Pony Billy passed several more doors. Old Tiny, the sow, was snoring peacefully behind one of them. He drew the cart round the end of the shippon [44] into a cobble-paved yard, where the wheels rumbled over the stones. He went up to the back door of the house. There was no light upstairs; the window panes twinkled in the moonlight. A faint red glow showed through the kitchen window and under the back door.
SHE SAT BEFORE THE HOT WOOD ASH AND PURRED.
Mary Ellen, the farm cat, sat within; purring gently, and staring at the hot white ashes on the open hearth; wood ash that burns low, but never dies for years. She sat on a dun-coloured deer-skin, spread on the kitchen flags. Pots and pans, buckets, firewood, coppy stools,[10] cumbered the floor; and a great brown cream mug was set to warm before the hearth against the morrow’s churning. The half-stone weight belonging to the butter scales was on the board that covered the mug; Mary Ellen had not been sampling the cream. She sat before the hot wood ash and purred. Crickets were chirping. All else was asleep in the silent house.
Mary Ellen listened to the sounds of wheels and horseshoes, which came right up to the porch. Pony Billy’s soft nose snuffled about the latch. He struck a light knock on the door with a forward swing of his forefoot. Mary Ellen arose from the hearth. She went towards the door, and looked through a crack between the door and the door-jamb.
“Good-evening, good Pony; good-evening to you, Sir! I would bid you come in by, only the door is locked. Snecks I can lift; but the key is upstairs.” Pony Billy explained his errand through the crack.
“Dear, dearie me! poor, poor young pig!” purred Mary Ellen, “and me shut up here, accidental-like, with the cream! Dearie, dearie me, now! to think of that! Asleep in the clothes-swill, I was, when the door got locked. Yes! indeed, I do understand pig powders and herbs and clisters and cataplasms and nutritions and triapharmacons etcy teera, etcy teera!” purred Mary Ellen, “but pray, how am I to be got out, without the door key?” Pony Billy pawed the cobblestones with an impatient hoof.
“Let me see, good Mr. Pony, do you think that you could push away that block of wood that is set against a broken pane in the pantry window? Yes? Now I will put on my shawly shawl; so,” purred Mary Ellen, “so! I am stout, and the hole is small. Dearie, dearie me! what a squeeze! I am afraid of broken glass. But there is nothing like trying!” purred Mary Ellen, safely outside upon the pantry window-sill. “Now I can jump down into your cart, if you will back, under the windy pindy.” “First rate! Are you ready, M’mam?” said Pony Billy, backing against the wall with a bump.
“Oh, dearie me! I have clean forgotten the herbs; I must climb in again! Bunches and bunches of herbs!” purred Mary Ellen, pausing on the window-sill, above the cart. “My Mistress Scales grows a plant of rue on purpose for poor sick piggy-wiggies. Herb of Grace!” purred Mary Ellen,“what says old Gerard in the big calfskin book? ‘St. Anthony’s fire is quenched therewith; it killeth the shingles. Twelve pennyweight of rue is a counter-poison to the poison of wolfs-bane; and mushrooms; and TOADSTOOLS; and the bite of serpents; and the sting of scorpions, and hornets, and bees, and wasps; in-so-much that if the weasel is to fight the serpent, she armeth herself by eating rue.’ Toadstools! it says so in the big book! the very thing!” purred Mary Ellen, squeezing inside, and disappearing into the pantry. “Bunches and bunches of herbs,” she purred, struggling out again through the broken window; “bunches and bunches hanging from the kitchen ceiling! And a pot of goose-grease on the jam board; and a gun. And onions. And a lambing crook. And a fishing rod. And a brass meat-jack that winds up.”
“Am I to take all these things, M’mam?” inquired Pony Billy. “Bless me no! only the herbs,” purred Mary Ellen, seating herself in the cart. But no sooner had Pony Billy turned it in the yard, preparing to start homewards, “Oh, dearie, dearie me! I’ve forgot my fur-lined boots! No, not through the window this time. I keep my wardrobe in the stick-house. And I would like an armful of brackens in the cart-kist, to keep my footsies warm, please Mr. Pony Billy.” “We shall get away sometime!”thought Pony William.
Once set off, Mary Ellen sat quietly enough; never moving anything excepting her head, which she turned sharply from side to side, at the slightest rustle in the woods, hoping to see rabbits. The roe-deer did not show themselves again. The journey back to Codlin Croft Farm was uneventful. Mary Ellen was set down safely at the stable door. Cheesebox welcomed her effusively.
After assuring himself that Paddy Pig was still alive and kicking, Pony Billy dragged the tilt-cart into the orchard, and tipped it up beside the caravan. Himself he went up to the haystack for a well-earned bite of supper. Afterwards he lay down on the west side of the stack; and slept there, sheltered from the wind.
