Gentle Julia | Page 5

her face was small but the other parts of her head were terribly wide. Beside her was a circular brown basket, of a type suggesting arts-and-crafts; it was made with a cover, and there was a bow of brown silk upon the handle.
"What you been up to to-day, Kitty Silver?" Herbert asked genially. "Any thing special?" For this was the sequel to his "so's we can see if Kitty Silver's got anything." But Mrs. Silver discouraged him.
"No, I ain't," she replied. "I ain't, an' I ain't goin' to."
"I thought you pretty near always made cookies on Tuesday," he said.
"Well, I ain't this Tuesday," said Kitty Silver. "I ain't, and I ain't goin' to. You might dess well g'on home ri' now. I ain't, an' I ain't goin' to."
Docility was no element of Mrs. Silver's present mood, and Herbert's hopeful eyes became blank, as his gaze wandered from her head to the brown basket beside her. The basket did not interest him; the ribbon gave it a quality almost at once excluding it from his consciousness. On the contrary, the ribbon had drawn Florence's attention, and she stared at the basket eagerly.
"What you got there, Kitty Silver?" she asked.
"What I got where?"
"In that basket."
"Nemmine what I got 'n 'at basket," said Mrs. Silver crossly, but added inconsistently: "I dess wish somebody ast me what I got 'n 'at basket! I ain't no cat-washwoman fer nobody!"
"Cats!" Florence cried. "Are there cats in that basket, Kitty Silver? Let's look at 'em!"
The lid of the basket, lifted by the eager, slim hand of Miss Atwater, rose to disclose two cats of an age slightly beyond kittenhood. They were of a breed unfamiliar to Florence, and she did not obey the impulse that usually makes a girl seize upon any young cat at sight and caress it. Instead, she looked at them with some perplexity, and after a moment inquired: "Are they really cats, Kitty Silver, do you b'lieve?"
"Cats what she done tole me," the coloured woman replied. "You betta shet lid down, you don' wan' 'em run away, 'cause they ain't yoosta livin' 'n 'at basket yit; an' no matter whut kine o' cats they is or they isn't, one thing true: they wile cats!"
"But what makes their hair so long?" Florence asked. "I never saw cats with hair a couple inches long like that."
"Miss Julia say they Berjum cats."
"What?"
"I ain't tellin' no mo'n she tole me. You' aunt say they Berjum cats."
"Persian," said Herbert. "That's nothing. I've seen plenty Persian cats. My goodness, I should think you'd seen a Persian cat at yow age. Thirteen goin' on fourteen!"
"Well, I have seen Persian cats plenty times, I guess," Florence said. "I thought Persian cats were white, and these are kind of gray."
At this Kitty Silver permitted herself to utter an embittered laugh. "You wrong!" she said. "These cats, they white; yes'm!"
"Why, they aren't either! They're gray as----"
"No'm," said Mrs. Silver. "They plum spang white, else you' Aunt Julia gone out her mind; me or her, one. I say: 'Miss Julia, them gray cats.' 'White,' she say. 'Them two cats is white cats,' she say. 'Them cats been crated,' she say. 'They been livin' in a crate on a dirty express train fer th'ee fo' days,' she say. 'Them cats gone got all smoke' up thataway,' she say. 'No'm, Miss Julia,' I say, 'No'm, Miss Julia, they ain't no train,' I say, 'they ain't no train kin take an' smoke two white cats up like these cats so's they hair is gray clean plum up to they hide.' You betta put the lid down, I tell you!"
Florence complied, just in time to prevent one of the young cats from leaping out of the basket, but she did not fasten the cover. Instead, she knelt, and, allowing a space of half an inch to intervene between the basket and the rim of the cover, peered within at the occupants. "I believe the one to this side's a he," she said. "It's got greenisher eyes than the other one; that's the way you can always tell. I b'lieve this one's a he and the other one's a she."
"I ain't stedyin' about no he an' she!"
"What did Aunt Julia say?" Florence asked.
"Whut you' Aunt Julia say when?"
"When you told her these were gray cats and not white cats?"
"She tole me take an' clean 'em," said Kitty Silver. "She say, she say she want 'em clean' up spick an' spang befo' Mista Sammerses git here to call an' see 'em." And she added morosely: "I ain't no cat-washwoman!"
"She wants you to bathe 'em?" Florence inquired, but Kitty Silver did not reply immediately. She breathed audibly, with a strange effect upon vasty outward portions of her, and then gave an incomparably dulcet imitation of her own voice, as she interpreted