“Whose house is it, Uncle George?” said Jusy.
“Why, did you not hear?” replied Mr. Connor. “It is Connorloa.”
The children looked still more puzzled.
“Oh,” laughed their uncle. “Is it possible nobody has told you the name of my house? I have called it Connorloa, from my own name, and ‘loa,’ which is the word in the Sandwich Islands for ‘hill.’ I suppose I might have called it Connor Hill, but I thought ‘loa’ was prettier.”
“Oh, so do I,” said Jusy. “It is lovely. Connorloa, Connorloa,” he repeated. “Doesn’t it sound like some of the names in Italy, Rea?” he said.
“Prettier!” said little Rea. “No word in Italy, so pretty as Connorloa; nor so nice as Uncle George.”
“You dear, loving little thing!” cried Uncle George, throwing his arms around her. “You are for all the world your mother over again.”
“That’s just what I’ve been saying to myself all the way home, Mr. George,” said Jim. “It’s seemed to me half the time as if it were Miss Julia herself; but the boy is not much like you.”
“No,” said Jusy proudly, throwing back his handsome head, and his eyes flashing. “I am always said to be exactly the portrait of my father; and when I am a man, I am going back to Italy to live in the King’s palace, and wear my father’s sword.”
“I shan’t go,” said Rea, nestling close to her uncle. “I shall stay in Connorloa with Uncle George. I hate palaces. Your house isn’t a palace, is it, Uncle George? It looks pretty big.”
“No, my dear; not by any means,” replied Mr. Connor, laughing heartily. “But why do you hate palaces, my little Rea? Most people think it would be the finest thing possible to live in a palace.”
“I don’t,” said Rea. “I just hate them; the rooms are so big and so cold; and the marble floors are so slip-py, I’ve had my knees all black and blue tumbling down on them; and the stairs are worse yet; I used to have to creep on them; and there is a soldier at every corner with a gun and a sword to kill you, if you break any of the rules. I think a palace is just like a prison!”
“Well done, my little Republican!” cried Uncle George.
“What is that?” said Rea.
“I know,” said Jusy. “It is a person that does not wish to have any king. There were Republicans in Italy; very bad men. Papa said they ought to be killed. Why do you call Rea by that name, Uncle George?” and Jusy straightened himself up like a soldier, and looked fierce.
Mr. Connor could hardly keep his face straight as he replied to Jusy: “My dear boy the word does not mean anything bad in America; we are all Republicans here. You know we do not have any king. We do not think that is the best way to take care of a country.”
“My papa thought it was the best way,” haughtily answered Jusy. “I shall think always as papa did.”
“All right, my man,” laughed Uncle George. “Perhaps you will. You can think and say what you like while you live in America, and nobody will put you in prison for your thoughts or your words, as they might if you lived in Italy.”
It was near night when they reached the house. As they drove slowly up the long hill, the Chinamen were just going, on the same road, to their supper. When they heard the sound of the wheels, they stepped off the road, and formed themselves into a line to let the carriage pass, and to get a peep at the children. They all knew about their coming, and were curious to see them.
When Rea caught sight of them, she screamed aloud, and shook with terror, and hid her face on her uncle’s shoulder.
“Are those the savages?” she cried. “Oh, don’t let them kill Fairy;” and she nearly smothered the little dog, crowding her down out of sight on the seat between herself and her uncle.
Jusy did not say a word, but he turned pale; he also thought these must be the savages of which they had heard.
Mr. Connor could hardly speak for laughing. “Whoever put such an idea as that into your head?” he cried. “Those are men from China; those are my workmen; they live at Connorloa all the time. They are very good men; they would not hurt anybody. There are not any savages here.”
“Caterina said America was all full of savages,” sobbed Rea—“savages and wild beasts, such as lions and wolves.”
“That girl was a fool,” exclaimed Jim. “It was a good thing, Mr. George, you told me not to bring her over.”
“I should say so,” replied Mr. Connor. “The idea of her trying to frighten these children in that way. It was abominable.”