CHAPTER XIX
Mary Ellen
Mary Ellen was a fat tabby cat with sore eyes, and white paws, and an unnecessarily purry manner. If people only looked at her she purred, and scrubbed her head against them. She meant well; but she drove Paddy Pig wild. “Was it a leetle sick piggy-wiggy? was it cold then?” purred Mary Ellen, working her claws into the horseblanket and squirming it upwards. The result was that the top of the blanket got into Paddy Pig’s mouth, whilst his hind feet were left bare and cold.
“Bless its little pettitoes! No, it must not kick its blanket off its beddee beddee!” “What, what, what? I’m snuffocated! Sandy! Sandy! Take away this cat! I’m skumfished!” “Was it a leetle fidgetty pidgetty—” “Sandy, I say! Take away this awful cat!” screamed Paddy Pig.
At that moment Cheesebox entered the stable carrying a jug of rue tea,“He sounds very fractious. Keep him flat, Mary Ellen.” Paddy Pig sat up violently under the blanket, “Bring me a bucketful of pig-wash! None of your cat lap!” “Rue tea,” purred Mary Ellen; “my Mrs. Scales always prescribes nice rue tea in a little china cuppy cuppy, for poor sick piggy-wiggies with tummyakies.”
Paddy Pig swallowed the rue tea, under protest. He was sick immediately in spite of the expostulations of the two cats. Maggret, the mare in the next stall, blew her nose and stamped. After he had exhausted himself with kicking and squealing, Paddy Pig sank into uneasy slumber. But every time he turned over he kicked off the blanket, and there was another cat fight.
Towards midnight he grew quieter. The cats sat up all night; wide awake and watchful. There were noises of rats in the old walls of the stable; and noises of night birds without. Twice during the small hours of the morning Sandy’s black nose appeared under the stable door. He listened to the patient’s uneasy breathing, and then returned to his straw bed underneath the caravan.
At 2 A. M. the cats made themselves a dish of tea (proper tea, made of tea leaves). It enlivened them to endless purring conversations. They gossiped about other cats of their acquaintance. About our cat Tamsine, and her fifteenth family of kittens. And how Tamsine once was lost for a whole week, and came home very thin. And after all, she had been no further off than the next-door house, which was shut up empty, while the tenants had gone away for a week’s holiday. But what had Tamsine been doing to get herself locked up in the next-door pantry, I wonder?“Perhaps she was catching dear little mousy mousies,” purred Mary Ellen. “She did not look as though she had eaten many. And to think that her people had heard her mewing, and had searched for her high and low, never guessing that the next-door house was locked up unoccupied!”
“And there was Maidie, too! oh, what a sad, sad accident! Caught in a rabbit trap, poor love! She has limped about on only three footsies ever since.” “That comes of rabbitting,” said Cheesebox, who was a stay-at-home cat; “I used to know a black cat called Smutty, who caught moles alive, and brought them into the kitchen.” “What, what, what! Will you be quiet, you horrid old cats? I want to go to sleep!”
“A sweet pussy pussy is Tamsine. Whose kitten was she?” resumed Mary Ellen, after renewed struggles with the patient and the blanket. “Whose kitten? She was Judy’s kitten, only, of course, she was not Judy’s. Judy had a fat big kitten of her own in the hayloft; and one day she brought in a much younger young kitten, the smallest that ever was seen. It was so very tiny it could sit inside a glass tumbler. Goodness knows where Judy had picked it up! She carried it into the house and put it down before the fire on the hearth rug. Judy nursed it, and it grew up into Tamsine; but it was not Judy’s kitten.” “She was a fine cat, old Judy; such a splendid ratter.” “Tamsine is a rubbish; she will not look at a rat; and she plays with mice, which is as silly as trying to educate them. Did you ever hear of Louisa Pussycat’s mouse seminary?” “No? Never! does she bury the dear little things? I always eat them.” “I did not say ‘cemetery,’ I said ‘seminary.’ ‘Seminary’ is the genteel word for school; Miss Louisa Pussycat is very genteel.
