Helen Hunt Jackson

“ I think a palace is just like a prison!"
"Well done, my little Republican!" cried Uncle George.
"What is that?" said Rea.
"I know," said Jusy. "It is a person that does not wish to have any king. There were Republicans in Italy; very bad men. Papa said they ought [Pg 59] to be killed. Why do you call Rea by that name, Uncle George?" and Jusy straightened himself up like a soldier, and looked fierce.
Mr. Connor could hardly keep his face straight as he replied to Jusy: "My dear boy the word does not mean anything bad in America; we are all Republicans here. You know we do not have any king. ”

“ They found old Ysidro sitting on the ground, leaning against the wall of his house. He had his face covered up with both hands, his elbows leaning on his knees.
"Oh, look at him! He is crying, Uncle George," said Rea.
"No, dear," replied Mr. Connor. "He is not crying. Indian men very rarely cry. He is feeling all the worse that he will not let himself cry, but shuts the tears all back."
"Yes, that is lots worse," said Rea. ”

“ Mr. Connor and Jusy and Rea were at the house waiting, when they came. The cook had made a good supper of meat and potato, and Rea had put it on [Pg 151] the table, all ready for them.
When they lifted Carmena out of the wagon, she held, tight clutched in her hand, a small basket filled with earth; she seemed hardly willing to let go of it for a moment.
"What is that?" said Jusy.
"A few handfuls of the earth that was ours," replied Ysidro. "We have brought it with us, to keep it always. The man who has our home will not miss it." ”

“ Connor moved into his new house, he had a present of a big cat from the Mexican woman who sold him milk.
She said to Jim one day, "Have you got a cat in your house yet?"
"No," said Jim. "Mr. George does not like cats."
"No matter," said she, "you have got to have one. The gophers and squirrels in this country are a great deal worse than rats and mice. They'll come [Pg 86] right into your kitchen and cellar, if your back is turned a minute, and eat you out of house and home. I'll give you a splendid cat. She's a good hunter. I've got more cats than I know what to do with." ”

“ She fixed her lovely blue eyes on Jusy's face with a look which made him ashamed. "Jusy," she said, "I can't help it if you are older than I am; I must say, I think you are cruel. You like to kill linnets; and now you won't be sorry for these poor old Indians, just because they are dirty and horrid-looking. You'd look just as bad yourself, if your skin was black, and you were a hundred years old, and hadn't got a penny in the world. You are real hard-hearted, Jusy, I do think you [Pg 119] are!" and the tears came into Rea's eyes.
"What is all this?" said Uncle George, coming up the steps. ”

“ In less than a second, they changed from fierce, fighting, clawing, scratching, snatching, miaowing, spitting, growling cats, into quiet, peaceful cats, some sitting down licking their paws, or washing their faces, and some lying out full-length on the ground and rolling; some walking off in a leisurely and dignified manner, as if they had had all they wanted, and wouldn't thank anybody for another bit of meat, if they could have it as well as not. ”

“ When Rea saw Ah Foo, she hung back, and was afraid to go nearer.
"Oh, come on! come on!" shouted Jusy. "Don't be afraid! He is just like Jim, only a different color. They have men of all kinds of colors here in America. They are just like other people, all but the color. Come on, Rea. Don't be silly. You can't half see from there!" [Pg 73]
But Rea was afraid. She would not come farther than the last pillar of the veranda. "I can see very well here," she said; and there she stood clinging to the pillar. She was half afraid of the cats, too, besides being very much afraid of the Chinaman. ”

“ Connor to himself. "There's an idea! If one cat will kill one gopher in a day, twenty cats would kill twenty gophers in a day! I'll get twenty cats, and keep them just to hunt gophers. They'll clear the place out quicker than poison, or traps, or drowning."
"Jim," he called, as soon as he entered the house,—"Jim, I've got an idea. I saw Mexican just now carrying a dead gopher to her kittens. Does she kill many?" ”

