Now that he had once begun the making of his house, he could hardly wait for it to be done; and he was never happy except when he was overseeing the men, hurrying them and working himself. Many a tough old bush he chopped down with his own hands, and tugged the root up; and he grew stronger every day. This was a kind of medicine he had not tried before.
A great part of the bushes were “manzanita.” The roots and lower stems of this shrub are bright red, and twisted almost into knots. They make capital firewood; so Mr. Connor had them all piled up in a pile to keep to burn in his big fireplaces; and you would have laughed to see such a woodpile. It was almost as high as the house; and no two sticks alike—all prongs and horns, and crooks and twists; they looked like monster’s back teeth.
At last the house was done. It was a big, old-fashioned, square house, with a wide hall running through the middle; on the east side were the library and dining-room; on the west, the parlor and a big billiard-room; upstairs were four large bedrooms; at the back of the house, a kitchen. No servants were to sleep in the house. Mr. Connor would have only Chinamen for servants; and they would sleep, with the rest of his Chinamen laborers, in what he called the Chinese quarter—a long, low wooden building still farther up on the hill. Only Jim was to sleep in the house with Mr. Connor.
The Chinese quarter was a very comfortable house; and was presided over by a fat old Chinaman, who had such a long queue that Jim called him “Long Tail.” His name was See Whong Choo, which, Jim said, was entirely too long to pronounce. There were twenty Chinamen on the place; and a funny sight it was to see them all file out of a morning to their work, everyone with what looked like a great dinner-plate upside down on his head for a hat, and his long, black hair braided in a queue, not much bigger than a rat tail, hanging down his back.
People in California are so used to seeing Chinamen, that they do not realize how droll they look to persons not accustomed to the sight.
Their yellow skins, their funny little black eyes, set so slanting in their heads that you can’t tell half the time whether they are looking straight at you or not, their shiny shaved heads and pig-tails, are all very queer. And when you first hear them talking together in their own tongue, you think it must be cats trying to learn English; it is a mixture of caterwaul and parrot, more disagreeable in sound than any language I ever heard.
About a year after Mr. Connor had moved into his new house, he got a letter, one night, which made him very unhappy. It told him that his sister and her husband were dead; they had died, both of them in one week, of a dreadful fever. Their two children had had the fever at the same time, but they were getting well; and now, as there was nobody in Italy to take care of them, the letter asked what should be done with them. Would Mr. Connor come out himself, or would he send someone? The Count and his wife had been only a few days ill, and the fever had made them delirious from the first, so that no directions had been given to anyone about the children; and there the two poor little things were, all alone with their nurse in their apartment in the King’s palace. They had had to live in the palace always, so that the Count could be ready to attend on the King whenever he was wanted.
Giuseppe and Maria (those were their names) never liked living there. The palace was much too grand, with its marble staircases, and marble floored rooms, so huge and cold; and armed soldiers for sentinels, standing at the corners and doors, to keep people from going into rooms without permission, and to keep watch also, lest somebody should get in and kill the King. The King was always afraid of being killed; there were so many unhappy and discontented persons in Italy, who did not want him to be King. Just think how frightful it must be to know every day—morning, noon, and night—that there was danger of somebody’s coming stealthily into your room to kill you! Who would be a king? It used to make the children afraid whenever they passed these tall soldiers in armor, in the halls. They would hold tight to each other’s hands, and run as fast as they could, past them; and when they got out in the open air, they were glad; most of all when their nurse took them into the country, where they could run on the grass and pick flowers. There they used often to see poor little hovels of houses, with gardens, and a donkey and chickens in the yard, and children playing; and they used to say they wished their father and mother were poor, and lived in a house like that, and kept a donkey. And then the nurse would tell them they were silly children; that it was a fine thing to live in a palace, and have their father one of the King’s officers, and their mother one of the most beautiful of the Queen’s ladies; but you couldn’t have made the children believe it. They hated the palace, and everything about it, more and more every day of their lives.
