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Calico Cat, The

<h2>I</h2> Mr. peaslee looked more complacent than ever. It was Saturday noon, and Solomon had just returned from his usual morning sojourn "up-street." He had taken off his coat, and was washing his face at the sink, while his wife was "dishing up" the midday meal. There was salt codfish, soaked fresh, and stewed in milk—"picked up," as the phrase goes; there were baked potatoes and a thin, pale-looking pie. Mrs. Peaslee did not believe in pampering the flesh, and she did believe in saving every possible cent. "Well," said Mr. Peaslee, as they sat down to this feast, "I guess I've got news for ye." His wife gazed at him with interest. "Are ye drawed?" she asked. "Got the notice from Whitcomb right in my pocket. Grand juror. September term. 'T ain't more'n a week off." The staccato utterance was caused by the big mouthfuls of codfish and potato which, between phrases, Mr. Peaslee conveyed to his mouth. It was plain to see that he was greatly pleased with his new dignity. "What do they give ye for it?" asked his wife. Solomon should accept no office which did not bring profit. "Two dollars a day and mileage," said Mr. Peaslee, with the emphasis of one who knows he will make a sensation. "Mileage? What's that?" "Travelin' expenses. State allows ye so much a mile. I get eight cents for goin' to the courthouse." "Ye get eight cents every day?" asked his wife, her eyes snapping. She was vague about the duties of a grand juror; maybe he had to earn his two dollars; but she had exact ideas about the trouble of walking "up-street." To get eight cents for that was being paid for doing nothing at all, and she was much astonished at the idea. "Likely now, ain't it?" said Mr. Peaslee, with masculine scorn. "State don't waste money that way! Mileage's to get ye there an' take ye home again when term's over. You're s'posed to stay round 'tween whiles." "Humph!" said his wife, disappointed. "They give ye two dollars a day"—she hazarded the shot—"just for settin' round and talkin', don't they? Walkin's considerable more of an effort for most folks." "'Settin' round an' talkin'!'" exclaimed Mr. Peaslee, so indignantly that he stopped eating for a moment, knife and fork upright in his rigid, scandalized hands, while he gazed at his thin, energetic, shrewish little wife. "'Settin' round and talkin'!' It's mighty important work, now I tell ye. I guess there wouldn't be much law and order if it wa'n't for the grand jury. They don't take none but men o' jedgment. Takes gumption, I tell ye. Ye have to pay money to get that kind." "Well," said his wife, with the air of one who concedes an unimportant point, "anyhow, it's good pay for a man whose time ain't worth anythin'." "Ain't worth anythin'!" exclaimed Mr. Peaslee, in hurt tones. "Now, Sarepty, ye know better'n that. I don't know how they'll get along without me up to the bank. They've got a pretty good idee o' my jedgment 'bout mortgages. They don't pass any without my say so." Mrs. Peaslee sniffed. "I've seen ye in the bank window, settin' round with Jim Bartlett and Si Spooner and the rest of 'em. Readin' the paper—that's all I ever see ye doin'. Must be wearin' on ye." "Guess ye never heard what was said, did ye? Can't hear 'em thinkin', I guess. They're mighty shreüd up to the bank, mighty shreüd." They had finished their codfish and potato, and Mrs. Peaslee, without giving much attention to her husband's testimony to the business acumen of his banking friends and incidentally of himself, pulled the pale, thin pie toward her and cut it. "Pass up your plate," said she. When his plate was again in place before him, Mr. Peaslee inserted the edge of his knife under the upper crust and raised it so that he could get a better view of its contents; he had his suspicions of that pie. What he saw confirmed them; between the crusts was a thin, soft layer of some brown stuff, interspersed with spots of red. "Them's the currants we had for supper the night before last, and that's the dried-apple sauce we had for supper last night," he announced accurately. "An' ye know how I like a proper pie." "I ain't goin' to waste good victuals," said his wife, with decision. There was silence for a moment; Solomon did not dare make any further protest. "I suppose," his wife said, picking up again the thread of her thoughts, "ye'll have to wear your go-to-meetin' suit all the time to the grand jury. I expect they'll be all wore out at the end. That'll take off something. You be careful, now. Settin' round's awful wearin' on pants. You get a chair with a cushion. And don't ye go treatin' cigars. And don't ye go to the hotel for your victuals. I ain't goin' to have ye spendin' your money when ye can just as well come home. Where ye goin' now?" Mr. Peaslee was putting on his coat. "Well," he said, "I kind o' thought I'd step over to Ed'ards's. I thought mebbe he'd be interested." "Goin' to brag, are ye?" was his wife's remorseless comment. "Much good it'll do ye, talkin' to that hatchet-face. He ain't so pious as he looks, if all stories are true." But Mr. Peaslee was already outside the door. She raised her voice shrilly. "You be back, now; them chickens has got to be fed!" Mr. Peaslee sought a more sympathetic audience. Being drawn for the grand jury had greatly flattered his vanity, for it encouraged a secret ambition which he had long held to get into public life. Service on the grand jury might lead to his becoming selectman, perhaps justice of the peace, perhaps town representative from Ellmington—who knew what else? He looked down a pleasant vista of increasing office, at the end of which stood the state capitol. He could be senator, perhaps! And he began planning his behavior as juror, the dignified bearing, the well-matured utterances, the shrewd cross-questioning. At the end of his service his neighbors would