CHAPTER XI

AN ELECTION AND A DEFECTION

It was just a little dismaying to the children at the close of the ball to be suddenly brought face to face with the fact that they were going to spend the night in Purrington. Because there really was not any arrangement for the sort of night which up to this moment Lois and Rob had considered the only kind of night which one could spend. Bedsteads, for instance, had heretofore been as much a part of their idea of night as was the setting of the sun and coming on of darkness; but, though there was plenty of soft bedding and good mattresses, or, rather, beds, of straw and leaves, there was not a bedstead in Purrington. Then, too, there was much to be desired—from the children’s view-point—in the arrangements for bathing. They could not imagine how they were to wash their faces and hands in the same way that the Purrers did—and yet was there any other way? Lois delicately tried her tongue on the knuckle of her left forefinger, and instantly felt sure that she could not manage to bathe in cat fashion.

But the cats who had lived among nice human beings, Bidelia, Madam Laura, and Ban-Ban and Kiku-san, themselves solved the doubts that were filling their guests’ minds by telling them that in the morning they would lead them down to the river Meuse, “where they could wet their faces and hands all they pleased,” said Kiku-san, with a shudder.

The children were to sleep in the city hall, that being the only building in the place large enough to hold them, and Bidelia with her kittens, Madam Laura, Tommy Traddles, ’Clipsy, Wutz-Butz, and, of course, their own dear cats, were to stay with them through the night. After they had lain down in the beds provided for them, Lois and Rob found that they were very comfortable indeed.

Ban-Ban, Tommy Traddles, ’Clipsy, and little Nugget slept around Rob, fitting themselves beautifully and cosily around and into the curves of his body. Of course Kiku-san crept into Lois’s arms, but Madam Laura, Bidelia, and Dolly Varden and Puttel added themselves to her couch, and the little girl fell asleep, supremely happy, for the more cats the merrier Lois was—she never could get enough of their purr and their fur.

Wutz-Butz stayed awake, on guard all night.

The entire party was awakened early by the kittens, who were ready to play before the sun was fairly up. But it did not matter; every one was perfectly rested, and it was to be such a busy day that it was necessary to make it a long one in order to get into it all that must be done.

Bathing in the Meuse proved to be a pleasant experience, and breakfast was delicious eaten under the trees. As soon as it was cleared away, all the cats seated themselves in a circle and waited, washing their paws and faces once in awhile, but very lightly, much as human beings use finger-bowls after meals, and only to occupy the time.

Tommy Traddles came forward at last and addressed Rob and Lois.

“We should like your advice on matters which are most important,” he said. “First of all, we shall be cold here in the winter. How shall we warm our houses?”

Rob considered a few moments, while Lois looked at him anxiously; for the life of her she could not see how it was to be done.

“I think,” said Rob, looking up, suddenly, with a bright smile of relief, “I think you had better move all your houses together and take down one wall of each, so that they will be turned into one big house. Then, I think, you ought to have a chimney right in the middle of that one big house and keep a fire in it, and let everybody in the city live in that house.”

“Wouldn’t it be hard to move all these houses?” asked Lois.

“Not a bit,” said the black and white cat who had helped to carry Dolly Varden on the day the pilgrims had come to the site of the present city; he was the head of the carpenter cats. “Not a bit, ma’am. We’d just as soon move them houses as not—there ain’t no work doin’ now, and we carpenters hate bein’ idle. Them houses was built so quick you wouldn’t think it, and they can be moved as easy as catchin’ a small mouse. The boy’s got a good notion; I reccymend we take it up.”

“The question arises,” began Tommy Traddles, his English sounding more elegant than ever after the slips of the carpenter cat, who had been only a street waif, “whether we could manage the fire. We could easily feed it, but could we build it?”

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said Rob, enthusiastically. “I’ll get a friend of my father’s who has lived among all sorts of people in Africa and India, and—and—oh, all sorts of queer people—Eskimos, I guess, and Alaska Indians, I’ll get him to tell me how to build a clay chimney and strike a fire from flint. Then I’ll come and build your chimney myself, and I’ll let the fire go out and build it up new every week when I come, so all you’ll have to do is to feed it. But I’ll teach you how to rub stones together to get fire,—when I’ve learned myself,—and if it ever happened that it went out, you could light another. You mightn’t have matches, but you can always get stones. I guess you’ll be all right that way.”

“More than all right,” said Tommy Traddles, with a look of relief on his part, for he had been worried over the approach of cold weather and the prospect of the Purrers having no heat. All the Purrers applauded Rob’s wisdom and noble promise to help them, and Ban-Ban’s fur stood up with pride, while he looked an “I-told-you-so” to the assembled cats.

“We can bring out lots of woollen things and some wadding,” said Lois, longing to be useful too.

Madam Laura smiled at her, understanding her feeling. “My dear little girl,” she said, “you will do a great deal more than bring us warm things; we shall depend upon you for more than you dream of now.” And Lois was comforted even while she remembered how queer it was to be comforted in this grandmotherly way by a particularly small cat.

“City government?” suggested ’Clipsy to Tommy Traddles, reminding him.

“I am coming to that,” said the doctor. “So far we have not adopted any form of government; nothing has happened that required laws. But, as time goes on and Purrington grows into a big city, we think we ought to adopt a government. What sort do you advise?”

