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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Hunter Cats of Connorloa, by Helen Jackson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Hunter Cats of Connorloa
+
+Author: Helen Jackson
+
+Release Date: March 22, 2009 [EBook #28385]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HUNTER CATS OF CONNORLOA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Woodie4 and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
++-------------------------------------------------------------------+
+|Transcribers note.                                                 |
+|                                                                   |
+|To assist readers, some illustration tags have had descriptions    |
+|added. These have been marked with an asterisk.                    |
+|                                                                   |
+|Only 'The Hunter Cats of Connorloa', is transcribed in this e-text.|
++-------------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+CAT STORIES.
+
+BY
+
+HELEN JACKSON (H. H.),
+
+AUTHOR OF "RAMONA," "NELLY'S SILVER MINE," "BITS OF TALK," ETC.
+
+
+LETTERS FROM A CAT.
+
+MAMMY TITTLEBACK AND HER FAMILY.
+
+THE HUNTER CATS OF CONNORLOA.
+
+
+WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+BOSTON:
+
+ROBERTS BROTHERS.
+
+1886.
+
+
+THE HUNTER CATS
+
+OF
+
+CONNORLOA.
+
+[Illustration: CONNORLOA.]
+
+
+THE
+
+HUNTER CATS
+
+OF
+
+CONNORLOA.
+
+BY HELEN JACKSON
+
+(_H. H._),
+
+AUTHOR OF "LETTERS FROM A CAT," "MAMMY TITTLEBACK AND HER
+FAMILY," ETC.
+
+WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+BOSTON:
+
+ROBERTS BROTHERS.
+
+1886.
+
+_Copyright_, 1884,
+BY ROBERTS BROTHERS.
+
+[Illustration: Decorative panel]*
+
+
+
+
+THE HUNTER CATS
+
+OF
+
+CONNORLOA.
+
+I.
+
+
+Once on a time, there lived in California a gentleman whose name was
+Connor,--Mr. George Connor. He was an orphan, and had no brothers and
+only one sister. This sister was married to an Italian gentleman, one of
+the chamberlains to the King of Italy. She might almost as well have
+been dead, so far as her brother George's seeing her was concerned; for
+he, poor gentleman, was much too ill to cross the ocean to visit her;
+and her husband could not be spared from his duties as chamberlain to
+the King, to come with her to America, and she would not leave him and
+come alone. So at the time my story begins, it had been many years since
+the brother and sister had met, and Mr. Connor had quite made up his
+mind that he should never see her again in this world. He had had a
+sorry time of it for a good many years. He had wandered all over the
+world, trying to find a climate which would make him well. He had lived
+in Egypt, in Ceylon, in Italy, in Japan, in the Sandwich Islands, in the
+West India Islands. Every place that had ever been heard of as being
+good for sick people, he had tried; for he had plenty of money, and
+there was nothing to prevent his journeying wherever he liked. He had a
+faithful black servant Jim, who went with him everywhere, and took the
+best of care of him; but neither the money, nor the good nursing, nor
+the sea air, nor the mountain air, nor the north, south, east or west
+air, did him any good. He only tired himself out for nothing, roaming
+from place to place; and was all the time lonely, and sad too, not
+having any home. So at last he made up his mind that he would roam no
+longer; that he would settle down, build himself a house, and if he
+could not be well and strong and do all the things he liked to, he
+would at least have a home, and have his books about him, and have a
+good bed to sleep in, and good food to eat, and be comfortable in all
+those ways in which no human being ever can be comfortable outside of
+his own house.
+
+He happened to be in California when he took this resolution. He had
+been there for a winter; and on the whole had felt better there than he
+had felt anywhere else. The California sunshine did him more good than
+medicine: it is wonderful how the sun shines there! Then it was never
+either very hot or very cold in the part of California where he was; and
+that was a great advantage. He was in the southern part of the State,
+only thirty miles from the sea-shore, in San Gabriel. You can find this
+name "San Gabriel" on your atlas, if you look very carefully. It is in
+small print, and on the Atlas it is not more than the width of a pin
+from the water's edge; but it really is thirty miles,--a good day's
+ride, and a beautiful day's ride too, from the sea. San Gabriel is a
+little village, only a dozen or two houses in it, and an old,
+half-ruined church,--a Catholic church, that was built there a hundred
+years ago, when the country was first settled by the Spaniards. They
+named all the places they settled, after saints; and the first thing
+they did in every place was to build a church, and get the Indians to
+come and be baptized, and learn to pray. They did not call their
+settlements towns at first, only Missions; and they had at one time
+twenty-one of these Missions on the California coast, all the way up
+from San Diego to Monterey; and there were more than thirty thousand
+Indians in them, all being taught to pray and to work, and some of them
+to read and write. They were very good men, those first Spanish
+missionaries in California. There are still alive some Indians who
+recollect these times. They are very old, over a hundred years old; but
+they remember well about these things.
+
+Most of the principal California towns of which you have read in your
+geographies were begun in this way. San Diego, Santa Barbara, San Luis
+Obispo, San Rafael, San Francisco, Monterey, Los Angeles,--all of these
+were first settled by the missionaries, and by the soldiers and officers
+of the army who came to protect the missionaries against the savages.
