Gobbolino the Witch's Cat

by Ursula Moray Williams

  In the middle of all this the farmer himself came in to tea. He kissed the children all round, but when he saw Gobbolino at his tricks he suddenly became very grave, and soon shooed them all off to bed in a hurry, while the little cat curled himself up in a wooden box under the kitchen table that the farmer’s wife herself had provided for him there.

  “What a lucky cat I am,” he said, as he tucked away his three black paws and the white one and closed his beautiful blue eyes. “Now my troubles are over for ever and ever. I am Gobbolino the kitchen cat.”

  4

  Hobgoblin

  As little Gobbolino slept sweetly beneath the kitchen table the voices of the farmer and his wife mingled with his dreams.

  “Where did that kitten come from, mother?”

  “The children found it swimming in the millrace, father.”

  “Kittens don’t swim, mother.”

  “The children said it was swimming for its life.”

  “It seems strange to me, mother, that a kitten should find itself in the millrace unless somebody tried to drown it.”

  “It fell in catching fishes, it said. It came from the cavern on the hill.”

  “Ah!” said the farmer, and he was silent for a long while.

  “Did you see the tricks it was after when I came in?” he asked presently.

  “I heard the children laughing, from the cowshed,” said the farmer’s wife. “It was playing with a cotton reel.”

  “It was playing stranger tricks than that,” said the farmer. “Sparks in its ears, sparks in its eyes, vanishing, popping out of cuckoo clocks – that’s no way for a kitten to behave, mother.”

  “The sparks came out of the fire, and the children put it in the cuckoo clock,” said the farmer’s wife.

  The farmer was silent again for several minutes.

  “It’s a strange-looking kitten, mother,” he said at last.

  “The children are very fond of it,” replied the farmer’s wife.

  The farmer said no more about it, and soon enough they went to bed, while Gobbolino slept and purred and dreamed and the sparks died out of the fire, and a hobgoblin tapped at the windowpane.

  Tap! Tap! Tap! Tap! Tap!

  Now every kitchen cat knows that when a tap comes on the window after dark no notice should be taken of it at all. If it is a stranger looking for shelter, sooner or later he will wake the farmer up, but the kitchen cat goes on sleeping under the table. It has nothing to do with him.

  But little Gobbolino, who had never been a kitchen cat before, sat up immediately with his ears a-prick and whispered:

  “Who goes there?”

  Tap! Tap! Tap! Tap! Tap!

  The hobgoblin peeped in through the window and winked at Gobbolino.

  He had a little brown face and a little brown cap, and he beckoned with a little brown finger, whispering:

  “Come and let me in, my little cat, now do!”

  Gobbolino sat and stared at him, saying nothing at all.

  “What a lovely kitchen you have, my little friend!” sighed the hobgoblin. “What bright dishes! What glittering pans! What a pretty cradle! What a nice warm hearth! Won’t you let me come in and warm my toes, my pretty one?”

  Gobbolino only sat and stared at him, saying nothing at all.

  The hobgoblin became very impatient, and rattled at the windowpane, saying:

  “You kitchen cats are all alike! All selfish! All self-satisfied! Look at you warming your toes in safety and comfort, and look at me, all lonely and lost in the cold outside!”

  When Gobbolino heard these words he did not hesitate any longer. He remembered how a short while ago he too had been lonely and lost, and might be still if the children had not brought him into the farm. When the hobgoblin called him a kitchen cat he remembered how lucky he was, and trotted straight across to open the window.

  “You may come in and warm your toes for a little while beside the fire,” he said.

  The hobgoblin slipped across the table and sat down on the hearth beside Gobbolino, leaving dirty wet footmarks all across the kitchen floor.

  “How is all your family?” he asked in a friendly manner, giving Gobbolino’s tail a friendly tweak.

  “My mother Grimalkin has gone away with my mistress the witch!” replied Gobbolino. “And my little sister Sootica is apprenticed to a hag in the Hurricane Mountains. I don’t know how any of them are.”

