With thuds and thumpings he started rolling over and over, until he rolled beneath Ebenezer’s feet and upset him as well. “Really!” groaned the kitten. “Really! Life in the meadow never prepared me for this!”
This, it seemed, was but the beginning. The next instant the kitten thought his head was being yanked from his body. But it was only Ebenezer freeing him from his pitcher-helmet.
Gulp, sniff, gulp! My! The air was wonderful. The kitten stretched his neck gratefully. Then as quickly he drew it back and down between his shoulders. For the man was flinging the pitcher itself on the coals of the open furnace. One moment the kitten saw the pitcher on the coals. The next, there was only a bubbling mass of metal, which grew redder and redder, hissing all the time until it disappeared.
Catsation! What if he, the blue kitten, had been thrown with the pitcher? By this time he would have been a blue coal, a puff of smoke. Really! One never dreamed of such things in a nest of dried clover, Queen Anne’s lace and chickory. He wished, oh, how he wished he had never left that nest! He wished … Then he dodged a plate and a quart measure and leaped desperately to the back of a chair.
By this time the pewterer had seized two bright teapots from the counter. “Look at you!” he was storming, shaking a pot in either hand. “Look at your ugly spouts, your ridiculous handles! Is that the kind of work I was taught to do? The sort of work on which I was proud to set my touchmark? Is it, I say?
“Bah! You are the kind of teapots Arunah Hyde wanted for his Mansion House. ‘Use the new formula,’ he told me. ‘It’s cheaper. Makes a thinner metal. Then you can press it into shape quickly without bothering with the old molds. Does away with the tiresome polishing and burnishing. Yet it makes bright stuff, like silver.’
“But it wasn’t silver, blue kitten. It wasn’t really pewter — not good honest pewter. It was the new cheap metal.
“Do you know what the master pewterer in Connecticut said of such metal, which he hated, blue kitten? I did not understand then what he meant, but now I understand.
“Silence is golden,
Speech is silvern,
But to say one thing
And mean another
Is the new and cheap metal.
“Yet when Arunah talks to you and tells you how to make money, and make it quickly, a dark mood comes over you and you almost believe in what he is saying. So I did as Arunah wanted. But I did not put my touchmark on my work any more. I said it was because I made pewter only for the neighbors, and that using it was a waste of time. I knew all the while that my words were not true.
“‘Faster,’ said Arunah, and I worked faster. My work grew more and more ugly. So I locked the touchmark away. I didn’t use it — because I was ashamed. Oh, the new stuff sold right and left. Because it was new it became a fashion. But I knew it was both cheap and ugly.”
The man was quiet for several minutes. He was looking straight at the blue kitten. Then in a voice so low the kitten had to bend his head and perk his left ear forward in order to hear, the man said slowly:
“Blue kitten, what a fool I have been! I, Ebenezer Southmayd, who once made pewter fit for a king.”
He seemed to expect a reply, so the blue kitten nodded solemnly. He didn’t understand much that had been told him. The river had spoken of kings, but the blue kitten had never met one. But the kitten did know that this man had listened to the song of the river as he, the blue kitten, had purred it, and had understood the meaning of the song. Now all that he, the blue kitten, had to do was to teach him to sing that song. Then his own troubles would be over, and he would lie in comfort on the man’s warm hearth.
So the blue kitten started once again on the river’s song. Over and over he sang it, while Ebenezer Southmayd moved about the shop, uttering no sound, but working quietly.
The kitten found a window ledge where the sun shone in upon him. Sometimes, being young, he went to sleep right in the midst of the song. When he woke he would take up the song where he had left off. The first time he woke from such a cat nap, Ebenezer was looking through his spectacles at a yellowed paper, and weighing some lumps of metal into an iron caldron. “Just so much of this. Just so much of that,” he was saying. Then he swung the caldron over the gleaming coals.
When next the kitten opened an eye the pewterer was pouring the melted mass into two molds. Hours later, when the metal had cooled, the molds were opened and there were two hollow pieces, something like bowls, or the two halves of a ball, decided the kitten — which the man soldered carefully together. He worked slowly and sometimes he fumbled. But at last he was turning the single piece of pewter around and around, smoothing it on the lathe, until the kitten drew near to watch.
Ebenezer stopped and held his work under the kitten’s nose. “Look, blue kitten, look sharp. You cannot even see where it is joined. My hand has not lost its cunning. Now for the top and the spout and the handle. If I succeed with these I shall know that my eyes still retain their judgment. This is the teapot I used to dream of doing, blue kitten. And I shall do it yet — if I have time. If — I — have — time!”
As he finished speaking the man began to hum. And the blue kitten looked at him hopefully. The tune of the river was there, in places. But only in places. And there were no words.
So the kitten himself began to purr the river’s song again. Mortals were certainly stupid. He had not taken so long to learn the song.
Ebenezer paused now and then to crumble part of a loaf of bread into some milk that a neighbor had brought. Yet before he was finished, he would push the bowl aside and hasten back to his work. Then the blue kitten would slip over and take what remained.
