The Calico Cat.

by Charles Miner Thompson.

NOTE

I have to make these acknowledgments: to Mr. Ira Rich Kent for many a helpful suggestion in the framing of the story; to the publishers of "The Youth's Companion," in which the tale first appeared, for permitting the use of Mr. Gruger's admirable ill.u.s.trations, and to Mr. Francis W. Hight for the very pleasant cat which he has drawn for the cover.

THE AUTHOR

THE CALICO CAT

I

Mr. Peaslee looked more complacent than ever. It was Sat.u.r.day noon, and Solomon had just returned from his usual morning sojourn "up-street." He had taken off his coat, and was washing his face at the sink, while his wife was "dishing up" the midday meal. There was salt codfish, soaked fresh, and stewed in milk--"picked up," as the phrase goes; there were baked potatoes and a thin, pale-looking pie.

Mrs. Peaslee did not believe in pampering the flesh, and she did believe in saving every possible cent.

"Well," said Mr. Peaslee, as they sat down to this feast, "I guess I've got news for ye."

His wife gazed at him with interest.

"Are ye drawed?" she asked.

"Got the notice from Whitcomb right in my pocket. Grand juror.

September term. 'T ain't more'n a week off."

The _staccato_ utterance was caused by the big mouthfuls of codfish and potato which, between phrases, Mr. Peaslee conveyed to his mouth. It was plain to see that he was greatly pleased with his new dignity.

"What do they give ye for it?" asked his wife. Solomon should accept no office which did not bring profit.

"Two dollars a day and mileage," said Mr. Peaslee, with the emphasis of one who knows he will make a sensation.

"Mileage? What's that?"

"Travelin' expenses. State allows ye so much a mile. I get eight cents for goin' to the courthouse."

"Ye get eight cents every day?" asked his wife, her eyes snapping.

She was vague about the duties of a grand juror; maybe he had to earn his two dollars; but she had exact ideas about the trouble of walking "up-street." To get eight cents for that was being paid for doing nothing at all, and she was much astonished at the idea.

"Likely now, ain't it?" said Mr. Peaslee, with masculine scorn.

"State don't waste money that way! Mileage's to get ye there an'

take ye home again when term's over. You're s'posed to stay round 'tween whiles."

"Humph!" said his wife, disappointed. "They give ye two dollars a day"--she hazarded the shot--"just for settin' round and talkin', don't they? Walkin's considerable more of an effort for most folks."

"'Settin' round an' talkin'!'" exclaimed Mr. Peaslee, so indignantly that he stopped eating for a moment, knife and fork upright in his rigid, scandalized hands, while he gazed at his thin, energetic, shrewish little wife. "'Settin' round and talkin'!' It's mighty important work, now I tell ye. I guess there wouldn't be much law and order if it wa'n't for the grand jury. They don't take none but men o' jedgment. Takes gumption, I tell ye. Ye have to pay money to get that kind."

"Well," said his wife, with the air of one who concedes an unimportant point, "anyhow, it's good pay for a man whose time ain't worth anythin'."

"Ain't worth anythin'!" exclaimed Mr. Peaslee, in hurt tones. "Now, Sarepty, ye know better'n that. I don't know how they'll get along without me up to the bank. They've got a pretty good idee o' my jedgment 'bout mortgages. They don't pa.s.s any without my say so."

Mrs. Peaslee sniffed. "I've seen ye in the bank window, settin'

round with Jim Bartlett and Si Spooner and the rest of 'em. Readin'

the paper--that's all _I_ ever see ye doin'. Must be wearin' on ye."

"Guess ye never heard what was said, did ye? Can't hear 'em thinkin', I guess. They're mighty shreud up to the bank, mighty shreud."

They had finished their codfish and potato, and Mrs. Peaslee, without giving much attention to her husband's testimony to the business ac.u.men of his banking friends and incidentally of himself, pulled the pale, thin pie toward her and cut it.

"Pa.s.s up your plate," said she.

When his plate was again in place before him, Mr. Peaslee inserted the edge of his knife under the upper crust and raised it so that he could get a better view of its contents; he had his suspicions of that pie. What he saw confirmed them; between the crusts was a thin, soft layer of some brown stuff, interspersed with spots of red.