know him for a man of solid judgment, a "safe" man to be intrusted with weighty affairs. Mr. Peaslee was fifty-three years old. He had a comfortable figure, a clean-shaven, round face, and blue eyes much exaggerated for the spectator by the strong lenses of a pair of great spectacles. These, with his gray hair, gave him a benevolence of aspect which somewhat misrepresented him. As a matter of fact, although good-humored and not without a still surviving capacity for generous impulse, he was only less "near" than his wife. Childishly vain, he bore himself with an air of self-satisfaction not without its charm for humorous neighbors. They said that they guessed he thought himself "some punkins." "Some punkins" most people admitted him to be, although how much of his money and how much of his shrewdness was really his wife's was matter of debate among those who knew him best. At any rate, the Peaslees had made money. A few years before, they had sold their fat farm "down-river" advantageously, and had bought the dignified white house in Ellmington in which they have just been seen eating a dinner which looks as if they were "house poor." That they were not; they had thirty thousand dollars in the local bank, partly invested in its stock. In Ellmington Mrs. Peaslee was less lonely, and through Mr. Peaslee was an unsuspected director in the bank, and a shrewd user of the chances for profitable investment which her husband's association with the "bank crowd" opened to her. As for Mr. Peaslee, he did not know that he himself was not the business head of the house; and his garden, his chickens, and his pleasant loafing in the bank window kept him contentedly occupied. For, in spite of her shrewish tongue, Mrs. Peaslee had tact enough to let her husband have the credit for her business acumen. "I ain't goin' to let on," she said to herself, "that he ain't just as good as the rest of 'em." She had her pride. As Mr. Peaslee stepped along the straight walk which divided his neat lawn, and opened the neat gate in his neat white fence, he met Sam Barton, the broad-shouldered, good-humored giant who was constable of Ellmington. Sam gave him a smiling "How are ye, squire?" as he passed. "Guess he's heard," said Mr. Peaslee to himself, much pleased. Yet, as a matter of fact, the greeting was not different from that which Sam had given him daily for the past three years. Once on the sidewalk, Mr. Peaslee turned to the right toward the house of his neighbor, Mr. Edwards. Edwards was a younger man than Peaslee, perhaps forty-seven. His business was speculating in lumber and cattle, and in the interest of this he was constantly passing and re passing the Canadian border, which was not far from Ellmington. In the intervals between his trips he was much at home. He was a stern, silent, secretive man, and simply because he was so close-mouthed there was much guessing and gossip, not wholly kind, about his affairs. Mr. Peaslee found the front door of the Edwards house standing open in the trustful village fashion, and, with neighborly freedom, walked in without ringing. He turned first into the sitting-room, where he found no one, and then into a rear room opening from it. This obviously was a boy's "den." On the table in the centre were a checkerboard, some loose string, a handful of spruce gum, some scattered marbles, a broken jack-knife, a cap, a shot-pouch, an old bird's nest, a powder-flask, a dog-eared copy of "Cæsar's Commentaries," open, and a Latin dictionary, also open. In a corner stood a fishing-rod in its cotton case; along the wall were ranged bait-boxes, a fishing-basket, a pair of rubber boots, and a huge wasp's nest. Leaning against the sill of the open window was a double-barreled shotgun, and on the sill itself were some black, greasy rags and a small bottle of oil. Various truths might be inferred from the disarray. One was that Mr. Edwards was generous to his son Jim, and another was that there was no Mrs. Edwards. Further, it might be easily enough guessed that Jim had been lured from the study of Latin, in which pretty Miss Ware, who was his teacher at the "Union" school, was trying to interest him, by the attractive idea of oiling his gun-barrels, and that something still more attractive—perhaps a boy with crossed fingers, for it was not too late for swimming—had lured him from that. At any rate, Jim was not there. Mr. Peaslee, still bent on finding Mr. Edwards, moved toward the open window. But he could see no signs of life anywhere. None of the household was, however, far away. Jim was in the loft of the barn, where he was carefully examining a barrel of early apples with a view to filling his pockets with the best; the housekeeper had merely stepped across the street to borrow some yeast, and Mr. Edwards, who had a headache, was lying down in the chamber immediately above Jim's den. Mr. Peaslee stood and gazed. He eyed in turn the kitchen ell, the shed, and the barn, and then gazed out over the "posy" garden, where still bloomed a few late flowers, of which he recognized only the "chiny" asters. He looked toward what he himself would have called the "sarce" garden, with its cabbages, turnips, rustling corn-stalks, and drying tomato-vines. Seeing no one there, he sent his gaze to the distant rows of apple trees, bright with ripening fruit. Disappointed, he was about to turn away, but he could not resist taking a complacent, sweeping view of his own adjoining possessions. There, on the right, ran the long line of his own dwelling, continued by the five-foot board fence separating his garden from Mr. Edwards's. This stood up gauntly white until near the orchard, where it was completely hidden by the high, feathery stalks of the asparagus-bed, by a row of great sunflowers, now heavy and bent with their disk-like seed-pods, and by a clump of lilac bushes. As his eye traveled along the white