The man did not seem to notice the kitten at all. His eyes were riveted on his work. But his humming was growing louder, and there was more and more of the tune of the river’s song in that humming. The movements of his hands, the kitten noted, were certain and sure.
It was dusk when Ebenezer Southmayd called to the blue kitten. His voice held strange excitement. “This is the dream I always had. The best piece of work I have ever done,” he said.
He held the finished teapot in his hands, turning it about excitedly, peering down upon it by the light of a candle.
Even the blue kitten could see that every curve was as it should be, every line was true. Both spout and handle seemed fairly to blossom forth in grace, so perfectly were they part of the teapot itself. And the glow of the metal was as soft and lovely as the plates and the tankards which stood on the high shelf.
Ebenezer sat down on the stool, moving slowly as though very tired. He cradled the teapot in one arm, and his other hand rested for a moment on the blue kitten’s head. “I am glad you came, blue kitten,” he said.
Then he rose and, still moving slowly, went to a chest in the corner. Out of it he drew a strange tool. “This is my touchmark,” the man said proudly.
He heated one end over the coals and pressed it on the bottom of the newly finished teapot.
The blue kitten drew near and began to weave back and forth in delight at the man’s feet. His eyes were on the teapot, and his tail curved in the same shape as the handle, his neck arched like the teapot’s spout.
For Ebenezer Southmayd at last was singing the song of the river. From beginning straight on to the end, he sang.
“Time is the mold, time the weaver, the carver.
Time and the workman together.
Sing your own song.
Sing well, said the river, sing well.”
“Look, blue kitten,” he said when he had finished. And he held the bottom of the teapot in front of the amber eyes beside him. “There is the touchmark of Ebenezer Southmayd!”
The mark was a ship under full sail. And beneath it were the initials, E.S.
“This teapot,’’ said the man proudly, though his voice shook, and the blue cat understood that he was very tired, “this teapot is work fit for a king. For a king!”
Gently he put the pot down on the workbench, and rested his hea
d beside it. His hand, after a moment, dropped and hung loosely at one side. The kitten placed his head against the fingers for an instant. Then, startled, the blue kitten drew back.
Ebenezer Southmayd was dead.
For a moment the river, which the kitten had not heard before, seemed to be singing loudly, as though it were in the very room. But since that could not be, the puzzled blue kitten went to the window and looked out into the night. A mist lay over the valley, but it parted for an instant and the blue kitten thought he saw a ship passing by — a ship under full sail. Which was utter nonsense, he told himself, for how could there be a ship passing through a Vermont valley?
The neighbor who delivered the milk every evening, knocked at the door and, hearing no answer save the kitten’s mewing, put his hand on the latch.
As the man entered, the blue kitten slipped past his feet and fled into the mist and damp. He was very lonely. And he had still to find a hearth for himself. That evening the blue kitten could not have said whether he was glad 01 sorry that he had listened to the river’s song.
CHAPTER FOUR
JOHN GILROY, THE WEAVER
Now IF I were just an ordinary kitten I wouldn’t have such a time to find a hearth, thought the blue kitten, remembering what his mother had told him. But she had never told him about the three black hairs in the end of his tail, so he did not dream for an instant that he might, after all, turn out to be an ordinary cat. To be sure his mother had said this might happen and the river had suggested it. But the blue kitten felt in his very bones that he was a superior creature. So, even while he mewed plaintively his wish to be ordinary, he didn’t for an instant consider such a frightful possibility.
In the morning when the mist lifted, he decided to continue straight along the way he had come. As it grew lighter he paused to look at one or two houses as a possible home. He even jumped on the window sill to peer inside what turned out to be a hatter’s shop. He did want to be satisfied this time. Comfort made such a difference in a kitten’s life. While if he ever lived to be old, it might mean even more.
He had come nearly to the center of the settled mile of road of which the river had told, when he saw a small house. Over the door was a swinging sign:
JOHN GILROY WEAVER
And standing beneath that sign, with his head nearly touching it, was a tall, rather thin, man. The kitten saw that his hair was black and curly, his eyes a curious blue which turned to gray now and then. He saw too that this mortal’s face was deeply lined. Suffering and sorrow, the kitten’s mother had said, made such lines on mortals’ faces. Sometimes they were good lines. Sometimes they were bad. The lines on this man’s face, the kitten knew at once, were good lines. Even before he heard the man speaking, he felt that his chances of finding a hearth here were good too. Very good indeed.
John Gilroy was talking to two women, who stood before him. At the same time he was stroking with his long, sensitive fingers some hanks of silken white. The kitten stood beside the two women to listen.
“Good flax yarn,” the weaver was saying. “The work of a whole year.”
“Aye,” said the older woman. “Flax sowed last May as my mother taught me.”
The younger woman, who still held her yarn on one arm, smiled and her eyes took on a faraway look, so that the blue kitten gazing up at her understood she was seeing the very sowing.
The older woman went on. “I myself ran the flax through the rippling comb to shell off the seeds and soaked it in the brook by the kitchen door until it was soft. I helped with the breaking and swingling, until all the harsh part of the stalk was gone, and ran it through the hatcheling comb to take out the short fibers. Oh, this was a task. But the spinning was another matter.”
