CHAPTER V

THE SCAMPISHNESS OF SCAMP

It is hard to imagine a cloud crossing the sky of Pussy-Cat Town; but Purrington was growing larger, and, among a good many people, even cat people, there must be some who are not quite happy, and some who are not quite good.

Kiku-san was the only one of all the citizens of Purrington who was really unhappy, though Ban-Ban had many moments when his shining gray fur covered homesickness and longing for Robin. But Ban-Ban had a certain brightness about him, a snap-and-go which made it impossible for him to give up to downright unhappiness. Kiku-san, however, had a different nature. Gentle, clinging, and most affectionate, he could not shake off trouble when it found him, and Kiku-san was so homesick, so lonely for gentle little Lois, in whose arms he had slept all his life, and against whose cheek it had been his daily custom to rub his own cheek again and again, the while that he cooed softly to her, telling her of his love for her, that not all the charms of Purrington, nor the thought that it was making so many friendless cats rich and happy, could cheer his little heart.

Bidelia, too, had a growing anxiety that might prove to be a grief. Nugget was getting more and more under the influence of Scamp, and that influence was not for good. Nugget had always been as obedient as Puttel and Dolly Varden, and very proud of his young little mother, perfectly happy to trot beside her, and glad to have other kittens see how much he loved her. But now Nugget thought it was catly to pretend not to love Bidelia very much, and even to dare to spit—softly, under his breath, to be sure,—but still to spit,—when she told him to do something for her, or when she forbade him to go out.

So far Nugget had not done anything wrong, or outright wrong; but Bidelia was not a silly mother, and, even though she had not had experience in bringing up kittens until these three were born, she knew quite well that nobody goes wrong all at once, but that from small beginnings comes great harm, and she worried over Nugget’s impertinent manner.

She felt certain that he was only foolish, like some human children whom she had known, who thought it proved them quite grown up if only they were saucy and unmannerly, and she knew that the change in Nugget came from the bad example of Scamp, whose naughtiness was of a much more serious sort than Nugget’s had yet become.

She could not take Nugget out of school, away from Scamp altogether, as she would have liked to do, because she was too busy to teach him herself, and he was getting on beyond anything. Tommy Traddles said that Nugget was one of his best scholars, that he could subtract three tails from seven mice, and seven mice from eleven rats, all in his head as quick as a cat could wink. And that he knew the tables of jumps and pounces better than any one else in the school, and could tell in a twinkling how many jumps made one good pounce. In grammar he led his class, being able to tell in what case every mew noun was the moment he heard it, and he could decline purring verbs in the passive voice, or spitting verbs in the active voice in a way that delighted his teacher’s heart, for Doctor Traddles was particularly fond of grammar.

So Nugget went to school every day, and thus saw Scamp constantly. Scamp sought Nugget’s society more than any other kitten there; he seemed to take a fancy to the quick-witted little yellow fellow, and perhaps liked to lead a good kitten into paths of naughtiness—there are many with that sort of taste.

One day Scamp spoke to Nugget as they met in the schoolroom doorway, after recess.

“Come with me to-night,” he said. “I’m going fishing in the Meuse, and we’ll have fun. Bring some bait; I scratched up worms in our garden.”

“I don’t have to have worms for bait,” said Nugget, proudly. “I learned how to fish with just my paw. I guess I can’t go, though.”

Now Scamp knew that Nugget had been taught to fish with his paw, and that was why he particularly wanted him to go fishing that evening. But this he would not own, so he said: “Why can’t you? There won’t be any one but just us two. We’ll have fun, I tell you.”

“My mother won’t let me——” began Nugget, but stopped himself, ashamed to say that he could not go for that reason, though there could hardly have been a better one.

“Before I’d be tied to my mammy’s tail! Cry-kitten, ’fraid-cat!” sneered Scamp.

“My mother says the river is dangerous at night,” said Nugget.

“How does she know? A little cat like her!” said Scamp. “Did she ever go there, then? You’re no good, Nugget. I don’t care; I’ll get some one else. I only wanted to give you first chance! ’Fore I’d stay home for my mother! If you was any good you’d get up and go, and tell her afterward! You could hide, and I’d bring you supper, and then we’d go. I don’t care, though! There’s plenty ain’t ’fraid-cats, if _you_ are. Stay home, and let your mother lick your eyes open, if you want to!”

This was an unbearable taunt. No kitten can endure to have another say this to him. It means, among kittens, that you are a baby, not yet nine days old, and not bright enough to get your own eyes open.

Foolish little Nugget had not enough strength of character to treat these taunts with the contempt they deserved. He had not time to think, because they were standing in the schoolroom doorway, and were likely to be called to their places at any moment. So Nugget answered quickly, under the spur of this stinging taunt: “Who’s afraid? I didn’t want to go, but I will go, just to show you!”

He didn’t see the smirk which curled Scamp’s whiskers, and which he put up his paw to hide; but Nugget went to his seat a very sober kitten, and it was with a heavy heart that, after school was dismissed, instead of going home to Bidelia, as usual, he followed Scamp to the place where he was to await his coming to go fishing.