“ Once on a time, there lived in California a gentleman whose name was Connor,—Mr. George Connor. He was an orphan, and had no brothers and only one sister. This sister was married to an Italian gentleman, one of the chamberlains to the King of Italy. She might almost as well have been dead, so far as her brother George's seeing her was concerned; for he, poor gentleman, was much too ill to cross the ocean to visit her; [Pg 10] and her husband could not be spared from his duties as chamberlain to the King, to come with her to America, and she would not leave him and come alone. ”

“ It isn't any worse for cats and dogs to eat them, than it is for us; is it, Uncle George?"
"I think Jusy has the best of the argument this time, pet," said Uncle George, looking fondly at Jusy.
"Girls are always that way," said Harry politely. "My sisters are just so. They can't bear to see anything killed."
After this day, Rea spent most of her time in the cañon, watching the men at work on Ysidro's house. ”

“ It is worse than they are in Italy."
"I do not believe that makes much difference, dear," said Uncle George. "It is their home, all the same, as if it were large and nice. It is that one loves."
Just as Mr. Connor and Rea came out of the house, who should come riding by, but the very man that had caused all this unhappiness,—the lawyer who had taken Ysidro's land! He was with the [Pg 142] man to whom he had sold it. They were riding up and down in the valley, looking over all their possessions, and planning what big vineyards and orchards they would plant and how much money they would make. ”

“ I think Jusy is a cruel, cruel boy! I wouldn't see them shot for anything, and I don't like the cats any more."
"But," said Anita, "my little señorita did not mind having the gophers killed. It does not hurt the linnets half so much to be shot dead in one second, as it does the gophers to be caught in the cats' claws, and torn to pieces sometimes while they are yet alive. The shot-gun kills in a second."
"I don't care," said Rea. "It seems different; the linnets are so pretty." ”

“ But there is nothing of this sort to be seen in San Gabriel now, or indeed anywhere in California. The Indians, most of them, have been driven away by the white people who wanted their lands; year by year more and more white people have come, and the Indians have been robbed of more and more of their lands, and have died off by hundreds, until there are not many left. ”

“ Then there was Skipper, the one who nearly ate up Fairy that first morning; he also was as black as coal, and fierce as a wolf; all the cats were more or less afraid of him. Jim named him Skipper, because he used to race about in trees like a squirrel. Way up to the very top of the biggest sycamore trees in the cañon back of the house, Skipper would go, and leap from one bough to another. He was especially fond of birds, and in this way he caught many. He thought birds were much better eating than gopher [Pg 97] s. ”

“ Connor's eyes, and he turned away.
Rea did not understand. She looked puzzled; so did Jusy.
[Pg 152]
Jim explained. "The Indian women often do that," he said. "When they have to move away from a home they love they carry a little of the earth with them; sometimes they put it in a little bag, and wear it hanging on their necks; sometimes they put it under their heads at night."
"Yes," said Carmena, who had listened to what Jim said. "One can sleep better on the earth that one loves."
"I say, Rea!" cried Jusy. "It is a shame they had to come away!"
"I told you so, Jusy," said Rea gently. ”

“ The King was always afraid of being killed; there were so many unhappy and discontented persons in Italy, who did not want him to [Pg 32] be King. Just think how frightful it must be to know every day,—morning, noon, and night,—that there was danger of somebody's coming stealthily into your room to kill you! Who would be a king? It used to make the children afraid whenever they passed these tall soldiers in armor, in the halls. They would hold tight to each other's hands, and run as fast as they could, past them ”

“ Another thing the cats did, which gave the men much amusement, was, that when they had killed rabbits they carried the bodies into the mules' stables. Mules are terribly frightened at the smell of a dead rabbit. Whenever this happened, a great braying and crying and stamping would be heard in the stables; and on running to see what was the matter, there would be found Big Tom or Skipper, sitting down calm and happy by the side of a dead [Pg 101] rabbit, which he had carried in, and for some reason or other best known to himself had deposited in plain sight of the mules. ”

“ Connor first moved up on the hill, Jim used to shoot a cottontail almost every day, and some days he shot two. The rabbits, however, are shyer than the gophers; when they find out that they get shot as soon as they are seen, and that these men who shoot them have built houses and mean to stay, they will gradually desert their burrows and move away to new homes. ”