Rob tried to look wise, but only succeeded in looking embarrassed, his face flushing darkly to his hair. You see he was but nine years old, and it flattered him tremendously to be consulted—by a Doctor of Claws, too!—on such a serious matter. He did not know what to say, but he made a wise speech to begin with, and was encouraged to go on by the approving looks it won him.

“Well, you see,” he began, “no cat ever minds anybody. If he does what you tell him to it’s only because you happened to tell him to do something he meant to do before. So I don’t see the use of making laws for the Purrers. You’d better trust ’em to do what’s right, because they see it’s best for everybody. Cats are freemen, every one of ’em. So I’d have just a mayor and some Purrers to advise him, and let it go at that. I’m sorry I don’t know much about politics,” Rob added, apologetically.

“You couldn’t have said anything more clever!” cried Tommy Traddles, in high delight, while all the cats miauwed frantically, and Ban-Ban couldn’t resist standing on his head between his front paws, though he had never let the Purrers see him do this, fearing it was undignified in their founder.

“Those are my sentiments!” cried ’Clipsy, while Wutz-Butz remarked in a deep, admiring bass: “He might have been a cat himself, he knows us so well!”

“Then how shall we elect a mayor?” asked Tommy Traddles. “Who would be your first choice, Purrers?”

“Ban-Ban, Ban-Ban!” arose on all sides. “He is the founder of Purrington, and he must be our first mayor,” cried Posty, to which they all shouted: “Must be! Must be!” like a great mew.

“It is impossible for me to serve,” said Ban-Ban, with deep emotion. “I thank you more than I can say. I appreciate the honour done me, and shall never forget it. But I cannot serve. I positively decline. May I suggest that the Purrers allow Rob to appoint their first mayor? Then no one can feel that his neighbours have preferred another to him. You elected me as your founder, and I thank you, but unless the founder has a claim there is no one whom you would like to pick out to honour above his fellows. So let Rob choose your mayor.”

“Ban-Ban is always clear-sighted,” remarked Kiku-san to Lois.

“I would appoint Doctor Thomas Traddles—” began Rob, but got no further. There was a storm of applause, and the meeting saw the remarkable spectacle of a second election by acclaim, as it is called. Tommy Traddles was thus appointed Purrington’s first mayor.

“Why wouldn’t you serve, Ban-Ban?” asked Bidelia, suspiciously.

Ban-Ban faced the meeting. His whiskers quivered, his fur arose, and his breath came quick and short as it always did when he was stirred.

“My friends,” he said, and the Purrers turned to look at him; every cat there caught instantly the emotion in his voice. “My friends,” Ban-Ban said, “I must tell you why I refused the honour which you would have done me. To-night, when Rob and Lois go home Kiku-san and I are going with them.”

Dead silence fell upon the meeting at these words, and from its outer edge a long moo broke from Brindle like a sob. Then a growl ran around the circle, deepening into a louder growl, like thunder, and every cat sprang to his feet in wrath and dismay.

“Going back on us like that?” demanded Wutz-Butz, tragically.

“Oh, Bannie!” said Madam Laura, but the words contained volumes, and Bidelia sobbed into her party-coloured paws, while every kitten present broke into a chorus of pathetic mews. It was most moving, and Ban-Ban trembled from head to foot.

“Dear friends, listen,” he said. “I am not deserting you, as Wutz-Butz seems to think. Every week I shall come here with Rob and Lois—they promise faithfully to bring us, Kiku and me. I planned this city; all summer I have here, leaving the boy I owned—” Rob stared at this way of putting it—“to miss me and mourn for me, and Kiku has done likewise with his girl. I have brought them here to be the aid and reliance of us all. They love us; we have had the happiest home with them all our lives, and we miss them. They are most unhappy without us—do you not think, dear Purrers, considering that every week Rob and Lois are coming here, that all their lives they are going to protect and befriend this city of cats, that you can repay them to a tiny degree by consenting to give up to them two of your number?”

“Ah, but these two!” murmured Bidelia.

The cats all wiped their eyes with their forepaws. “We consent,” said the Purrers, sobbing, and Dolly Varden put her paws around Lois’s neck.

“I don’t blame them,” said that sweet kitten. “Take me, too!”

“Away from your mother?” asked Kiku-san, not at all minded to have even dear little Dolly share with him Lois’s love.

“Then, since it must be, let us pass the rest of the day as merrily as we can,” said Tommy Traddles. “Let us sing my favourite air—you know it as ‘’Way Down Upon the Swanee River,’ Rob and Lois.”

And then the cats sang the following song:

“When all the little willow catkins Had run away, And birch leaves clapped their tiny patkins, Like summer rain at play, Then Ban-Ban led us where the flowers Smiled through the dews, And bade us spend long, happy hours Beside our river Meuse. Ah, we cats will love him ever, Absent though he be; Cats’ mem’ries are forgetful never Of good, nor cruelty.

“Go, then, dear Ban, since we must lend you— Lend, but not give! We’ll purr our prayers that good attend you, All the long days you live. And when each week that rolls shall bring you To our pussy clan, May all good fairies guide and wing you, Ban and sweet Kiku-san. So this day sees not our parting, We’ll banish pain; Ban-Ban and Kiku-san, departing, Go but to come again.”