Mammy Tittleback and Her Family Part 3

THE OLD BLACK CAT.

Who so full of fun and glee, Happy as a cat can be?

Polished sides so nice and fat, Oh, how I love the old black cat!

Poor kitty! O poor kitty!

Sitting so cozy under the stove.

CHORUS.

Pleasant, purring, pretty p.u.s.s.y, Frisky, full of fun and fussy?

Mortal foe of mouse and rat, Oh, I love the old black cat!

Yes, I do!

Some will like the tortoise-sh.e.l.l; Others love the white so well; Let them choose of this or that, But give to me the old black cat.

Poor kitty! O poor kitty!

Sitting so cozy under the stove.

CHORUS.

Pleasant, purring, pretty p.u.s.s.y, etc.

When the boys, to make her run, Call the dogs and set them on, Quickly I put on my hat, And fly to save the old black cat.

Poor kitty! O poor kitty!

Sitting so cozy under the stove.

CHORUS.

Pleasant, purring, pretty p.u.s.s.y, etc.

This song had come to Burnet years before, in a magazine. There was no other printed copy of the song; but, year after year, the Burnet children had sung it at school, and every child in town knew it by heart.

It cannot be said to be exactly a funeral hymn, and Gregory was a gray cat and not a black one, which made it still less appropriate; but it was the only song they knew about cats, so they sang it slow, and made it do. Just as they were finis.h.i.+ng it a big dog came darting down from the other side of the mill-race, leaped over the race, barking loud, and sprang in among them.

This gave the relatives a great scare. All those that were standing on the ground scrambled up the nearest trees as fast as they could; and even those that were being held in the children's arms scratched and fought to get down, that they might run away too. So the funeral ended very suddenly in great disorder, and with altogether more laughing than seemed proper at a funeral.

The next day Lily died and was buried by the side of Gregory, but with less ceremony than had been used the day before. Over her grave was put a high gla.s.s monument, which made much more show than the one of marble on Gregory's grave. That was only a flat slab, which lay on the gra.s.s; but Lily's was a gla.s.s lamp which had by some accident got a little broken. This, set bottom side up, pressed down firmly into the earth, made a fine show, and could be seen a good way off, "the way a monument ought to be," Johnny said; and he searched diligently to find something equally high and imposing for Gregory's grave, but could not find it.

In the course of a few days the remaining kittens and cats were all given away, except Mammy t.i.ttleback and Blacky. They were selected as being on the whole the best ones to keep. Mammy t.i.ttleback is so good a mouser that she would be a useful member of any family, and Blacky bids fair to grow up as good a mouser as she. What became of Juniper and Mousiewary was never known. They were seen now and then in the neighborhood of the house, but never stayed long, and finally disappeared altogether.

Mammy t.i.ttleback, I am sorry to say, did not take the loss of her family in the least to heart; after the first week or two she seemed as contented and as much at home in her new quarters as if she had lived there all her life. What she has thought about it all, there is no knowing; but as she and Blacky lie asleep under the stove, of an evening, you'd never suspect, to look at them, that they had had such a fine summer house to live in last year, or had ever belonged to a "Garfield Club," and taken a railway journey.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

THE OLD BLACK CAT.

1. Who so full of fun and glee, Hap-py as a cat can be?

Polished sides so nice and fat--Oh, how I love the old black cat.

2. Some will like the tortoise sh.e.l.l, Others love the white so well; Let them choose of this or that, But give to me the old black cat.

3. When the boys, to make her run, Call the dogs and set them on, Quickly I put on my hat And fly to save the old black cat.

_Affetuoso._

Poor kit-ty! O, poor kit-ty!

Sit-ting so co-zy un-der the stove.

Pleasant, purring, pretty p.u.s.s.y, Frisky, full of fun and fussy, Mortal foe of mouse and rat, O, I love the old black cat. Yes, I do.

[From the "Schoolday Magazine," March, 1873.]

PREFACE.

This story of Mammy t.i.ttleback and her family was told to me last winter, at Christmas time, in Grandma Jameson's house, by Johnny and Rosy Chapman and their mother, and by Phil Wellington and his mother, and by Johnny and Katy Wells, and by Grandma Jameson herself, and by "Aunt Maggie" Jameson, Grandma Jameson's daughter, and by "Aunt Hannah,"

Grandma Jameson's sister, and by "Cousin f.a.n.n.y," the postmistress who had the first sight of the postal card, and by Jerry, who had the worst of the whole business, bringing the box of cats from the railway-station up to the house.