+Los Angeles was named by them after the Virgin Mary. The Spanish name
+was very long, "Nuestra Seņora Reina de Los Angeles,"--that means, "Our
+Lady the Queen of the Angels." Of course this was quite too long to use
+every day; so it soon got cut down to simply "Los Angeles," or "The
+Angels,"--a name which often amuses travellers in Los Angeles to-day,
+because the people who live there are not a bit more like angels than
+other people; and that, as we all know, is very unlike indeed. Near Los
+Angeles is San Gabriel, only about fifteen miles away. In the olden
+time, fifteen miles was not thought any distance at all; people were
+neighbors who lived only fifteen miles apart.
+
+There are a great many interesting stories about the first settlement of
+San Gabriel, and the habits and customs of the Indians there. They were
+a very polite people to each other, and used to train their children in
+some respects very carefully. If a child were sent to bring water to an
+older person, and he tasted it on the way, he was made to throw the
+water out and go and bring fresh water; when two grown-up persons were
+talking together, if a child ran between them he was told that he had
+done an uncivil thing, and would be punished if he did it again. These
+are only specimens of their rules for polite behavior. They seem to me
+as good as ours. These Indians were very fond of flowers, of which the
+whole country is in the spring so full, it looks in places like a garden
+bed; of these flowers they used to make long garlands and wreaths, not
+only to wear on their heads, but to reach way down to their feet. These
+they wore at festivals and celebrations; and sometimes at these
+festivals they used to have what they called "song contests." Two of the
+best singers, or poets, would be matched together, to see which could
+sing the better, or make the better verses. That seems to me a more
+interesting kind of match than the spelling matches we have in our
+villages. But there is nothing of this sort to be seen in San Gabriel
+now, or indeed anywhere in California. The Indians, most of them, have
+been driven away by the white people who wanted their lands; year by
+year more and more white people have come, and the Indians have been
+robbed of more and more of their lands, and have died off by hundreds,
+until there are not many left.
+
+[Illustration: INDIAN MAKING BOWLS.--Page 19.]
+
+Mr. Connor was much interested in learning all he could about them, and
+collecting all he could of the curious stone bowls and pestles they used
+to make, and of their baskets and lace work. He spent much of his
+time riding about the country; and whenever he came to an Indian hut he
+would stop and talk with them, and ask if they had any stone bowls or
+baskets they would like to sell. The bowls especially were a great
+curiosity. Nobody knew how long ago they had been made. When the
+missionaries first came to the country, they found the Indians using
+them; they had them of all sizes, from those so large that they are
+almost more than a man can lift, down to tiny ones no bigger than a
+tea-cup. But big and little, they were all made in the same way out of
+solid stone, scooped out in the middle, by rubbing another stone round
+and round on them. You would think it would have taken a lifetime to
+make one; but they seem to have been plenty in the olden time. Even yet,
+people who are searching for such curiosities sometimes find big
+grave-mounds in which dozens of them are buried,--buried side by side
+with the people who used to eat out of them. There is nothing left of
+the people but their skulls and a few bones; but the bowls will last as
+long as the world stands.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now I suppose you are beginning to wonder when I am coming to the Hunter
+Cats! I am coming to them just the way Mr. Connor did,--by degrees. I
+want you to know about the place he lived in, and how he used to amuse
+himself, before he decided to build his house; and then I must tell you
+about the house, and then about the children that came to live with him
+in it, and then about the Chinamen that came to do his work, and about
+his orange-trees, and the gophers that gnawed the bark off them, and the
+rabbits that burrowed under his vines. Oh! it will be a good many pages
+yet before I can possibly get to the time when the Hunter Cats come in.
+But I will tell it as fast as I can, for I dislike long stories myself.
+
+The village of San Gabriel is in a beautiful broad valley, running east
+and west. The north wall of the valley is made by a range of mountains,
+called the Sierra Madre; that is Spanish and means "Mother Mountains."
+They are grand mountains; their tops are almost solid stone, all sharp
+and jagged, with more peaks and ridges, crowded in together, than you
+could possibly count. At the bottom, they reach out into the valley by
+long slopes, which in the olden time were covered thick with trees and
+shrubs; but now, the greater part of these have been cut down and
+cleared off, and the ground planted full of orange-trees and grapevines.
+If you want to see how it looks to have solid miles upon miles of orange
+orchards and vineyards together, you must go to this San Gabriel Valley.
+There is no other such place in the world.
+
+As Mr. Connor rode about, day after day, and looked at these orchards
+and vineyards, he began to think he should like to have some too. So he
+went up and down along the base of the mountains, looking for a good
+place. At last he found one. It was strange nobody had picked it out
+before. One reason was that it was so wild, and lay so high up, that it
+would be a world of trouble, and cost a deal of money, to make a road up
+to it and to clear the ground. But Mr. Connor did not care for that. It
+was a sort of ridge of the mountains, and it was all grown over thick
+with what is called in California "chapparal." That is not the name of
+any one particular shrub or tree; it means a mixture of every sort and
+kind. You all know what mixed candy is! Well, "chapparal" is mixed
+bushes and shrubs; mixed thick too! From a little way off, it looks as
+smooth as moss; it is so tangled, and the bushes have such strong and
+tough stems, you can't possibly get through it, unless you cut a path
+before you with a hatchet; it is a solid thicket all the way.