expanse, he gave a quick start, and his face clouded with vexation. There in the sun, prone upon the top of the fence, dozed the bane of his life—the Calico Cat. Her coat was made up of patches of yellow and white, varied with a black stocking on her right hind leg, and a large, round, black spot about her right eye, which gave her a peculiarly predatory and disreputable appearance. Solomon had disliked her at sight. Ever since he had bought the house in Ellmington he had been trying to drive her from the premises, but stay away she would not. Not all the missiles in existence could convince her that his house was not a desirable place of abode. And she was a constant vexation and annoyance. She jumped from the fence plump into the middle of newly planted flower-beds; she filled the haymow with kittens; she asked all her friends to the barn, where she gave elaborate musical parties at hours more fashionably late than were tolerated in Ellmington. Whenever she had indigestion she ate off the tops of the choicest green things that grew in the garden; but when her appetite was good she caught and devoured his young chickens. Moreover, when at bay she frightened him. Once he had cornered the spitting creature in a stall. Claws out, tail big, fur all on end, she had leaped straight at his head, which he ducked, and, landing squarely upon it, had steadied herself there for a moment with sharp, protruding claws; thence she had jumped to a feed-box, thence to a beam, thence to the mow, from the dusky recesses of which she had glared at him with big, green, menacing eyes. Not since that experience, which, in spite of his soft hat, had left certain marks upon his scalp, had he ever attempted to catch her. Instead, he had borrowed a gun, and a dozen times had fired at her; but although he counted himself a fair shot, he had never made even a scant bit of fur fly from her disreputable back. And now he knew she laughed at him. Yes, laughed at him, for she had more than human intelligence. There was something demoniac in her cleverness, her immunity from harm, her prodigious energy, her malevolent mischief, her raillery. Actually, he had grown morbid about the beast; he had a superstitious feeling that in the end she would bring him bad luck. How he hated her! There she lay, with eyes shut, unsuspecting, comfortable, and basked in the warm September sunshine. Here at his hand was a double-barreled shotgun. The chance was too good. This vagrant, this outlaw, this trespasser, this thief—he catalogued her misdeeds in his mind as he clanged the ramrod down the barrels to see if the piece was loaded. It was not. But ammunition was at hand. He put in a generous charge from Jim's powder-flask and rammed it home with a paper wad. He grabbed up the shot-pouch and released the proper charge into his hand. He was disappointed; it was bird shot. Scattering as it would scatter, it could do that cat no harm. Nevertheless, he poured the pellets into the barrel. As he rammed home the paper wad on top of these, his eye caught the marbles lying on the table. He took one that fitted, and rammed that home also—for luck. He placed a cap, lifted the gun to his shoulder, and fired. With a leap which sent her six feet into the air the Calico Cat landed four-square in Mr. Peaslee's chicken-yard, almost on the back of the dignified rooster, which fled with a startled squawk. She dodged like lightning across the chicken-yard, between cackling and clattering hens, went up the wire-netting walls, leaped to the roof, paused, considered, began to reflect that she had been shot at before and to wonder at her own fright, stopped, and, sitting down on the ridgepole, looked inquiringly in Mr. Peaslee's direction. She was, of course, entirely unharmed. But other matters were claiming Mr. Peaslee's attention. Out from behind the screen formed by the asparagus plumes, the currant-bushes, the sunflowers, and the lilacs, all of which grew not so far from the spot on the fence where the Calico Cat had been sitting, fell a man! Solomon had a mere glimpse. Standing behind taller bushes, the stranger had fallen behind lower ones, and only while his falling figure was describing the narrow segment of a circle had he been visible. But the glimpse was enough. Mr. Peaslee's jaw dropped, his face turned white. But the next moment he gave a great sigh of relief. He saw the man rise and slip into cover of the bushes, and so disappear through the orchard. He had not, then, killed the fellow! Relieved of that fear, he thought of himself. What would people say were he charged with firing at a man—he, a respectable citizen, a director in the bank, a grand juror? They must not know! He silently laid the gun back against the window-sill, turned with infinite care, and tiptoed quickly back into the sitting-room, into the hall, into the street. Not a soul was visible. Nevertheless, such was Mr. Peaslee's agitation, so strongly did he feel the need of silence, that, placing a shaking hand upon the fence to steady himself, he tiptoed along the sidewalk all the way to his own house. There the fear of his wife struck him. He was in no condition to meet that sharp-eyed, quick-tongued lady! He softly entered the front door and penetrated to the dark parlor, where, as no one would ever enter it except for a funeral or a wedding, he felt safe from intrusion. There he sank down upon the slippery horsehair lounge, and, staring helplessly at the severe portrait of Mrs. Peaslee, done by a lugubrious artist in crayon, wiped the sweat from his forehead and tried to collect his scattered faculties. "Whew!" he breathed. "Whew!" <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/chap_2.jpg" title="Cat licking paw." height-obs="221" width-obs="232" alt="Cat licking paw." /></div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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