Animal Heroes | Page 8

and when they began to take their
evening meal he very soon decided to join them. The old Cat was puzzled. The hunter
instinct had been dominant, but absence of hunger had saved the Rabbit and given the
maternal instinct a chance to appear. The result was that the Rabbit became a member of

the family, and was thenceforth guarded and fed with the Kittens.
Two weeks went by. The Kittens romped much among the boxes during their mother's
absence. The Rabbit could not get out of the box. Jap Malee, seeing the Kittens about the
back yard, told the negro to shoot them. This he was doing one morning with a 22-calibre
rifle. He had shot one after another and seen them drop from sight into the crannies of the
lumber-pile, when the old Cat came running along the wall from the dock, carrying a
small Wharf Rat. He had been ready to shoot her, too, but the sight of that Rat changed
his plans: a rat-catching Cat was worthy to live. It happened to be the very first one she
had ever caught, but it saved her life. She threaded the lumber-maze to the cracker-box
and was probably puzzled to find that there were no Kittens to come at her call, and the
Rabbit would not partake of the Rat. Pussy curled up to nurse the Rabbit, but she called
from time to time to summon the Kittens. Guided by that call, the negro crawled quietly
to the place, and peering down into the cracker-box, saw, to his intense surprise, that it
contained the old Cat, a live Rabbit, and a dead Rat.
The mother Cat laid back her ears and snarled. The negro withdrew, but a minute later a
board was dropped on the opening of the cracker-box, and the den with its tenants, dead
and alive, was lifted into the bird-cellar.
"Say, boss, look a-hyar--hyar's where de
little Rabbit got to wot we lost. Yo' sho t'ought Ah stoled him for de 'tater-bake."
Kitty and Bunny were carefully put in a large wire cage and exhibited as a happy family
till a few days later, when the Rabbit took sick and died.
Pussy had never been happy in the cage. She had enough to eat and drink, but she craved
her freedom--would likely have gotten 'death or liberty' now, but that during the four
days' captivity she had so cleaned and slicked her fur that her unusual coloring was seen,
and Jap decided to keep her.
LIFE II
VI
Jap Malee was as disreputable a little Cockney bantam as ever sold cheap Canary-birds in
a cellar. He was extremely poor, and the negro lived with him because the 'Henglish-man'
was willing to share bed and board, and otherwise admit a perfect equality that few
Americans conceded. Jap was perfectly honest according to his lights, but he hadn't any
lights; and it was well known that his chief revenue was derived from storing and
restoring stolen Dogs and Cats. The half-dozen Canaries were mere blinds. Yet Jap
believed in himself. "Hi tell you, Sammy, me boy, you'll see me with 'orses of my own
yet," he would say, when some trifling success inflated his dirty little chest. He was not
without ambition, in a weak, flabby, once-in-a-while way, and he sometimes wished to be
known as a fancier. Indeed, he had once gone the wild length of offering a Cat for
exhibition at the Knickerbocker High Society Cat and Pet Show, with three not over-clear
objects: first, to gratify his ambition; second, to secure the exhibitor's free pass; and, third,
"well, you kneow, one 'as to kneow the valuable Cats, you kneow, when one goes
a-catting." But this was a society show, the exhibitor had to be introduced, and his
miserable alleged half-Persian was scornfully rejected. The 'Lost and Found' columns of
the papers were the only ones of interest to Jap, but he had noticed and saved a clipping
about 'breeding for fur.' This was stuck on the wall of his den, and under its influence he
set about what seemed a cruel experiment with the Slum Cat. First, he soaked her dirty
fur with stuff to kill the two or three kinds of creepers she wore; and, when it had done its

work, he washed her thoroughly in soap and warm water, in spite of her teeth, claws, and
yowls. Kitty was savagely indignant, but a warm and happy glow spread over her as she
dried off in a cage near the stove, and her fur began to fluff out with wonderful softness
and whiteness. Jap and his assistant were much pleased with the result, and Kitty ought to
have been. But this was preparatory: now for the experiment. "Nothing is so good for
growing fur as