Giuseppe was ten, and Maria was seven. They were never called by their real names: Giuseppe was called Jusy, and Maria was called Rea; Jusy and Rea, nobody would ever have guessed from that, what their real names were. Maria is pronounced Mahrea in Italy; so that was the way she came to be called Rea for shortness. Jusy gave himself his nickname when he was a baby, and it had always stuck to him ever since.
It was enough to make anybody’s heart ache to see these two poor little things, when they first got strong enough to totter about after this fever; so weak they felt, they could hardly stand; and they cried more than half the time, thinking about their papa and mamma, dead and buried without their even being able to kiss them once for good-by. The King himself felt so sorry for the little orphans, he came to speak to them; and the kind Queen came almost every day, and sent them beautiful toys, and good things to eat; but nothing comforted the children.
“What do you suppose will become of us, Jusy?” Rea often said; and Jusy would reply—
“I don’t know, Rea. As soon as I’m a man, I can take care of you and myself too, easy enough; and that won’t be a great while. I shall ask the King to let me be one of his officers like papa.”
“Oh, no! no! Jusy,” Rea would reply. “Don’t! Don’t let’s live in this horrid palace. Ask him to give you a little house in the country, with a donkey; and I will cook the dinner. Caterina will teach me how.”
Caterina was their nurse.
“But there wouldn’t be any money to pay Caterina,” Jusy would say.
“The King might give us enough for that, Jusy. He is so kind. I’m sure he would, don’t you think so?” was Rea’s answer to this difficulty.
“No,” said Jusy, “I don’t think he would, unless I earned it. Papa had to work for all the money he had.”
It was a glad day for the children when the news came that their uncle in America was going to send for them to come and live with him; and that in three weeks the man who was to take them there would arrive. This news came over by telegraph, on that wonderful telegraph wire, down at the bottom of the ocean. Their kind Uncle George thought he would not leave the children uncheered in their suspense and loneliness one minute longer than he could help; so he sent the message by telegraph; and the very day after this telegraphic message went, Jim set out for Italy.
Jim had traveled so much with Mr. Connor that he was just the best possible person to take charge of the children on their long journey. He knew how to manage everything; and he could speak Italian and French and German well enough to say all that was necessary in places where no English was spoken. Moreover, Jim had been a servant in Mr. Connor’s father’s house all his life; had taken care of Mr. Connor and his sister when they were a little boy and girl together, just as Jusy and Rea were now. He always called Mr. Connor “Mr. George,” and his sister “Miss Julia;” and when he set out to go for the children he felt almost as if he were going to the help and rescue of his own grandchildren.
Jusy and Rea did not feel that they were going to a stranger; for they had heard about their Uncle George ever since they could remember; and all about “Jim” too. Almost every year Mr. Connor used to send his sister a new picture of himself; so the children knew very well how he looked.
When the news came that they were to go to America and live with him, they got out a
ll of these pictures they could find, and ranged them in a line on the mantelpiece in their parlor. There was a picture of Jim too, as black as charcoal. At first, Rea had been afraid of this; but Jusy thought it was splendid. Every morning the lonely little creatures used to stand in front of this line of pictures and say, “Good-morning, Uncle George! Good-morning to you, Mr. Black Man! How soon will you get here? We shall be very glad to see you.”
It was over a month before he arrived. The children had been told that he might be there in three weeks from the day the dispatch came; and as soon as the three weeks were ended, they began almost to hold their breaths listening for him; they were hardly willing to stir out of the palace for a walk, for fear he might come while they were away. Rea watched at the windows, and Jusy watched at the doorway which led into the corridor.
“He might be afraid of the sentinel at the corner there,” he said. “Caterina says there are no palaces in America.”
“Goody!” interrupted Rea, “I’m so glad.”
“And so perhaps he has never seen a man in armor like that; and I’d better be at the door to run and meet him.”