Dear me, thought the blue kitten, how tiresome a woman can be. He looked at the weaver and was astonished that the man did not seem to find the woman tiresome in the least. Instead he was watching her face, as though her words were something he had hungered for.
“Another matter?” he asked as the woman paused.
“Aye. The spinning I did between heavy tasks — to rest myself.” She hesitated and seemed to search for words. “There is dignity in spinning,” she added.
She looked down at her hands wonderingly, as though astonished that they should have had part in fashioning the hanks of linen yarn which John Gilroy the weaver held so lightly on one arm.
“I would like to look inside your house, to see whether it pleases me,” mewed the blue kitten to the weaver.
But no one paid the slightest attention. Instead, the younger woman with the far-off look in her eyes broke in suddenly:
“The fields were so lovely. Blue and then gold. Is it not a strange thing that the thread is so white? I made up a song about it to hum at my spinning.
“Here I am spinning, spinning,
White yarn my fingers yield,
Though all the while I’m spinning, spinning,
Blue flowers in a golden field.”
“You bleached the flax well,” praised the weaver.
“One does not throw away lightly the work of a year,” said the first woman.
“Nor the beauty,” added the second.
“But why,” questioned the weaver, “have you come to me? You must know that I weave woolen yarn only, and spend most of my time working for Arunah Hyde. He pays very well.”
“You are the best weaver in Castle Town,” said the first woman. “And we want only the best.”
“Besides,” added the second, “you come from Ireland. All Irish weavers can weave linen yarn. Make Arunah wait.”
“Aye,” agreed the first, more sharply. “Make him wait.”
“Wait? Arunah?” The weaver looked astonished.
“We have worked hard,” reminded the first woman.
“We want to remember this year forever,” said the second, very gently.
By this time the blue kitten, who felt he was doing the waiting, began purring the song of the river. After all, he had listened long enough.
“Were the fields very blue?” asked the weaver, not paying any attention to the purring at his feet.
“Blue? As the sea itself! And golden as the sands!” said the second woman. She began to hum her weaving song once more, only this time she said, “Blue sea and golden sands.”
“Then it is fitting that the thread be as it is, as white as the surf,” said the weaver. “The surf is the thread of the sea. Now, what do you want me to weave for you?”
“Tablecloths.” The two women spoke together. And the first added, “Neither of us has ever had a white cloth, and a white cloth on the table does something to a house.”
“There is a holiness about it — such as one feels in a church at communion time.” The second nodded.
By this time the kitten was halfway through the river’s song. And in the silence which followed, the purr could be heard plainly.
“Riches will pass and power. Beauty remains.
Sing your own song.”
Now that the kitten saw John Gilroy was really listening, he took full advantage.
“Out of yesterday song comes, it goes into tomorrow.”
“Long ago in Ireland, I planned …” began the weaver.
“So, it is agreed.” The second woman said nothing, but thrust her hanks of yarn on the man’s other arm, which came up to receive the light burden.
Then the women turned and, with a rustle of skirts and petticoats, hurried out to the chaise by the roadside where an old brown mare had been waiting patiently. The older woman climbed in after the younger, gathered up the reins, and chirped with her lips. At the sound the old brown mare started off. The sound of the hoofs of the mare plodding along the dirt road and the creaking of the off hind wheel kept perfect time to the purring of the blue kitten, still sitting under the sign of the weaver and playing with a skein of linen yarn which brushed his nose.
“With your life fashion beauty.”
“Well, I might as well — for once, pusskins,�
� said John Gilroy, lifting the yarn out of the kitten’s reach. “You have a nice purr. Come in and make yourself comfortable.”
It was as easy as that. When your bones tell you that you are a superior creature you should trust them.
The kitten breakfasted, amply if not richly, on some crumbled johnny cake and bacon grease. And all the while the weaver stood stroking the linen yarn.
“’Tis as fine as the silk I handled in Cathay, pusskins.”
The kitten reached up and pricked the man’s knee gently with his claw to show that he understood.
The weaver put the yarn down and took up the kitten instead. “I think I shall put into the tablecloth a certain pagoda I remember.”
The kitten began to purr.
“Riches will pass and power. Beauty remains.”
The weaver stroked the purring kitten’s head. “Well, you are right, pusskins. The pagoda has probably been scattered to the four winds of heaven, and the ship on which I journeyed from Ireland to Cathay is lying on the corals, with mermaids sleeping in its berths and swimming in and out the portholes. And yet I have both ship and pagoda still. I can weave them into the tablecloths and keep them forever. And the women will be pleased. They are unusual women, pusskins. I think they were born with beauty and peace and content in their hearts.
“Come, let us go for a walk.”
That was better. The kitten was not interested in hearing about women.
“I am to weave their tablecloths, pusskins,” said the weaver as they went out the door, “so I must picture some of the things they have known and loved all their lives.”
That morning John Gilroy made many drawings in Castle Town, and the kitten listened as the man worked. He waved his tail appreciatively back and forth.
The Blue Cat of Castle Town Page 3