“She did nothing of the kind,” cried Jusy, his face very red. “She was talking to her cousin; and she thought we were asleep; and Rea and I listened; and I told Rea it was good enough for us to get so frightened because we had listened. But I did not believe it so much as Rea did.”
The Chinamen were all bowing and bending, and smiling in the gladness of their hearts. Mr. Connor was a good master to them; and they knew it would be to him great pleasure to have these little children in the house.
While driving by he spoke to several of them by name, and they replied. Jusy and Rea listened and looked.
“What are their heads made of, Uncle George?” whispered Rea. “Will they break if they hit them?”
At first, Mr. Connor could not understand what she meant; then in a moment he shouted with laughter.
Chinamen have their heads shorn of all hair, except one little lock at the top; this is braided in a tight braid, like a whiplash, and hangs down their backs, sometimes almost to the very ground. The longer this queer little braid is, the prouder the Chinaman feels. All the rest of his head is bare and shining smooth. They looked to Rea like the heads of porcelain baby dolls she had had; and that those would break, she knew by sad experience.
How pleased Rea and Jusy were with their beautiful rooms, and with everything in their Uncle George’s house, there are no words to tell. They would have been very unreasonable and ungrateful children, if they had not been; for Mr. Connor had not forgotten one thing which could add to their comfort or happiness: books, toys, everything he could think of, or anybody could suggest to him, he had bought. And when he led little Rea into her bedroom, there stood a sweet-faced young Mexican girl, to be her nurse.
“Anita,” he said, “here is your young lady.”
“I am very glad to see you, señorita,” said the girl, coming forward to take off Rea’s hat; on which Rea exclaimed—
“Why, she is Italian! That is what Caterina called me. And Caterina had a sister whose name was Anita. How did you get over here?”
“I was born here, señorita,” replied the girl.
“It is not quite the same word, Rea,” said Mr. Connor, “though it sounds so much like it. It was ‘signorita’ you were called in Italy; and it is ‘señorita’ that Anita here calls you. That is Spanish; and Anita speaks much more Spanish than English. That is one reason I took her. I want you to learn to speak in Spanish.”
“Then we shall speak four languages,” said Jusy proudly—“Italian, French, and English, and Spanish. Our papa spoke eleven. That was one reason he was so useful to the King. Nobody could come from any foreign country that papa could not talk to. My papa said the more languages a man spoke, the more he could do in the world. I shall learn all the American languages before I go back to Italy. Are there as many as nine, Uncle George?”
“Yes, a good many more,” replied Uncle George. “Pretty nearly a language for every State, I should say. But the fewer you learn of them the better. If you will speak good English and Spanish, that is all you will need here.”
“Shall we not learn the language of the signors from China?” asked Rea.
At which Jim, who had followed, and was standing in the background, looking on with delight, almost went into convulsions of laughter, and went out and told the Chinamen in the kitchen that Miss Rea wished to learn to speak Chinese at once. So they thought she must be a very nice little girl, and were all ready to be her warm friends.
The next morning, as Rea was dressing, she hea
rd a great caterwauling and miaowing. Fairy, who was asleep on the foot of her bed, sprang up and began to bark furiously; all the while, however, looking as if she were frightened half to death. Never before had Fairy heard so many cats’ voices at once.
Rea ran to the open window; before she reached it, she heard Jusy calling to her from below—
“Rea! Rea! Are you up? Come out and see the cats.”
Jusy had been up ever since light, roaming over the whole place: the stables, the Chinamen’s quarters, the tool-house, the kitchen, the woodpile; there was nothing he had not seen; and he was in a state of such delight he could not walk straight or steadily; he went on the run and with a hop, skip, and jump from each thing to the next.
“Hurry, Rea!” he screamed. “Do hurry. Never mind your hair. Come down. They’ll be done!”
Still the miaowing and caterwauling continued.
“Oh, hurry, hurry, Anita,” said Rea. “Please let me go down; I’ll come up to have my hair done afterwards. What is it, Anita? Is it really cats? Are there a thousand?”
Anita laughed. “No, señorita,” she said. “Only seventeen! And you will see them every morning just the same. They always make this noise. They are being fed; and there is only a very little meat for so many. Jim keeps them hungry all the time, so they will hunt better.”