It was not at all exciting, either, to eat his supper, which Scamp brought him, under the trees, and then to follow his unfriendly friend along the line of the woods to the river, when it had grown too dark for them to be seen. Nugget had hoped that at least it would be thrilling to steal along this way, keeping out of sight, but the thrills were the wrong sort, for it was chilly, and dreadfully dark. If he had told the truth, Nugget would have said that he was afraid, and that the heart under his golden fur ached for the mother whom he was treating so badly.

Scamp had said that the fish would bite better at night than by daylight. Nugget had listened to this statement with the awe that a small kitten feels for the wisdom of a larger one. It did not prove to be such very wise wisdom after all. The fishes did not bite Scamp’s bait, not once, nor would they swim where Nugget could scoop them up in his little yellow paw, a trick at which he had become very skilful, thanks to Madam Laura’s teaching. It was too dark to see them plainly when they did swim up to the surface and near to the shore; even a kitten’s eyes were misled by the ripples of the water under the stars, and Nugget often dipped for the fish too soon, or too late, or when there was no fish there.

Nugget was so miserable that he had hard work to keep from mewing. Scamp was entirely changed in his manner to the poor little naughty thing that he had led astray. Now that he had got Nugget to do what he wanted him to, he seemed not to care for him in the least; he snubbed him, paid no attention to the younger kitten’s remarks, and often walked off to fish at some distance from Nugget, leaving the kitten to struggle with a fear that every moment was growing more unbearable—it was the first time in his short life that Nugget had ever been out after dark without a grown cat to look after him.

Scamp came back just in time to catch a whine which, in spite of himself, escaped Nugget, a sort of mew with his lips shut; but, so far from being sorry for Nugget, he fell into a great rage as he heard the kitten’s moan, and he walked up to him sidewise, with his fur bristling and his claws sticking out, ready for a scratch.

“What’s the matter with you, you cry-kitten?” he demanded, growlingly. “’fraid your mother’ll spank you when you get home?”

He spoke so roughly, so angrily, that Nugget lost heart altogether, and burst forth into open mewing. “I wouldn’t care if she did,” he wailed. “I wouldn’t care what she did, if only I was home again where she could do it.”

Scamp looked him over scornfully, but Nugget’s spirit was gone; not a hair on his body rose the higher for the look.

“Next time I ask a cry-kitten to go fishin’ you’ll know it,” said Scamp, spitting.

“I wouldn’t go with you if you did,” said Nugget, not resenting being called “cry-kitten,” or pretending not to know for whom the name was intended. “I’ll never go anywhere with you again, Scamp Alloy, not anywhere, day or night. You make me bad; mamma says so, and it’s true, and now you make me frightened, and cold, and tired, and everything besides.”

Nugget put both paws before his face and mewed fast and furiously. He did not see Scamp nor the way he walked up close to him, still sidewise, with his ears back and his fur bristling. Nugget was sitting close to the river’s edge, too busy with his trouble to think of anything else. So, when Scamp got up to him, he was not ready for the hard blow that bad kitten gave him on the side of his bowed yellow head, and it sent him flying out almost into the middle of the stream.

Scamp was so frightened by what he had done that, after an instant, in which he stood staring at the circles in the water eddying around the spot where Nugget had sunk, he took to his heels and ran away for his life, leaving Nugget to get out or die as best he could.

While these dreadful things were happening by the river, the cats at home were having hours of misery over Nugget’s disappearance. When he did not come home to supper, and Dolly and Puttel reported that they had not seen him since school was dismissed, Bidelia’s heart misgave her. Ban-Ban and Kiku-san looked at Nugget’s delay from the brighter side, and comforted her by telling her it was caused by the kitten’s stopping to play, or getting into some comparatively harmless mischief, as kittens will. But after the supper, which Bidelia pushed away untasted, was over, even Ban-Ban and Kiku-san began to look serious, as Nugget did not turn up, and they each went out to inquire among their friends if any one had seen little Nugget.

When they came back without tidings of the lost kitten Bidelia sat down half-fainting, mewing piteously. Then she sprang up, took her little girls each by a paw, hurried them over to Madam Laura’s, and then rushed from house to house, calling upon all the Purrers of Purrington to turn out and search for her child.

It did not take long to learn from Alloy, his mother, that Scamp was missing, too. Alloy laughed at Bidelia for her fears, being quite accustomed to Scamp’s doing precisely what he pleased, coming home exactly when he was ready to come. But Bidelia was made only the more anxious at the thought that her little kitten should be missing in such bad company as Scamp’s.

Twenty cats joined in the search for Nugget. Ban-Ban darted hither and thither; Tommy Traddles beat every bush and scanned every hole in his thorough way; and Kiku-san walked beside Bidelia, one paw around the afflicted little cat, talking to her in his gentle, cooing way, and keeping up her courage as none of the others could do. As they walked, searching sorrowfully, the cats sang these words to the air of “Long, Long Ago:”

“When our loved kittens wander away, Sad are our hearts, bitter our pain; Sobbing, we mew through the long empty day, Hoping they’ll answer again. Oh, little Nugget, had’st thou been wise, Thy mother’s counsel thou would’st not despise! But through our errors life’s lessons we learn; All is forgiven; oh, return!”

The last two lines of the music they repeated, singing, over and over again: “Nugget, oh, come! Nugget, oh, come!” hoping that the kitten would hear and call to them. After some time they were rewarded by hearing afar a faint, a very faint and feeble mew.