+
+As Mr. Connor rode to and fro, in front of this green ridge, he thought
+how well a house would look up there, with the splendid mountain wall
+rising straight up behind it. And from the windows of such a house, one
+could look off, not only over the whole valley, but past the hills of
+its southern wall, clear and straight thirty miles to the sea. In a
+clear day, the line of the water flashed and shone there like a silver
+thread.
+
+Mr. Connor used to sit on his horse by the half hour at a time gazing at
+this hillside, and picturing the home he would like to make there,--a
+big square house with plenty of room in it, wide verandas on all sides,
+and the slope in front of it one solid green orange orchard. The longer
+he looked the surer he felt that this was the thing he wanted to do.
+
+The very day he decided, he bought the land; and in two days more he had
+a big force of men hacking away at the chapparal, burning it, digging up
+the tough, tangled roots; oh, what slow work it was! Just as soon as a
+big enough place was cleared, he built a little house of rough
+boards,--only two rooms in it; and there he went to live, with Jim.
+
+Now that he had once begun the making of his house, he could hardly wait
+for it to be done; and he was never happy except when he was overseeing
+the men, hurrying them and working himself. Many a tough old bush he
+chopped down with his own hands, and tugged the root up; and he grew
+stronger every day. This was a kind of medicine he had not tried before.
+
+A great part of the bushes were "manzanita." The roots and lower stems
+of this shrub are bright red, and twisted almost into knots. They make
+capital firewood; so Mr. Connor had them all piled up in a pile to keep
+to burn in his big fireplaces; and you would have laughed to see such a
+woodpile. It was almost as high as the house; and no two sticks
+alike,--all prongs and horns, and crooks and twists; they looked like
+monster's back teeth.
+
+At last the house was done. It was a big, old-fashioned, square house,
+with a wide hall running through the middle; on the east side were the
+library and dining-room; on the west, the parlor and a big
+billiard-room; upstairs were four large bedrooms; at the back of the
+house, a kitchen. No servants were to sleep in the house. Mr. Connor
+would have only Chinamen for servants; and they would sleep, with the
+rest of his Chinamen laborers, in what he called the Chinese quarter,--a
+long, low wooden building still farther up on the hill. Only Jim was to
+sleep in the house with Mr. Connor.
+
+The Chinese quarter was a very comfortable house; and was presided over
+by a fat old Chinaman, who had such a long queue that Jim called him
+"Long Tail." His name was See Whong Choo, which, Jim said, was entirely
+too long to pronounce. There were twenty Chinamen on the place; and a
+funny sight it was to see them all file out of a morning to their work,
+every one with what looked like a great dinner-plate upside down on his
+head for a hat, and his long, black hair braided in a queue, not much
+bigger than a rat tail, hanging down his back.
+
+People in California are so used to seeing Chinamen, that they do not
+realize how droll they look to persons not accustomed to the sight.
+
+Their yellow skins, their funny little black eyes, set so slanting in
+their heads that you can't tell half the time whether they are looking
+straight at you or not, their shiny shaved heads and pig-tails, are all
+very queer. And when you first hear them talking together in their own
+tongue, you think it must be cats trying to learn English; it is a
+mixture of caterwaul and parrot, more disagreeable in sound than any
+language I ever heard.
+
+About a year after Mr. Connor had moved into his new house, he got a
+letter, one night, which made him very unhappy. It told him that his
+sister and her husband were dead; they had died, both of them in one
+week, of a dreadful fever. Their two children had had the fever at the
+same time, but they were getting well; and now, as there was nobody in
+Italy to take care of them, the letter asked what should be done with
+them. Would Mr. Connor come out himself, or would he send some one? The
+Count and his wife had been only a few days ill, and the fever had made
+them delirious from the first, so that no directions had been given to
+any one about the children; and there the two poor little things
+were, all alone with their nurse in their apartment in the King's
+palace. They had had to live in the palace always, so that the Count
+could be ready to attend on the King whenever he was wanted.
+
+[Illustration: THE KING'S PALACE.--Page 31.]
+
+Giuseppe and Maria (those were their names) never liked living there.
+The palace was much too grand, with its marble staircases, and marble
+floored rooms, so huge and cold; and armed soldiers for sentinels,
+standing at the corners and doors, to keep people from going into rooms
+without permission, and to keep watch also, lest somebody should get in
+and kill the King. The King was always afraid of being killed; there
+were so many unhappy and discontented persons in Italy, who did not
+want him to be King. Just think how frightful it must be to know every
+day,--morning, noon, and night,--that there was danger of somebody's
+coming stealthily into your room to kill you! Who would be a king? It
+used to make the children afraid whenever they passed these tall
+soldiers in armor, in the halls. They would hold tight to each other's
+hands, and run as fast as they could, past them; and when they got out
+in the open air, they were glad; most of all when their nurse took them
+into the country, where they could run on the grass and pick flowers.
