The Sixth Night
“Can I go to Cat-Land, Impty dear?” asked Dolly, sitting up eagerly, as soon as the black kitten jumped on the bed.
“No, you can’t,” Impty answered. “I’m awfully sorry, but my grandfather says that unless you can change into a cat you can’t go; and people can’t change into cats, nor cats into people, nowadays. I can’t imagine wanting to be a human being, but there was a cat once that did. Did you ever hear of her?”
There was, once upon a time, a cat who was not at all satisfied with herself. It was not that she wished to be more beautiful, but, because she had fallen in love with a young man, she wanted to be changed into a girl, that he might love her in return. So she prayed before the altar of Venus, and begged that the goddess would make her a beautiful maiden. So long and so earnestly did the cat pray, that Venus at last grew sorry for her, and changed her into one of the loveliest girls in the world, so beautiful, indeed, that, as soon as he saw her, the young man begged her to marry him. Everything was going as happily as possible, when Venus, just to see if she had been able to give the cat another nature in changing her shape, put a mouse down before her. Instantly the girl sprang from her seat, and chased the mouse round and round the room, caught it, and would have eaten it, had not Venus turned her at once into a cat again, for she saw it was of no use, and that what was bred in the bone would always stick to the flesh.
“Of course it’s a pity she didn’t have more sense,” added Impty, sagely; “but then, mice are such a temptation! Æsop—my grandfather says he wrote the fable hundreds and hundreds of years ago—knew just as much about animals as he did about men. I’m going to tell you his story of ‘The Cat and the Fox.’”
One day a cat met a fox in the wood. “Ah,” she thought, “he is clever and sensible, and talked of in the world a good deal; I will speak to him.” So she said, quite in a friendly manner: “Good morning, dear Mr. Fox; how are you? And how do things go with you in these hard times?”
The fox, full of pride, looked at the cat from head to foot, and hardly knew what to say to her for a long time. At last he replied: “Oh, you poor little whisker-cleaner, you old gray tabby, you hungry mouse-hunter, what are you thinking about to come to me, and to stand there and ask me how I am getting on? What do you know, and how many tricks have you?”
“I only know one trick,” answered the cat, meekly.
“And pray what is that?” he asked.
“Well,” she said, “if the hounds are behind me, I can spring up into a tree out of their way and save myself.”
“Is that all?” cried the fox. “Why, I am master of a hundred tricks, and have, over and above all, a sackful of cunning. But I pity you, Puss, so come with me, and I will teach you how to baffle both men and hounds.”
At this moment a hunter with four hounds was seen approaching. The cat sprang nimbly up a tree and seated herself on the highest branch, where, by the spreading foliage, she was quite hidden.
“Turn out the sack, Master Fox, turn out the sack!” cried the cat; but the hounds had already seized him, and held him fast.
“Ah, Master Fox,” cried the cat, “your hundred tricks are not of much use to you. Now, if you had only known one like mine, you would not have lost your life so quickly.”
“And now I really must go,” said Impty. “I’m sorry not to tell you more to-night, but our Caterwauling Class meets at eight in the backyard, and I’m leader. They say I’ve a wonderful voice for so young a cat. Isn’t it lucky that the shutter doesn’t close quite tight? If it did I’d never see the fence, nor my friends, either, and, just as likely as not, they’d elect Tabby Gray in my place out of spite. Good-by!”