsy honey-moon coo, “most musical, most melancholy.”
Awhile ago the disastrous experiment was tried, of putting these doves into the cage with a parrot. Miss Polly did not fancy her dainty visitors in the least. ”

“ In the morning it was found that the own mother of “Bob,” (for we gave him that name,) had died of cold in the night; so we adopted the poor orphan into our family. We children took care of him, and though it was a great trouble to bring him up by hand, we soon became attached to our charge, and grew very proud of his handsome growth and thriving condition. He was, in truth, a most amusing pet, he had such free manners with every body and was so entirely at home everywhere. ”

“ Life seems to have grown dull and wearisome to her, and the pleasures of mouse-hunting and tree-climbing appear to have lost their zest. If she remembers at all the halcyon period when much of her precious time was spent in a dizzy round of gayety, in a swift pursuit of a ball of cotton, or a futile pursuit of her own tail, it is in sad wonder that she could ever have been so merry and thoughtless. She grows thin, neglects her toilet, and often refuses food ”

“ Then he bit and chewed the left, the only left hind leg, till one might say that he was next to a locomotive and a whole train of cars at the mangling business. At this desperate stage of the combat a woman came out of a farm-house near by, drove the bull-dog away with a poker, and took up poor Fido. As he had become insensible, she thought him dead, and flung him down in a fence corner, out of the way of travel, and there left him, meaning, let us hope, to have him decently buried in the morning. But Fido was not yet ready to give up this life. ”

“ He is, I am sorry to say, rather indolent in his habits, always prefers to take a carriage to the hunting-ground, when he goes sporting with his master, and he sleeps rather too soundly at night to be a good watch-dog. We make him useful in various ways, however, such as carrying baskets and bundles, and sometimes we send him to the post-office with and for letters and papers. These he always takes the most faithful care of, never allowing any one to look at them on the way. He is a remarkably gentlemanly dog in his manner, never making free with people, or seeming too fond at first sight ”

“ The dear children for whom those simple stories of my childhood were told are men and women now, and wonderful changes have taken place in all our lives and in all the world. But in growing old I have not lost any thing of my old love of pets ”

“ Tom seems much attached to all our family, but most devotedly so to my brother Albert. They two have hunted very much together, and seem equally fond of the sport. If Tom sees his master with his hunting-dress on, and his fowling-piece in [103] hand, he is half beside himself with joy. But when he returns from the hunt, spent and weary, he always comes to me to be fed and petted. ”

“ I have never seen a clerical parrot; but I have seen clergymen who suggested parrots. By the way, the parrot would make a very economical sort of minister. After the first cost of the bird, his education, and a respectable cage or parsonage, there would be no demands on the congregation for increase of salary. As he would have no scruples [149] about repeating old sermons, he would not desire new fields of labor. Parrots seldom have any family, so he would expect no donation-parties. They never have dyspepsia, so he would require no trips to Europe. ”