All their clothes were packed ready for the journey; and all the things which had belonged to their mamma were packed up too, to go with them. The huge rooms looked drearier than ever. The new chamberlain’s wife was impatient to get settled in the apartment herself, and kept coming to look at it, and discussing, in the children’s presence, where she would put this or that piece of furniture, and how she would have her pictures hung.
“I think she is a very rude lady,” said Jusy. “The Queen said these were our rooms so long as we stayed, just the same as if mamma were here with us; and I think I see her coming in here that way if mamma was here!”
II.
After all their precautions, Jusy and Rea were out when Jim arrived. They had been to take a walk with Caterina; and when they came back, as they passed the big sentinel at the outside gate, he nodded to them pleasantly, and said—
“He has come!—the black signor from America.” (“Signor” is Italian for “Mr.”)
You see everybody in the palace, from the King down to the scullions in the kitchen, was interested in the two fatherless and motherless children, and glad to hear that Jim had arrived.
The very next day they set off. Jim was impatient to be back in California again; there was nothing to wait for. Caterina was greatly relieved to find that he did not wish her to go with him. The Queen had said she must go, if the black signor wished it; and Caterina was wretched with fright at the thought of the journey, and of the country full of wild beasts and savages. “Worse than Africa, a hundred times,” she said, “from all I can hear. But her Majesty says I must go, if I am needed. I’d rather die, but I see no way out of it.”
When it came to bidding Rea good-by, however, she was almost ready to beg to be allowed to go. The child cried and clung to her neck; and Caterina cried and sobbed too.
But the wise Jim had provided himself with a powerful helper. He had bought a little white spaniel, the tiniest creature that ever ran on four legs; she was no more than a doll, in Rea’s arms; her hair was like white silk floss. She had a blue satin collar with a gilt clasp and padlock; and on the padlock, in raised letters, was the name “Fairy.” Jim had thought of this in New York, and bought the collar and padlock there; and the dog he had bought only one hour before they were to set out on their journey. She was in a beautiful little flannel-lined basket; and when Rea clung to Caterina’s neck crying and sobbing, Jim stepped up to her and said—
“Don’t cry, missy; here’s your little dog to take care of; she’ll be scared if she sees you cry.”
“Mine! Mine! That sweet doggie!” cried Rea. She could not believe her eyes. She stopped crying; and she hardly noticed when the Queen herself kissed her in farewell, so absorbed was she in “Fairy” and the blue satin collar. “Oh, you are a very good black man, Signor Jim,” she cried. “I never saw such a sweet doggie; I shall carry her in my own arms all the way there.”
It was a hard journey; but the children enjoyed every minute of it. The account of all they did and saw, and the good times they had with the kind Jim, would make a long story by itself; but if I told it, we should never get to the Hunter Cats; so I will not tell you anything about the journey at all except that it took about six weeks, and that they reached San Gabriel in the month of March, when everything was green and beautiful, and the country as full of wild flowers as the children had ever seen the country about Florence in Italy.
Mr. Connor had not been idle while Jim was away. After walking up and down his house, with his thinking-cap on, for a few days, looking into the rooms, and trying to contrive how it should be rearranged to accommodate his new and unexpected family, he suddenly decided to build on a small wing to the house. He might as well arrange it in the outset as it would be pleasantest to have it when Jusy and Rea were a young gentleman and a young lady, he thought. What might do for them very well now, while they were little children, would not do at all when they were grown up.
So, as I told you, Mr. Connor being a gentleman who never lost any time in doing a thing he had once made up his mind to, set carpenters at work immediately tearing out half of one side of his new house; and in little over a month, there was almost another little house joined on to it. There was a good big room for Rea’s bedroom, and a small room opening out of it, for her sitting-room; beyond this another room in which her nurse could sleep, while she needed one, and after she grew older, the governess who must come to teach her; and after she did not need any governess, the room would be a pleasant thing to have for her young friends who came to visit her. This kind uncle was planning for a good many years ahead, in this wing to his house.