+There they used often to see poor little hovels of houses, with gardens,
+and a donkey and chickens in the yard, and children playing; and they
+used to say they wished their father and mother were poor, and lived in
+a house like that, and kept a donkey. And then the nurse would tell them
+they were silly children; that it was a fine thing to live in a palace,
+and have their father one of the King's officers, and their mother one
+of the most beautiful of the Queen's ladies; but you couldn't have made
+the children believe it. They hated the palace, and everything about it,
+more and more every day of their lives.
+
+Giuseppe was ten, and Maria was seven. They were never called by their
+real names: Giuseppe was called Jusy, and Maria was called Rea; Jusy and
+Rea, nobody would ever have guessed from that, what their real names
+were. Maria is pronounced _Mahrea_ in Italy; so that was the way she
+came to be called Rea for shortness. Jusy gave himself his nickname when
+he was a baby, and it had always stuck to him ever since.
+
+It was enough to make anybody's heart ache to see these two poor little
+things, when they first got strong enough to totter about after this
+fever; so weak they felt, they could hardly stand; and they cried more
+than half the time, thinking about their papa and mamma, dead and buried
+without their even being able to kiss them once for good-by. The King
+himself felt so sorry for the little orphans, he came to speak to them;
+and the kind Queen came almost every day, and sent them beautiful toys,
+and good things to eat; but nothing comforted the children.
+
+"What do you suppose will become of us, Jusy?" Rea often said; and Jusy
+would reply,--
+
+"I don't know, Rea. As soon as I'm a man, I can take care of you and
+myself too, easy enough; and that won't be a great while. I shall ask
+the King to let me be one of his officers like papa."
+
+"Oh, no! no! Jusy," Rea would reply. "Don't! Don't let's live in this
+horrid palace. Ask him to give you a little house in the country, with a
+donkey; and I will cook the dinner. Caterina will teach me how."
+
+Caterina was their nurse.
+
+"But there wouldn't be any money to pay Caterina," Jusy would say.
+
+"The King might give us enough for that, Jusy. He is so kind. I'm sure
+he would, don't you think so?" was Rea's answer to this difficulty.
+
+"No," said Jusy, "I don't think he would, unless I earned it. Papa had
+to work for all the money he had."
+
+It was a glad day for the children when the news came that their uncle
+in America was going to send for them to come and live with him; and
+that in three weeks the man who was to take them there would arrive.
+This news came over by telegraph, on that wonderful telegraph wire,
+down at the bottom of the ocean. Their kind Uncle George thought he
+would not leave the children uncheered in their suspense and loneliness
+one minute longer than he could help; so he sent the message by
+telegraph; and the very day after this telegraphic message went, Jim set
+out for Italy.
+
+Jim had travelled so much with Mr. Connor that he was just the best
+possible person to take charge of the children on their long journey. He
+knew how to manage everything; and he could speak Italian and French and
+German well enough to say all that was necessary in places where no
+English was spoken. Moreover, Jim had been a servant in Mr. Connor's
+father's house all his life; had taken care of Mr. Connor and his sister
+when they were a little boy and girl together, just as Jusy and Rea were
+now. He always called Mr. Connor "Mr. George," and his sister "Miss
+Julia;" and when he set out to go for the children he felt almost as if
+he were going to the help and rescue of his own grandchildren.
+
+Jusy and Rea did not feel that they were going to a stranger; for they
+had heard about their Uncle George ever since they could remember; and
+all about "Jim" too. Almost every year Mr. Connor used to send his
+sister a new picture of himself; so the children knew very well how he
+looked.
+
+When the news came that they were to go to America and live with him,
+they got out all of these pictures they could find, and ranged them in a
+line on the mantelpiece in their parlor. There was a picture of Jim too,
+as black as charcoal. At first, Rea had been afraid of this; but Jusy
+thought it was splendid. Every morning the lonely little creatures used
+to stand in front of this line of pictures and say, "Good-morning, Uncle
+George! Good-morning to you, Mr. Black Man! How soon will you get here?
+We shall be very glad to see you."
+
+It was over a month before he arrived. The children had been told that
+he might be there in three weeks from the day the despatch came; and as
+soon as the three weeks were ended, they began almost to hold their
+breaths listening for him; they were hardly willing to stir out of the
+palace for a walk, for fear he might come while they were away. Rea
+watched at the windows, and Jusy watched at the doorway which led into
+the corridor.
+
+"He might be afraid of the sentinel at the corner there," he said.
+"Caterina says there are no palaces in America."
+
+"Goody!" interrupted Rea, "I'm so glad."
+
+"And so perhaps he has never seen a man in armor like that; and I'd
+better be at the door to run and meet him."
+
+All their clothes were packed ready for the journey; and all the things
+which had belonged to their mamma were packed up too, to go with them.
+The huge rooms looked drearier than ever. The new chamberlain's wife was
+impatient to get settled in the apartment herself, and kept coming to
+look at it, and discussing, in the children's presence, where she would
+put this or that piece of furniture, and how she would have her pictures
+hung.
+
+"I think she is a very rude lady," said Jusy. "The Queen said these were
+our rooms so long as we stayed, just the same as if mamma were here with
+us; and I think I see her coming in here that way if mamma was here!"
+
+[Illustration: decorative panel]*
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+
+After all their precautions, Jusy and Rea were out when Jim arrived.