“Hunt!” cried Rea.
“Yes,” said Anita. “That is what we keep them for, to hunt the gophers and rabbits and moles. They are clearing them out fast. Jim says by another spring there won’t be a gopher on the place.”
Before she had finished speaking, Rea was downstairs and out on the east veranda. At the kitchen door stood a Chinaman, throwing bits of meat to the scrambling seventeen cats—black, white, tortoise-shell, gray, Maltese, yellow, every color, size, shape of cat that was ever seen. And they were plunging and leaping and racing about so, that it looked like twice as many cats as there really were, and as if every cat had a dozen tails. “Sfz! Sfz! Sputter! Scratch, spp, spt! Growl, growl, miaow, miaow,” they went, till, between the noise and the flying around, it was a bedlam.
Jusy had laughed till the tears ran out of his eyes; and Ah Foo (that was the Chinaman’s name) was laughing almost as hard, just to see Jusy laugh. The cats were an old story to Ah Foo; he had got over laughing at them long ago.
Ah Foo was the cook’s brother. While Jim had been away, Ah Foo had waited at table, and done all the housework except the cooking. The cook’s name was Wang Hi. He was old; but Ah Foo was young, not more than twenty. He did not like to work in the house, and he was glad Jim had got home, so he could go to working out of doors again. He was very glad, too, to see the children; and he had spoken so pleasantly to Jusy, that in one minute Jusy had lost all his fear of Chinamen.
When Rea saw Ah Foo, she hung back, and was afraid to go nearer.
“Oh, come on! come on!” shouted Jusy. “Don’t be afraid! He is just like Jim, only a different color. They have men of all kinds of colors here in America. They are just like other people, all but the color. Come on, Rea. Don’t be silly. You can’t half see from there!”
But Rea was afraid. She would not come farther than the last pillar of the veranda. “I can see very well here,” she said; and there she stood clinging to the pillar. She was half afraid of the cats, too, besides being very much afraid of the Chinaman.
The cats’ breakfast was nearly over. In fact, they had had their usual allowance before Rea came down; but Ah Foo had gone on throwing out meat for Rea to see the scrambling. Presently he threw the last piece, and set the empty plate up on a shelf by the kitchen door. The cats knew very well by this sign that breakfast was over; after the plate was set on that shelf, they never had a mouthful more of meat; and it was droll to see the change that came over all of them as soon as they saw this done. In less than a second, they changed from fierce, fighting, clawing, scratching, snatching, miaowing, spitting, growling cats, into quiet, peaceful cats, some sitting down licking their paws, or washing their faces, and some lying out full-length on the ground and rolling; some walking off in a leisurely and dignified manner, as if they had had all they wanted, and wouldn’t thank anybody for another bit of meat, if they could have it as well as not. This was almost as funny as the first part of it.
After Ah Foo had set the plate in its place on the shelf, he turned to go into the kitchen to help about the breakfast; but just as he had put his hand on the door-handle, there came a terrible shriek from Rea, a fierce sputter from one of the cats, and a faint bark of a dog, all at once; and Ah Foo, looking around, sprang just in time to rescue Fairy from the jaws of Skipper, one of the biggest and fiercest of the cats.
Poor little Fairy, missing her mistress, had trotted downstairs; and smelling on the floor wherever Rea had set her feet, had followed her tracks, and had reached the veranda just in time to be spied by Skipper, who arched his back, set his tail up straight and stiff as a poker, and, making one bound from the ground to the middle of the veranda floor, clutched Fairy with teeth and claws, and would have made an end of her in less than one minute if Ah Foo had not been there. But Ah Foo could move almost as quickly as a cat; and it was not a quarter of a second after Fairy gave her piteous cry, when she was safe and sound in her mistress’s arms, and Ah Foo had Skipper by the scruff of his neck, and was holding him high up, boxing his ears, right and left, with blows so hard they rang.
“Cat heap wicked,” he said. “You killee missy’s dog, I killee you!” and he flung Skipper with all his might and main through the air.
