Animal Heroes | Page 5

steps
leading down into Jap Malee's bird-store underground. The door was open a little. She
wandered into a world of rank and curious smells and a number of living things in cages
all about her. A negro was sitting idly on a box in a corner. He saw the little stranger
enter and watched it curiously. It wandered past some Rabbits. They paid no heed. It
came to a wide-barred cage in which was a Fox. The gentleman with the bushy tail was in
a far corner. He crouched low; his eyes glowed. The Kitten wandered, sniffing, up to the
bars, put its head in, sniffed again, then made toward the feed-pan, to be seized in a flash
by the crouching Fox. It gave a frightened "mew," but a single shake cut that short and
would have ended Kitty's nine lives at once, had not the negro come to the rescue. He had
no weapon and could not get into the cage, but he spat with such copious vigor in the
Fox's face that he dropped the Kitten and returned to the corner, there to sit blinking his
eyes in sullen fear.
The negro pulled the Kitten out. The shake of the beast of prey seemed to have stunned
the victim, really to have saved it much suffering. The Kitten seemed unharmed, but
giddy. It tottered in a circle for a time, then slowly revived, and a few minutes later was
purring in the negro's lap, apparently none the worse, when Jap Malee, the bird-man,
came home.
Jap was not an Oriental; he was a full-blooded Cockney, but his eyes were such little
accidental slits aslant in his round, flat face, that his first name was forgotten in the highly
descriptive title of "Jap." He was not especially unkind to the birds and beasts whose
sales were supposed to furnish his living, but his eye was on the main chance; he knew
what he wanted. He didn't want the Slum Kitten.
The negro gave it all the food it could eat, then carried it to a distant block and dropped it
in a neighboring iron-yard.
III
One full meal is as much as any one needs in two or three days, and under the influence
of this stored-up heat and power, Kitty was very lively. She walked around the piled-up
rubbish, cast curious glances on far-away Canary-birds in cages that hung from high
windows; she peeped over fences, discovered a large Dog, got quietly down again, and
presently finding a sheltered place in full sunlight, she lay down and slept for an hour. A
slight'sniff' awakened her, and before her stood a large Black Cat with glowing green
eyes, and the thick neck and square jaws that distinguish the Tom; a scar marked his
cheek, and his left ear was torn. His look was far from friendly; his ears moved backward
a little, his tail twitched, and a faint, deep sound came from his throat. The Kitten

innocently walked toward him. She did not remember him. He rubbed the sides of his
jaws on a post, and quietly, slowly turned and disappeared. The last that she saw of him
was the end of his tail twitching from side to side; and the little Slummer had no idea that
she had been as near death to-day, as she had been when she ventured into the fox-cage.
As night came on the Kitten began to feel hungry. She examined carefully the long
invisible colored stream that the wind is made of. She selected the most interesting of its
strands, and, nose-led, followed. In the corner of the iron-yard was a box of garbage.
Among this she found something that answered fairly well for food; a bucket of water
under a faucet offered a chance to quench her thirst.
The night was spent chiefly in prowling about and learning the main lines of the
iron-yard. The next day she passed as before, sleeping in the sun. Thus the time wore on.
Sometimes she found a good meal at the garbage-box, sometimes there was nothing.
Once she found the big Black Tom there, but discreetly withdrew before he saw her. The
water-bucket was usually at its place, or, failing that, there were some muddy little pools
on the stone below. But the garbage-box was very unreliable. Once it left her for three
days without food. She searched along the high fence, and seeing a small hole, crawled
through that and found herself in the open street. This was a new world, but before she
had ventured far, there was a noisy, rumbling rush--a large Dog came bounding, and
Kitty had barely time to run back into the hole in the fence. She was dreadfully hungry,
and glad to find some old potato-peelings, which gave a