  “Oho!” said the hobgoblin with a gleam of mischief. “So you are a witch’s kitten?”

  “Oh, no!” said Gobbolino shaking his head, “I am no longer any witch’s cat. This afternoon I became a kitchen cat, and a kitchen cat I shall be for ever and ever.”

  “Ha! Ha! Ha!” laughed the hobgoblin, turning head over heels as if he thought Gobbolino was the greatest joke in the world. His somersault brought the farmer’s wife’s knitting off the chair, and in a moment it was tangled round the table legs, the pins were strewn over the floor, and the stitches running higgledy-piggledy after one another in greatest confusion.

  “Take care! Take care!” cried Gobbolino, but the hobgoblin made one bound into the dairy and slammed the door.

  Now every kitchen cat knows that no one may enter the dairy between sundown and sunrise, except the farmer’s wife, but Gobbolino had no idea of it.

  He trotted round and round the kitchen gathering up the wool and the knitting-pins, trying to set them straight again, but all in vain. When the hobgoblin bounced back from the dairy sucking his fingers, which were covered with cream, the tangle was as hopeless as ever, and there was nothing to do but put it back on the cradle just as it was.

  “Well, I’m off!” said the hobgoblin, jumping out of the window in one leap. “Maybe I’ll come back again and see you another night, maybe I won’t. Goodnight, my little witch’s kitten, and pleasant dreams to you!”

  Gobbolino felt very relieved when the hobgoblin was gone, and he had bolted the window fast behind him.

  “I have learned the first lesson of a kitchen cat,” he said. “I shall never open the window again.”

  He trotted back to his box beneath the kitchen table and slept the rest of the night without waking.

  Early in the morning when the farmer’s wife came down the stairs she found her knitting in a tangle and all the cream stolen from the dairy.

  Written across the stone floor in milky letters were the words:

  “Gobbolino is a witch’s cat!”

  5

  The Orphanage

  The farmer’s wife called her husband to come downstairs.

  “The cream has gone!” she said. “My knitting is in a tangle, and look what is written on the dairy floor!”

  “I told you so!” replied the farmer. “Kitchen cats don’t swim, and they don’t have blue and crimson sparks coming out of their whiskers. Kitchen cats don’t tangle knitting and steal the cream from the dairy. They don’t put strange writings on the floor! He’s a witch’s cat, and no good to anybody. I’m going to drown him directly!”

  But when Gobbolino heard his angry voice and saw him coming across the kitchen with long and angry strides, he was out of his box in one bound and out of the kitchen door, across the cobblestones, past the hayricks, and up the hill.

  “Oh! Oh! Oh!” sobbed Gobbolino when he had left the farm far behind him and came to the other side of the hill. “What an unlucky little cat I am! Why was I ever born a witch’s kitten? Why – oh, why?”

  He was sobbing so bitterly that at first he did not hear the sounds of sorrow that came from a tumbledown cottage beside the highway, but presently the noise of sobs and tears and lamentations became so loud that his own tears ceased, and he stopped to look in through the open door and see what could be the cause of such misery.

  The cottage was as wretched as any he had seen, while in the middle of it three little brothers were packing all their worldly goods into three red handkerchiefs, while a baby in a basket looked on and joined in their sorrow, which was very loud and miserable indeed.
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br />   When they caught sight of Gobbolino they stopped crying immediately and rushed to pick him up.

  The middle brother fell over the biggest brother, the smallest brother squeezed between their legs and brought them both down in a heap, while the baby tumbled out of its basket, and lay squalling in the middle of the floor, for he saw that he would never reach the kitten first, which made him very distressed indeed.

  “Oh, you dear, sweet, pretty little cat!” cried all the little brothers together. “What is your name and where do you come from? And what are you doing wandering along the highway all alone?”

  Gobbolino jumped lightly over their heads and tucked the baby back into his basket before he said sedately:

  “My name is Gobbolino, and I come from the farm down yonder. I am looking for a home where I can catch the mice and mind the children and sit by the fire for ever and ever.”