+They had been to take a walk with Caterina; and when they came back, as
+they passed the big sentinel at the outside gate, he nodded to them
+pleasantly, and said,--
+
+"He has come!--the black signor from America." ("Signor" is Italian for
+"Mr.")
+
+[Illustration: JUSY AND REA. "He has come!--the black signor from
+America."--Page 42.]
+
+You see everybody in the palace, from the King down to the scullions in
+the kitchen, was interested in the two fatherless and motherless
+children, and glad to hear that Jim had arrived.
+
+The very next day they set off. Jim was impatient to be back in
+California again; there was nothing to wait for. Caterina was greatly
+relieved to find that he did not wish her to go with him. The Queen had
+said she must go, if the black signor wished it; and Caterina was
+wretched with fright at the thought of the journey, and of the country
+full of wild beasts and savages. "Worse than Africa, a hundred times,"
+she said, "from all I can hear. But her Majesty says I must go, if I am
+needed. I'd rather die, but I see no way out of it."
+
+When it came to bidding Rea good-by, however, she was almost ready to
+beg to be allowed to go. The child cried and clung to her neck; and
+Caterina cried and sobbed too.
+
+But the wise Jim had provided himself with a powerful helper. He had
+bought a little white spaniel, the tiniest creature that ever ran on
+four legs; she was no more than a doll, in Rea's arms; her hair was like
+white silk floss. She had a blue satin collar with a gilt clasp and
+padlock; and on the padlock, in raised letters, was the name "Fairy."
+Jim had thought of this in New York, and bought the collar and padlock
+there; and the dog he had bought only one hour before they were to set
+out on their journey. She was in a beautiful little flannel-lined
+basket; and when Rea clung to Caterina's neck crying and sobbing, Jim
+stepped up to her and said,--
+
+"Don't cry, missy; here's your little dog to take care of; she'll be
+scared if she sees you cry."
+
+"Mine! Mine! That sweet doggie!" cried Rea. She could not believe her
+eyes. She stopped crying; and she hardly noticed when the Queen herself
+kissed her in farewell, so absorbed was she in "Fairy" and the blue
+satin collar. "Oh, you are a very good black man, Signor Jim," she
+cried. "I never saw such a sweet doggie; I shall carry her in my own
+arms all the way there."
+
+It was a hard journey; but the children enjoyed every minute of it. The
+account of all they did and saw, and the good times they had with the
+kind Jim, would make a long story by itself; but if I told it, we should
+never get to the Hunter Cats; so I will not tell you anything about the
+journey at all except that it took about six weeks, and that they
+reached San Gabriel in the month of March, when everything was green and
+beautiful, and the country as full of wild flowers as the children had
+ever seen the country about Florence in Italy.
+
+Mr. Connor had not been idle while Jim was away. After walking up and
+down his house, with his thinking-cap on, for a few days, looking into
+the rooms, and trying to contrive how it should be rearranged to
+accommodate his new and unexpected family, he suddenly decided to build
+on a small wing to the house. He might as well arrange it in the outset
+as it would be pleasantest to have it when Jusy and Rea were a young
+gentleman and a young lady, he thought. What might do for them very well
+now, while they were little children, would not do at all when they were
+grown up.
+
+So, as I told you, Mr. Connor being a gentleman who never lost any time
+in doing a thing he had once made up his mind to, set carpenters at work
+immediately tearing out half of one side of his new house; and in little
+over a month, there was almost another little house joined on to it.
+There was a good big room for Rea's bedroom, and a small room opening
+out of it, for her sitting-room; beyond this another room in which her
+nurse could sleep, while she needed one, and after she grew older, the
+governess who must come to teach her; and after she did not need any
+governess, the room would be a pleasant thing to have for her young
+friends who came to visit her. This kind uncle was planning for a good
+many years ahead, in this wing to his house.
+
+These rooms for Rea were in the second story. Beneath them were two
+large rooms, one for Jusy, and one for Jim. A pretty stairway, with a
+lattice-work wall, went up outside to Rea's room, and at the door of
+her room spread out into a sort of loggia, or upstairs piazza, such as
+Mr. Connor knew she had been used to in Italy. In another year this
+stairway and loggia would be a bower of all sorts of vines, things grow
+so fast in California.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And now we are really coming to the Cats. They had arrived before the
+children did.
+
+When the children got out of the cars at San Gabriel, there stood their
+Uncle George on the platform waiting for them. Jusy spied him first.
+"There's Uncle George," he shouted, and ran towards him shouting, "Uncle
+George! Uncle George! Here we are."
+
+Rea followed close behind, holding up Fairy. "Look at my doggie that
+Signor black Jim gave me," she cried, holding Fairy up as high as she
+could reach; and in the next minute she herself, doggie and all, was
+caught up in Uncle George's arms.
+
+"What makes you cry, Uncle George?" she exclaimed; "we thought you would
+be very glad to see us!"
+
+"So I am, you dear child," he said. "I am only crying because I am so
+glad."
+
+But Jusy knew better, and as soon as he could get a chance, he whispered
+to Rea, "I should have thought you would have known better than to say
+anything to Uncle George about his having tears in his eyes. It was
+because we reminded him so much of mamma, that he cried. I saw the
+tears come in his eyes, the first minute he saw us, but I wasn't going
+to say a word about it."