I don't mean that each of these persons told me the whole story from beginning to end. I was not at Grandma Jameson's long enough for that; I was there only Christmas day and the day after. But I mean that all these people told me parts of the story, and every time the subject was mentioned somebody would remember something new about it, and the longer we talked about it the more funny things kept coming up to the very last, and I don't doubt that when I go there again next summer, Phil and Johnny will begin where they left off and tell me still more things as droll as these. The story about the little kittens swimming over the brook I did not hear until the morning I was coming away. Just as I was busy packing Phil came running up to my room, saying, "There's one more thing we forgot the cats did," and then he told me the story of the swimming. Then I said, "Tell me some more, Phil; I don't believe you've told me half yet."

"Well," he said, "you see, they were doing things all the time, and we didn't think much about 'em. That's the reason we can't remember," which remark of Phil's has a good lesson in it when you come to look at it closely. It would make a good text for a little sermon to preach to children that very often have to say, "I forgot," about something they ought to have done.

Things that we think very much about we never forget, any more than we do persons that we love very dearly and think very much of. So "I forgot" is not very much of an excuse for not having done a thing; it is only another way of saying "I didn't attend to it enough to make it stay in my mind," or, "I didn't care enough about it to remember it."

I heard the greater part of this story on Christmas night. Johnny and Rosy and Phil and Katy had a great frolic telling it. In the midst of it Johnny exclaimed, "Don't you want to see Mammy t.i.ttleback?"

"Indeed I do," I replied. So he ran out to the barn and brought her in in his arms. s...o...b..ll was already there. She was lying on the hearth when Mammy t.i.ttleback was brought in, and I began to praise her, saying what a beauty she was, and how handsome the yellow, black, and white colors in her fur were. s...o...b..ll got up, and began to walk about uneasily and to rub up against us, as if she wanted to be noticed also.

"s...o...b..ll's a nice cat too," said Phil, picking her up, "'most as good as Mammy t.i.ttleback."

"Blacky's the nicest," said Rosy, who was rocking in her rocking-chair, and hugging Blacky up close to her face. "Blacky's the nicest of them all." Upon which everybody fell to telling what a tyrant Blacky had become; how she would be held in somebody's lap all the time, and that even Aunt Hannah had had to give up to Blacky. Even Aunt Hannah, whom n.o.body in the house, not even Grandma Jameson herself, ever thinks of going against in the smallest thing, because she is such a beautiful and venerable old lady,--even Aunt Hannah had had to give up to Blacky.

Aunt Hannah is over eighty years old but she is never idle. She never has time to hold cats in her lap; and, besides, I do not think she loves cats so well as the rest of her family do. As often as Blacky jumped up in her lap, Aunt Hannah would very gently set her on the floor; but in five minutes Blacky would be up again. At last, when she found Aunt Hannah really would not hold her in her lap, she took it in her head to lie in Aunt Hannah's work-basket, close by her side; and just as often as Aunt Hannah put her out of her lap she would spring into the work-basket, and curl herself up like a little puff-ball of fur among the spools. This was even worse to Aunt Hannah than to have her on her knees, and she would take her out of the work-basket less gently than she lifted her out of her lap, and set her on the floor. Then Blacky would jump right up on her lap again, and so they had it,--Aunt Hannah and Blacky,--first lap, and then work-basket, till poor Aunt Hannah got as nearly out of patience as a lovely old lady of the Society of Friends ever allows herself to be. She got so out of patience that she made a very nice, soft, round cus.h.i.+on stuffed with feathers, and kept it always at hand for Blacky to lie on. Then when Blacky jumped on her knees, she laid her on the cus.h.i.+on; instantly Blacky would spring into the work-basket, and when she took her out of that, right up in her lap again. On that cus.h.i.+on she would not lie. At last Aunt Hannah was heard to say, "I believe it is of no use, I'll have to give up to thee, little cat;" and now Blacky lies in Aunt Hannah's work-basket whenever she feels like lying there instead of in Rosy's little chair or in somebody's lap; and I dare say by the time I go to Burnet again, I shall find that Aunt Hannah has given up in the matter of the lap also, and is holding Blacky on her knees as many hours a day as anybody else in the house.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Now Blacky lies in Aunt Hannah's work-basket whenever she feels like lying there."--PAGE 96.]

There was a great deal of discussion among the children as to the places where the little kittens were living now, and as to which ones were given away, and which ones had run away.

I suppose when Jerry had a half-dozen kittens to give away all at once, he couldn't stop to select them very carefully, or to sort them out by name, or recollect where each one went.

"I know where Spitfire is," said Johnny; "I saw him yesterday."

"Where?" said Phil.