Rea screamed, “Oh, don’t!” She did not want to see the cat killed, even if he had flown at Fairy. “It will kill him,” she cried.
Ah Foo laughed. “Heap hard killee cat,” he said. “Cat get nine time life good;” and as he spoke, Skipper, after whirling through the air in several somersaults, came down on his feet all right, and slunk off into the woodpile.
“I tellee you,” said Ah Foo, chuckling.
“Thatee isee heapee goodee manee,” cried Jusy. “I havee learnee talkee oneee language already!”
A roar of laughter came from the dining-room window. There stood Uncle George, holding his sides.
“Bravo, Jusy!” he exclaimed. “You have begun on pidgin English, have you, for the first of your nine languages?”
“Isn’t that Chinese?” said Jusy, much crestfallen.
“Oh, no!” said Uncle George, “not by any manner of means. It is only the Chinese way of talking English. It is called pidgin English. But come in to breakfast now, and I will tell you all about my cats—my hunting cats, I call them. They are just as good as a pack of hunting dogs; and better, for they do not need anybody to go with them.”
How pleasant the breakfast-table looked!—a large square table set with gay china, pretty flowers in the middle, nice broiled chicken and fried potatoes, and baked apples and cream; and Jusy’s and Rea’s bright faces, one on Mr. Connor’s left hand, the other on his right.
As Jim moved about the table and waited on them, he thought to himself, “Now, if this doesn’t make Mr. George well, it will be because he can’t be cured.”
Jim had found the big house so lonely, with nobody in it except Mr. Connor and the two Chinese servants, he would have been glad to see almost anything in the shape of a human being—man, woman, or child—come there to live. How much more, then, these two beautiful and merry children!
Jusy and Rea thought they had never in all their lives tasted anything so good as the broiled chicken and the baked apples.
“Heapee goodee cookee, Uncle George!” said Jusy. He was so tickled with the Chinaman’s way of talking, he wanted to keep doing it.
“Tooee muchee putee onee letter e, Master Jusy,” said Uncle George. “After you have listened to their talk a little longer, you will see that they do not add the ‘ee’ to every word. It is hard to imitate them exactly.”
Jusy was crestfallen. He thought he had learned a new language in half an hour, and he was proud of it. But no new language was ev
er learned without more trouble and hard work than that; not even pidgin English!
III.
It had come about by chance, Mr. Connor’s keeping this pack of hunting cats. He had been greatly troubled by gophers and rabbits: the gophers killed his trees by gnawing their roots; the rabbits burrowed under his vines, ate the tender young leaves, and gnawed the stems.
Jim had tried every device—traps of all kinds and all the poisons he could hear of. He had also tried drowning the poor little gophers out by pouring water down their holes. But, spite of all he could do, the whole hill was alive with them. It had been wild ground so long, and covered so thick with bushes, that it had been like a nice house built on purpose for all small wild animals to live in.
I suppose there must have been miles of gophers’ underground tunnels, leading from hole to hole. They popped their heads up, and you saw them scampering away wherever you went; and in the early morning it was very funny to see the rabbits jumping and leaping to get off out of sight when they heard people stirring. They were of a beautiful gray color, with a short bushy tail, white at the end. On account of this white tip to their tails, they are called “cotton-tails.”
When Mr. Connor first moved up on the hill, Jim used to shoot a cottontail almost every day, and some days he shot two. The rabbits, however, are shyer than the gophers; when they find out that they get shot as soon as they are seen, and that these men who shoot them have built houses and mean to stay, they will gradually desert their burrows and move away to new homes.
But the gopher is not so afraid. He lives down in the ground, and can work in the dark as well as in the light; and he likes roots just as well as he likes the stems above ground; so as long as he stays in his cellar houses, he is hard to reach.
The gopher is a pretty little creature, with a striped back—almost as pretty as a chipmunk. It seems a great pity to have to kill them all off; but there is no help for it; fruit-trees and gophers cannot live in the same place.
Soon after Mr. Connor moved into his new house, he had a present of a big cat from the Mexican woman who sold him milk.
The Second Cat Megapack: Frisky Feline Tales, Old and New Page 18