+
+Poor little Rea felt badly enough to think she had not understood as
+quickly as Jusy did; but the only thing she could think of to do was to
+spring up in the seat of the wagon, and put her arms around her uncle's
+neck, and kiss him over and over, saying, "We are going to love you,
+like,--oh,--like everything, Jusy and me! I love you better than my
+doggie!"
+
+But when she said this, the tears came into Mr. Connor's eyes again; and
+Rea looked at Jusy in despair.
+
+"Keep quiet, Rea," whispered Jusy. "He doesn't want us to talk just
+yet, I guess;" and Rea sat down again, and tried to comfort herself with
+Fairy. But she could not keep her eyes from watching her uncle's face.
+Her affectionate heart was grieved to see him look so sad, instead of
+full of joy and gladness as she had thought it would be. Finally she
+stole her hand into his and sat very still without speaking, and that
+really did comfort Mr. Connor more than anything she could have done.
+The truth was, Rea looked so much like her mother, that it was almost
+more than Mr. Connor could bear when he first saw her; and her voice
+also was like her mother's.
+
+Jusy did not in the least resemble his mother; he was like his father
+in every way,--hair as black as black could be, and eyes almost as black
+as the hair; a fiery, flashing sort of face Jusy had; and a fiery,
+flashing sort of temper too, I am sorry to say. A good deal like
+thunder-storms, Jusy's fits of anger were; but, if they were swift and
+loud, like the thunder, they also were short-lived,--cleared off
+quickly,--like thunder-storms, and showed blue sky afterward, and a
+beautiful rainbow of sorrow for the hasty words or deeds.
+
+Rea was fair, with blue eyes and yellow hair, and a temper sunny as her
+face. In Italy there are so few people with blue eyes and fair hair,
+that whenever Rea was seen in the street, everybody turned to look at
+her, and asked who she was, and remembered her; and when she came again,
+they said, "Ecco! Ecco! (That is Italian for Look! Look!) There is the
+little blue-eyed, golden-haired angel." Rea did not know that the people
+said this, which was well, for it might have made her vain.
+
+It was six miles from the railway station to Mr. Connor's house. But the
+house was in sight all the way; it was so high up on the mountain-side
+that it showed plainly, and as it was painted white, you could see it in
+all directions like a lighthouse. Mr. Connor liked to be able to see it
+from all places when he was riding about the valley. He said it looked
+friendly to him; as if it said, all the time, "Here I am, you can come
+home any minute you want to."
+
+After they had driven about half way, Mr. Connor said,--
+
+"Children, do you see that big square house up there on the mountain?
+That is Connorloa."
+
+"Whose house is it, Uncle George?" said Jusy.
+
+"Why, did you not hear?" replied Mr. Connor. "It is Connorloa."
+
+The children looked still more puzzled.
+
+"Oh," laughed their uncle. "Is it possible nobody has told you the name
+of my house? I have called it Connorloa, from my own name, and 'loa,'
+which is the word in the Sandwich Islands for 'hill.' I suppose I might
+have called it Connor Hill, but I thought 'loa' was prettier."
+
+"Oh, so do I," said Jusy. "It is lovely. Connorloa, Connorloa," he
+repeated. "Doesn't it sound like some of the names in Italy, Rea?" he
+said.
+
+"Prettier!" said little Rea. "No word in Italy, so pretty as Connorloa;
+nor so nice as Uncle George."
+
+"You dear, loving little thing!" cried Uncle George, throwing his arms
+around her. "You are for all the world your mother over again."
+
+"That's just what I've been saying to myself all the way home, Mr.
+George," said Jim. "It's seemed to me half the time as if it were Miss
+Julia herself; but the boy is not much like you."
+
+"No," said Jusy proudly, throwing back his handsome head, and his eyes
+flashing. "I am always said to be exactly the portrait of my father; and
+when I am a man, I am going back to Italy to live in the King's palace,
+and wear my father's sword."
+
+"I sha'n't go," said Rea, nestling close to her uncle. "I shall stay in
+Connorloa with Uncle George. I hate palaces. Your house isn't a palace,
+is it, Uncle George? It looks pretty big."
+
+"No, my dear; not by any means," replied Mr. Connor, laughing heartily.
+"But why do you hate palaces, my little Rea? Most people think it would
+be the finest thing possible to live in a palace."
+
+"I don't," said Rea. "I just hate them; the rooms are so big and so
+cold; and the marble floors are so slip-py, I've had my knees all black
+and blue tumbling down on them; and the stairs are worse yet; I used to
+have to creep on them; and there is a soldier at every corner with a gun
+and a sword to kill you, if you break any of the rules. I think a palace
+is just like a prison!"
+
+"Well done, my little Republican!" cried Uncle George.
+
+"What is that?" said Rea.
+
+"I know," said Jusy. "It is a person that does not wish to have any
+king. There were Republicans in Italy; very bad men. Papa said they
+ought to be killed. Why do you call Rea by that name, Uncle George?" and
+Jusy straightened himself up like a soldier, and looked fierce.
+
+Mr. Connor could hardly keep his face straight as he replied to Jusy:
+"My dear boy the word does not mean anything bad in America; we are all
+Republicans here. You know we do not have any king. We do not think that
+is the best way to take care of a country."