“ Poor little Fairy, missing her mistress, had trotted downstairs; and smelling on the floor wherever Rea had set her feet, had followed her tracks, and had reached the veranda just in time to be spied by Skipper, who arched his back, set his tail up straight and stiff as a poker, and, making one bound from the ground to the middle of the veranda floor, clutch [Pg 76] ed Fairy with teeth and claws, and would have made an end of her in less than one minute if Ah Foo had not been there. But Ah Foo could move almost as quickly as a cat ”

“ Mr. Connor stopped the horses; and Rea jumped out and ran after Jusy, and Mr. Connor followed. They found the boys watching excitedly, one at each end of a little bridge over the ditch, through which the water was brought down for irrigating Mr. Finch's orchards. Harry's dogs were there too, one at each end of the bridge, barking, yelping, watching as excitedly as the boys. But no Snowball. [Pg 146]
"Where is he?" cried Rea.
"In under there," exclaimed Jusy. "He's got a rabbit in there; he'll be out presently." ”

“ Jusy did not say a word, but he turned pale; he also thought these must be the savages of which they had heard.
Mr. Connor could hardly speak for laughing. "Who ever put such an idea as that into your head?" he cried. "Those are men from China; those are my workmen; they live at Connorloa all the time. They are very good men; they would not hurt anybody. There are not any savages here."
"Caterina said America was all full of savages," sobbed Rea,—"savages and wild beasts, such as lions and wol [Pg 62] ves."
"That girl was a fool," exclaimed Jim. ”

“ Can't I hunt rabbits as well as you do?" Then they all three, the two dogs an [Pg 147] d he, fell to eating the rabbit in the friendliest manner.
"Don't you think!" cried Jusy. "He's been hunting this way, with these dogs, all this time. You see they are so big they can't get in under the bridge, and he can; so they drive the rabbits in under there, and he goes in and gets them. Isn't he smart? Harry first saw him doing it two weeks ago, he says. He didn't know it was our cat, and he wondered whose it could be. But Snowball and the dogs are great friends. They go together all the time ”

“ He lives down in the ground, and can work in the dark as well as in the light; and he likes roots just as well as he likes the stems above ground; so as long as he stays in his cellar houses, he is hard to reach. [Pg 85]
The gopher is a pretty little creature, with a striped back,—almost as pretty as a chipmonk. It seems a great pity to have to kill them all off; but there is no help for it; fruit-trees and gophers cannot live in the same place. ”

“ At which Jim, who had followed, and was standing in the background, looking on with delight, almost went into convulsions of laughter, and went out and told the Chinamen in the kitchen that Miss Rea wished to learn to speak Chinese at once. So they thought she must be a very nice little girl, and were all ready to be her warm friends. ”

“ They never took dead gophers up there, or snakes; only the rabbits. Once a mule was so frightened that he plunged till he broke his halter, got free, and ran off down the hill; and the men had a big chase before they overtook him.
But the queerest thing of all that happened, was that the cats adopted a skunk; or else it was the skunk that adopted the cats; I don't know which [Pg 102] would be the proper way of stating it; but at any rate the skunk joined the family, lived with them in the woodpile, came with them every morning to be fed, and went off with them hunting gophers every day. ”

“ There were many strange things which these cats did, besides hunting the gophers. They used also to hunt snakes. In one of the rocky ravines near the house there were large snakes of a beautiful golden-brown color. On warm days these used to crawl out, and lie sunning themselves on the rocks. Woe to any such snake, if one of the cats caught sight of him! Big Tom had a special knack at killing them. He would make a bound, and come down with his fore claws firm planted in the middle of the snake's back ”

“ There are a great many interesting stories about the first settlement of San Gabriel, and the habits and customs of the Indians there. They were a very polite people to each other, and used to train their children in some respects very carefully. If a child were sent to bring water to an older person, and he tasted it on the way, he was made to throw the water out and go and bring fresh water ”