"Them's the currants we had for supper the night before last, and that's the dried-apple sauce we had for supper last night," he announced accurately. "An' ye know how I like a proper pie."

"I ain't goin' to waste good victuals," said his wife, with decision.

There was silence for a moment; Solomon did not dare make any further protest.

"I suppose," his wife said, picking up again the thread of her thoughts, "ye'll have to wear your go-to-meetin' suit all the time to the grand jury. I expect they'll be all wore out at the end.

That'll take off something. You be careful, now. Settin' round's awful wearin' on pants. You get a chair with a cushion. And don't ye go treatin' cigars. And don't ye go to the hotel for your victuals.

I ain't goin' to have ye spendin' your money when ye can just as well come home. Where ye goin' now?"

Mr. Peaslee was putting on his coat. "Well," he said, "I kind o'

thought I'd step over to Ed'ards's. I thought mebbe he'd be interested."

"Goin' to brag, are ye?" was his wife's remorseless comment. "Much good it'll do ye, talkin' to that hatchet-face. He ain't so pious as he looks, if all stories are true."

But Mr. Peaslee was already outside the door. She raised her voice shrilly. "You be back, now; them chickens has got to be fed!"

Mr. Peaslee sought a more sympathetic audience. Being drawn for the grand jury had greatly flattered his vanity, for it encouraged a secret ambition which he had long held to get into public life.

Service on the grand jury might lead to his becoming selectman, perhaps justice of the peace, perhaps town representative from Ellmington--who knew what else? He looked down a pleasant vista of increasing office, at the end of which stood the state capitol. He could be senator, perhaps! And he began planning his behavior as juror, the dignified bearing, the well-matured utterances, the shrewd cross-questioning. At the end of his service his neighbors would know him for a man of solid judgment, a "safe" man to be intrusted with weighty affairs.

Mr. Peaslee was fifty-three years old. He had a comfortable figure, a clean-shaven, round face, and blue eyes much exaggerated for the spectator by the strong lenses of a pair of great spectacles. These, with his gray hair, gave him a benevolence of aspect which somewhat misrepresented him. As a matter of fact, although good-humored and not without a still surviving capacity for generous impulse, he was only less "near" than his wife. Childishly vain, he bore himself with an air of self-satisfaction not without its charm for humorous neighbors. They said that they guessed he thought himself "some punkins."

"Some punkins" most people admitted him to be, although how much of his money and how much of his shrewdness was really his wife's was matter of debate among those who knew him best. At any rate, the Peaslees had made money. A few years before, they had sold their fat farm "down-river" advantageously, and had bought the dignified white house in Ellmington in which they have just been seen eating a dinner which looks as if they were "house poor." That they were not; they had thirty thousand dollars in the local bank, partly invested in its stock. In Ellmington Mrs. Peaslee was less lonely, and through Mr. Peaslee was an unsuspected director in the bank, and a shrewd user of the chances for profitable investment which her husband's a.s.sociation with the "bank crowd" opened to her.

As for Mr. Peaslee, he did not know that he himself was not the business head of the house; and his garden, his chickens, and his pleasant loafing in the bank window kept him contentedly occupied.

For, in spite of her shrewish tongue, Mrs. Peaslee had tact enough to let her husband have the credit for her business ac.u.men. "I ain't goin' to let on," she said to herself, "that he ain't just as good as the rest of 'em." She had her pride.

As Mr. Peaslee stepped along the straight walk which divided his neat lawn, and opened the neat gate in his neat white fence, he met Sam Barton, the broad-shouldered, good-humored giant who was constable of Ellmington. Sam gave him a smiling "How are ye, squire?" as he pa.s.sed.

"Guess he's heard," said Mr. Peaslee to himself, much pleased. Yet, as a matter of fact, the greeting was not different from that which Sam had given him daily for the past three years.

Once on the sidewalk, Mr. Peaslee turned to the right toward the house of his neighbor, Mr. Edwards. Edwards was a younger man than Peaslee, perhaps forty-seven. His business was speculating in lumber and cattle, and in the interest of this he was constantly pa.s.sing and re pa.s.sing the Canadian border, which was not far from Ellmington. In the intervals between his trips he was much at home.