+
+"My papa thought it was the best way," haughtily answered Jusy. "I shall
+think always as papa did."
+
+"All right, my man," laughed Uncle George. "Perhaps you will. You can
+think and say what you like while you live in America, and nobody will
+put you in prison for your thoughts or your words, as they might if you
+lived in Italy."
+
+It was near night when they reached the house. As they drove slowly up
+the long hill, the Chinamen were just going, on the same road, to their
+supper. When they heard the sound of the wheels, they stepped off the
+road, and formed themselves into a line to let the carriage pass, and to
+get a peep at the children. They all knew about their coming, and were
+curious to see them.
+
+[Illustration: "The Chinamen were just going to their supper, and they
+formed themselves into a line."--PAGE 60.]
+
+When Rea caught sight of them, she screamed aloud, and shook with
+terror, and hid her face on her uncle's shoulder.
+
+"Are those the savages?" she cried. "Oh, don't let them kill Fairy;" and
+she nearly smothered the little dog, crowding her down out of sight on
+the seat between herself and her uncle.
+
+Jusy did not say a word, but he turned pale; he also thought these must
+be the savages of which they had heard.
+
+Mr. Connor could hardly speak for laughing. "Who ever put such an idea
+as that into your head?" he cried. "Those are men from China; those are
+my workmen; they live at Connorloa all the time. They are very good men;
+they would not hurt anybody. There are not any savages here."
+
+"Caterina said America was all full of savages," sobbed Rea,--"savages
+and wild beasts, such as lions and wolves."
+
+"That girl was a fool," exclaimed Jim. "It was a good thing, Mr. George,
+you told me not to bring her over."
+
+"I should say so," replied Mr. Connor. "The idea of her trying to
+frighten these children in that way. It was abominable."
+
+"She did nothing of the kind," cried Jusy, his face very red. "She was
+talking to her cousin; and she thought we were asleep; and Rea and I
+listened; and I told Rea it was good enough for us to get so frightened
+because we had listened. But I did not believe it so much as Rea did."
+
+The Chinamen were all bowing and bending, and smiling in the gladness
+of their hearts. Mr. Connor was a good master to them; and they knew it
+would be to him great pleasure to have these little children in the
+house.
+
+While driving by he spoke to several of them by name, and they replied.
+Jusy and Rea listened and looked.
+
+"What are their heads made of, Uncle George?" whispered Rea. "Will they
+break if they hit them?"
+
+At first, Mr. Connor could not understand what she meant; then in a
+moment he shouted with laughter.
+
+Chinamen have their heads shorn of all hair, except one little lock at
+the top; this is braided in a tight braid, like a whiplash, and hangs
+down their backs, sometimes almost to the very ground. The longer this
+queer little braid is, the prouder the Chinaman feels. All the rest of
+his head is bare and shining smooth. They looked to Rea like the heads
+of porcelain baby dolls she had had; and that those would break, she
+knew by sad experience.
+
+How pleased Rea and Jusy were with their beautiful rooms, and with
+everything in their Uncle George's house, there are no words to tell.
+They would have been very unreasonable and ungrateful children, if they
+had not been; for Mr. Connor had not forgotten one thing which could add
+to their comfort or happiness: books, toys, everything he could think
+of, or anybody could suggest to him, he had bought. And when he led
+little Rea into her bedroom, there stood a sweet-faced young Mexican
+girl, to be her nurse.
+
+"Anita," he said, "here is your young lady."
+
+"I am very glad to see you, seņorita," said the girl, coming forward to
+take off Rea's hat; on which Rea exclaimed,--
+
+"Why, she is Italian! That is what Caterina called me. And Caterina had
+a sister whose name was Anita. How did you get over here?"
+
+"I was born here, seņorita," replied the girl.
+
+"It is not quite the same word, Rea," said Mr. Connor, "though it sounds
+so much like it. It was 'signorita' you were called in Italy; and it is
+'seņorita' that Anita here calls you. That is Spanish; and Anita speaks
+much more Spanish than English. That is one reason I took her. I want
+you to learn to speak in Spanish."
+
+"Then we shall speak four languages," said Jusy proudly,--"Italian,
+French, and English and Spanish. Our papa spoke eleven. That was one
+reason he was so useful to the King. Nobody could come from any foreign
+country that papa could not talk to. My papa said the more languages a
+man spoke, the more he could do in the world. I shall learn all the
+American languages before I go back to Italy. Are there as many as nine,
+Uncle George?"
+
+"Yes, a good many more," replied Uncle George. "Pretty nearly a language
+for every State, I should say. But the fewer you learn of them the
+better. If you will speak good English and Spanish, that is all you will
+need here."
+
+"Shall we not learn the language of the signors from China?" asked Rea.
+
+At which Jim, who had followed, and was standing in the background,
+looking on with delight, almost went into convulsions of laughter, and
+went out and told the Chinamen in the kitchen that Miss Rea wished to
+learn to speak Chinese at once. So they thought she must be a very nice
+little girl, and were all ready to be her warm friends.