  “Oh, do stay with us!” begged the little brothers, and then they suddenly burst out crying again and sobbed:

  “Oh! Oh! But we haven’t got a home any longer! We are orphans, and the house is tumbling to pieces! We’ve got to go out into the world and find a new house and a new father and mother! Oh! Oh! Oh!”

  When Gobbolino found that the little brothers were in just such a plight as himself he took them all to his heart and tied up their little bootlaces and helped them pack their bundles one by one. Then he picked up the baby in the basket and led them out of the tumbledown cottage on to the king’s highway, where their tears soon dried as they chased butterflies and picked great bunches of kingcups that they gave to Gobbolino to carry for them.

  As they ran and skipped and hopped they talked about the happy home they meant to find, the kind father and mother, and the splendid house with large gardens and a beautiful nursery full of rocking-horses and a thousand different toys, with a golden cradle for the baby.

  “And of course there will be a place by the fire for you, dear, kind, good little Gobbolino!” they cried. “You must stay with us for ever and ever!”

  Gobbolino felt he would like nothing better than to stay with these happy-go-lucky children, but if he could first help them to find kind parents and a happy home he did not mind what became of himself.

  They were so young and innocent, he felt it was his duty to find a father and mother for them as soon as possible.

  They had walked for some miles, and all the little brothers were tired as well as hungry, when they came to some high iron gates set in a high stone wall. Written across the top of the gates in gilt letters was the word “ORPHANAGE”.

  When the little brothers read these words they clapped their hands with joy, while the baby in the basket crowed, and Gobbolino’s heart fluttered with pleasure at meeting such good fortune so quickly.

  “What a lucky cat I am!” he said, putting down the basket to ring the bell. “This is just the place I was looking for! Surely here they will feed these poor children and be kind to them, or who else will?”

  Before long a kind, rosy-faced woman in a white cap opened the door, raising her hands in astonishment at the sight of the three little brothers and the baby in the basket, who all began talking to her at once.

  “Oh, please, ma’am, we are four orphans and our house is tumbled down and we are looking for a kind home and a father and mother and a cradle for the baby and a place by the kitchen fire for Gobbolino our little cat!”

  “My goodness gracious!” exclaimed the rosy-faced porteress, trying to fold them all into her arms at once. “Come in and warm yourselves and eat a bowl of hot soup. Who will be kind to four orphans if it isn’t an orphanage? And who will turn out such a pretty little cat? Come in, come in, the sun is going down, and all children should be having their supper and going to bed.”

  The little brothers trotted into the orphanage behind her, while the porteress carried the baby in the basket and Gobbolino followed at their heels.

  Soon the little boys were seated at trestle tables with four and twenty other orphans, and when Gobbolino saw how hopefully they gobbled up their soup, how often they passed their plates for more, and how cheerfully they banged the heads of the other orphans with their wooden spoons, he trotted into the kitchen behind the porteress in great contentment and thankfully lapped up the saucer of bread and milk that she offered him there.

  “Such pretty boys!” said the porteress. “A father or mother would be proud to own them!”

  And she told Gobbolino that in a few days’ time the Lord Mayor and Mayoress were coming to the orphanage to choose an orphan to bring up as their own child. She felt quite sure that when they saw the little brothers and their pretty ways they would choose all three of them and the baby as well.

  “And as for you, my pretty Gobbolino, we need a cat in the kitchen to keep down the mice,” said the porteress. “You can stay here and help the cook and mind the orphans for as long as you please.”

  Gobbolino thanked her very gratefully, though he sighed a little at the thought of parting from the little brothers, of whom he had grown quite fond; but he liked to think of the kind home waiting for them, and of the father and mother who would care for them and bring them up as worthy citizens. It would suit him very well, he thought, to become an orphanage cat, and although the cook was very sour-faced and bad-tempered, the porteress was very kind.

  So he slept well enough on the piece of old carpet that the cook threw at him, and was up early in the morning watching at the mouseholes in the hope of showing what he was worth by the time the cook came downstairs.