“One night I went to town to buy soap and candles, and I thought I might as well call at the Misses Pussycats’ shop, as I was passing. On my way through the square I saw Louisa coming down the steps from the loft over the stores. She had purchases in a basket, and she was on her way homewards. We passed the time of night, and inquired after each other’s kittens. Then, as I had hoped, she invited me to step in and drink a cup of tea, and inspect the latest spring fashions from Catchester. As we went along the cat-walk, she told me how she had commenced to keep a mouse seminary in addition to conducting the millinery business. She said, ‘It is remarkable how character can be moulded in early youth; you would scarcely credit the transformation which I achieve with my mice, Cheesebox.’ I inquired, ‘Do you use porcelain moulds or tin, Louisa?’ ‘Character, Cheesebox; I refer to the amelioration of disposition and character; not to compote of mouse. I mould and educate their minds. I counteract bad habits by admonition, by rewards, and – a’hem – by judicious weeding out. Recalcitrant pupils whose example might prove deleterious are fried for supper by Matilda. I never have any trouble with dunces or drones. My pupils excel especially in application, and in exemplary perseverance. This very night I have left the whole seminary industriously occupied with the task of sorting two pounds of rice, which I have inadvertently poured into the moist sugar canister. Think of the time which it would have cost me to retrieve those grains of rice myself! But – thanks to my indefatigable mice – I am free to go out shopping; and my sister Matilda is drinking tea with friends, whilst my mouse seminary is sorting rice and sugar under the superintendence of my favourite pupil, Tilly-dumpling. I have also taught my mice to count beans into dozens, and to sift oatmeal into a chestnut.’ ‘Dear me, Louisa,’ said I, getting a word in edgeways, ‘are their fingers clean enough to handle groceries? I always think one can smell mice in a store cupboard?’ ‘My mice, Cheesebox, always lick their fingers before touching food.’ ‘Really? and can you trust them with cheese?’ ‘We have – a’hem – a china cheese cover, which the mice are unable to raise. But for ordinary household duties – such as tidying and dusting – their assistance is invaluable. And they call me punctually at 8.30 – I should say 7.30 – I sit up late, you know, trimming bonnets.’
“A LITTLE STEEP THREE STOREY HOUSE”
“At this point of the conversation, we turned a corner, and came in sight of the milliner’s shop; a little steep, three-storied house with diamond panes in the windows. (They call it Thimble Hall.) The house was lighted up; not only the shop, but also the parlour, which the Misses Pussycats only used on Sundays. ‘Dear me, Louisa, do you allow your mice to burn candles?’ ‘A’hem – no. It is an indiscretion,’ said Louisa, feeling in her pocket for her latchkey. Even before the key was in the lock, we could hear patterings, squeakings, and shrill laughter. ‘Your pupils seem to be merry, Louisa?’ ‘It must be that little wretch Tilly Didlem, who eats comfits in school. I will have mouse sausage for supper,’ said Louisa, opening the house door hurriedly. As we entered the passage, we encountered a smell of toffee; and something boiled over on the parlour fire with a flare-up. There was pitter pattering and scurrying into mouse-holes; followed by silence. We looked into the parlour; the fire had been lighted upon a weekday; and upon the fire was a frying-pan. ‘Toffee! Mouse toffee! Toffee with lemon in it. I’ll toffee you! I will bake the whole seminary in a pasty!’ ‘When you catch them, Louisa. After all – when the cat’s away the mice will play!’
“I fancy that was the end of the Misses Pussycats’ mouse seminary. Since then they have been content to manage the bonnet shop.”
CHAPTER XX
Iky Shepster’s Play
Paddy Pig continued to be poorly all next day; poorly and very feverish. The circus company were concerned and worried. It added to their anxiety that they should be detained so long at Codlin Croft Farm. The farm animals and poultry were becoming troublesome; Sandy was almost as tired of Charles the cock, as Paddy Pig was of Mary Ellen the cat.
“A change of air might do Paddy Pig good. It strikes me his illness is largely imagination and temper; listen how he is squealing!” said Sandy to Pony Billy. “I do not like to take the responsibility of removing him without advice,” said the cautious pony, “suppose it should prove to be measles?” Sandy had an inspiration, “Could we not consult the veterinary retriever?” “Would he come, think you? You and your friend, Eddy Tinker, bit him rather shabbily, two of you at once.” “Perhaps he would come if you asked him, Pony William. If you would ask him nicely; and take my apologies with this large bone.” “Where did you find that large bone, Alexander?” “In the ashpit, I assure you, William, it smells.” “It does,” said Pony Billy; “I’m tired of trotting on the roads; but I suppose it must be done. The sooner we get away to the moors the better for all of us.”
“Jenny Ferret says Xarifa has rubbed her nose with gnawing the wires of her cage; and Tuppenny’s hair is all tangled again for want of being brushed. But it is not safe to let them out, with all these strange dogs and cats; and Charles is not to be trusted for pecking. Look at the poultry crowding round the caravan! Mrs. Hodgson has been calling ‘chuck! chuck!’ all the afternoon, but the hens won’t go home to lay.And the worst of it is they are all clamouring to see the Pigmy Elephant.” “Tell them he has caught a cold in his trunk.” “That would be too near the truth; they must not guess that Paddy Pig is the elephant.”
Pony Billy thought for a moment. “Say the elephant has gone to Blackpool.” “Now that’s a good idea! And if Charles asks me any more impertinent questions, I’ll pull his tail feathers out.”
Pony Billy looked serious; “Such a proceeding would be a poor return for the hospitality of Codlin Croft. Give them some sort of a show, Sandy, while I am away. Consult Jenny Ferret.”