These rooms for Rea were in the second story. Beneath them were two large rooms, one for Jusy, and one for Jim. A pretty stairway, with a lattice-work wall, went up outside to Rea’s room, and at the door of her room spread out into a sort of loggia, or upstairs piazza, such as Mr. Connor knew she had been used to in Italy. In another year this stairway and loggia would be a bower of all sorts of vines, things grow so fast in California.
And now we are really coming to the Cats. They had arrived before the children did.
When the children got out of the cars at San Gabriel, there stood their Uncle George on the platform waiting for them. Jusy spied him first. “There’s Uncle George,” he shouted, and ran towards him shouting, “Uncle George! Uncle George! Here we are.”
Rea followed close behind, holding up Fairy. “Look at my doggie that Signor black Jim gave me,” she cried, holding Fairy up as high as she could reach; and in the next minute she herself, doggie and all, was caught up in Uncle George’s arms.
“What makes you cry, Uncle George?” she exclaimed; “we thought you would be very glad to see us!”
“So I am, you dear child,” he said. “I am only crying because I am so glad.”
But Jusy knew better, and as soon as he could get a chance, he whispered to Rea, “I should have thought you would have known better than to say anything to Uncle George about his having tears in his eyes. It was because we reminded him so much of mamma, that he cried. I saw the tears come in his eyes, the first minute he saw us, but I wasn’t going to say a word about it.”
Poor little Rea felt badly enough to think she had not understood as quickly as Jusy did; but the only thing she could think of to do was to spring up in the seat of the wagon, and put her arms around her uncle’s neck, and kiss him over and over, saying, “We are going to love you, like—oh—like everything, Jusy and me! I love you better than my doggie!”
But when she said this, the tears came into Mr. Connor’s eyes again; and Rea looked at Jusy in despair.
“Keep quiet, Rea,” whispered Jusy. “He doesn’t want us to talk just yet, I guess;” and Rea sat down again, and tried to comfort herself with Fairy. But she could not keep her eyes from watching her uncle’s face. Her affectionate heart was grieved to see him loo
k so sad, instead of full of joy and gladness as she had thought it would be. Finally she stole her hand into his and sat very still without speaking, and that really did comfort Mr. Connor more than anything she could have done. The truth was, Rea looked so much like her mother, that it was almost more than Mr. Connor could bear when he first saw her; and her voice also was like her mother’s.
Jusy did not in the least resemble his mother; he was like his father in every way—hair as black as black could be, and eyes almost as black as the hair; a fiery, flashing sort of face Jusy had; and a fiery, flashing sort of temper too, I am sorry to say. A good deal like thunderstorms, Jusy’s fits of anger were; but, if they were swift and loud, like the thunder, they also were short-lived—cleared off quickly—like thunderstorms, and showed blue sky afterward, and a beautiful rainbow of sorrow for the hasty words or deeds.
Rea was fair, with blue eyes and yellow hair, and a temper sunny as her face. In Italy there are so few people with blue eyes and fair hair, that whenever Rea was seen in the street, everybody turned to look at her, and asked who she was, and remembered her; and when she came again, they said, “Ecco! Ecco! (That is Italian for Look! Look!) There is the little blue-eyed, golden-haired angel.” Rea did not know that the people said this, which was well, for it might have made her vain.
It was six miles from the railway station to Mr. Connor’s house. But the house was in sight all the way; it was so high up on the mountain-side that it showed plainly, and as it was painted white, you could see it in all directions like a lighthouse. Mr. Connor liked to be able to see it from all places when he was riding about the valley. He said it looked friendly to him; as if it said, all the time, “Here I am, you can come home any minute you want to.”
After they had driven about half way, Mr. Connor said—
“Children, do you see that big square house up there on the mountain? That is Connorloa.”
The Second Cat Megapack: Frisky Feline Tales, Old and New Page 17