  A witch’s kitten is always an excellent mouser.

  Gobbolino had only to turn himself into a piece of Stilton cheese and wait outside the mousehole.

  Presently, sniff-sniff-sniff! Scrabble-scrabble-scrabble! The mouse came down the wainscot sniffing with its pointed nose and twitching its greedy whiskers. It crept into the kitchen and looked about for the cook, but there was nobody there – only a tempting piece of Stilton cheese lying on the shiny red tiles.

  Sniff-sniff-sniff! The mouse crept closer and closer, and then all of a sudden Gobbolino was a cat again, and there was one thief the less in the kitchen – for the mice stole the orphans’ cake and ran all over the larder leaving dirty little footmarks on all the food, doing nearly as much damage as the hobgoblin.

  6

  Gruel

  Gobbolino had caught three mice by the time the cook came downstairs, but she would not look at him or give him a word of praise.

  She set about making gruel for the orphans’ breakfast. It was very thin and grey and unpleasant, and the orphans hated it. The porteress had told the cook to make them good porridge, but she never woke up herself until the tables were cleared. So the lazy cook made gruel day after day, and the porteress knew nothing whatever about it.

  When Gobbolino saw the unpleasant grey mixture that the cook was stirring in the cauldron he felt sorry for the orphans, and when her back was turned he put a spell into the gruel that filled it full of sugar-plums.

  No wonder their eyes shone with pleasure as their little bowls were filled, no wonder that they scraped them clean and shining so that the cook could hardly believe her eyes when the cauldron came back empty into the kitchen. She was accustomed to giving most of the gruel to the pigs.

  The next day Gobbolino put caramels into the gruel, and the orphans shouted for joy. He also caught five mice for the cook, but she never gave him a word of praise, although he made himself as useful as ten kitchen maids about the kitchen, wiping the dishes, peeling the potatoes, and polishing all the orphans’ little boots.

  The little brothers romped joyfully with the other orphans, playing at hide-and-seek, touch last, follow my leader, and other nursery games. The baby sat on the porteress’s lap and sucked its thumb. It gladdened Gobbolino’s heart to see them so contented and happy.

  When he crept into the nursery to see how they were doing the little brothers flew to clasp him round the neck.

  “Oh, our dear, our darling, our beautiful G
obbolino!” they shouted, while the baby crowed and kicked, but they had no time to make a fuss of him before the cook called him back to the kitchen. She said that the mice came out and jeered at her when he was out of the way.

  The next day all was bustle and confusion, for the Lord Mayor and his lady were coming on the morrow to choose an orphan to bring up as their own child, and everything in the orphanage was made ready to receive them.

  All the orphans’ best white frocks and shirts must be starched and ironed, their hair put in curlers, their nails cut, and their shoes polished; in the evening Gobbolino helped the cook and the porteress to bath them, every one, with many shouts and splashings and a great deal of water over the kitchen floor, which annoyed the cook very much indeed.

  The orphans that were being bathed by the cook tried to escape from her to Gobbolino:

  “Oh, dear, kind Gobbolino – do come and bath us! Oh, do!”

  When the little brothers fell into the bony hands of the cook they cried and screamed and made such a fuss that she boxed their ears in desperation and left the kitchen, to the great joy of all the orphans, who skipped about the floor in their little nightshirts crying “Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!” till even Gobbolino grew a little weary of them.

  In the morning the cook was still so angry that she put salt into the gruel instead of sugar, and all the sugar-plums in the world could not hide the taste of it, so Gobbolino made another spell and turned it into chocolate sauce.

  No wonder that the orphans’ eyes grew round with wonder and delight as they sat round the table in their clean white frocks and shirts, covered with clean white bibs, all ready for the Lord Mayor’s visit. No wonder that they polished all their little bowls until not a scrap was left, and then dug their wooden spoons into the cauldron and polished that too till it gleamed and shone, and Gobbolino, watching from the doorway, purred with joy to see them all so happy.