+
+The next morning, as Rea was dressing, she heard a great caterwauling
+and miaowing. Fairy, who was asleep on the foot of her bed, sprang up
+and began to bark furiously; all the while, however, looking as if she
+were frightened half to death. Never before had Fairy heard so many
+cats' voices at once.
+
+Rea ran to the open window; before she reached it, she heard Jusy
+calling to her from below,--
+
+"Rea! Rea! Are you up? Come out and see the cats."
+
+Jusy had been up ever since light, roaming over the whole place: the
+stables, the Chinamen's quarters, the tool-house, the kitchen, the
+woodpile; there was nothing he had not seen; and he was in a state of
+such delight he could not walk straight or steadily; he went on the run
+and with a hop, skip, and jump from each thing to the next.
+
+"Hurry, Rea!" he screamed. "Do hurry. Never mind your hair. Come down.
+They'll be done!"
+
+Still the miaowing and caterwauling continued.
+
+"Oh, hurry, hurry, Anita," said Rea. "Please let me go down; I'll come
+up to have my hair done afterwards. What is it, Anita? Is it really
+cats? Are there a thousand?"
+
+Anita laughed. "No, seņorita," she said. "Only seventeen! And you will
+see them every morning just the same. They always make this noise. They
+are being fed; and there is only a very little meat for so many. Jim
+keeps them hungry all the time, so they will hunt better."
+
+"Hunt!" cried Rea.
+
+"Yes," said Anita. "That is what we keep them for, to hunt the gophers
+and rabbits and moles. They are clearing them out fast. Jim says by
+another spring there won't be a gopher on the place."
+
+[Illustration: THE CHINAMAN, AH FOO, FEEDING THE CATS--Page 70.]
+
+Before she had finished speaking, Rea was downstairs and out on the east
+veranda. At the kitchen door stood a Chinaman, throwing bits of meat to
+the scrambling seventeen cats,--black, white, tortoise-shell, gray,
+maltese, yellow, every color, size, shape of cat that was ever seen.
+And they were plunging and leaping and racing about so, that it looked
+like twice as many cats as there really were, and as if every cat had a
+dozen tails. "Sfz! Sfz! Sputter! Scratch, spp, spt! Growl, growl, miaow,
+miaow," they went, till, between the noise and the flying around, it was
+a bedlam.
+
+Jusy had laughed till the tears ran out of his eyes; and Ah Foo (that
+was the Chinaman's name) was laughing almost as hard, just to see Jusy
+laugh. The cats were an old story to Ah Foo; he had got over laughing at
+them long ago.
+
+Ah Foo was the cook's brother. While Jim had been away, Ah Foo had
+waited at table, and done all the housework except the cooking. The
+cook's name was Wang Hi. He was old; but Ah Foo was young, not more than
+twenty. He did not like to work in the house, and he was glad Jim had
+got home, so he could go to working out of doors again. He was very
+glad, too, to see the children; and he had spoken so pleasantly to Jusy,
+that in one minute Jusy had lost all his fear of Chinamen.
+
+When Rea saw Ah Foo, she hung back, and was afraid to go nearer.
+
+"Oh, come on! come on!" shouted Jusy. "Don't be afraid! He is just like
+Jim, only a different color. They have men of all kinds of colors here
+in America. They are just like other people, all but the color. Come
+on, Rea. Don't be silly. You can't half see from there!"
+
+But Rea was afraid. She would not come farther than the last pillar of
+the veranda. "I can see very well here," she said; and there she stood
+clinging to the pillar. She was half afraid of the cats, too, besides
+being very much afraid of the Chinaman.
+
+The cats' breakfast was nearly over. In fact, they had had their usual
+allowance before Rea came down; but Ah Foo had gone on throwing out meat
+for Rea to see the scrambling. Presently he threw the last piece, and
+set the empty plate up on a shelf by the kitchen door. The cats knew
+very well by this sign that breakfast was over; after the plate was set
+on that shelf, they never had a mouthful more of meat; and it was droll
+to see the change that came over all of them as soon as they saw this
+done. In less than a second, they changed from fierce, fighting,
+clawing, scratching, snatching, miaowing, spitting, growling cats, into
+quiet, peaceful cats, some sitting down licking their paws, or washing
+their faces, and some lying out full-length on the ground and rolling;
+some walking off in a leisurely and dignified manner, as if they had had
+all they wanted, and wouldn't thank anybody for another bit of meat, if
+they could have it as well as not. This was almost as funny as the first
+part of it.
+
+After Ah Foo had set the plate in its place on the shelf, he turned to
+go into the kitchen to help about the breakfast; but just as he had put
+his hand on the door-handle, there came a terrible shriek from Rea, a
+fierce sputter from one of the cats, and a faint bark of a dog, all at
+once; and Ah Foo, looking around, sprang just in time to rescue Fairy
+from the jaws of Skipper, one of the biggest and fiercest of the cats.
+
+Poor little Fairy, missing her mistress, had trotted downstairs; and
+smelling on the floor wherever Rea had set her feet, had followed her
+tracks, and had reached the veranda just in time to be spied by Skipper,
+who arched his back, set his tail up straight and stiff as a poker, and,
+making one bound from the ground to the middle of the veranda floor,
+clutched Fairy with teeth and claws, and would have made an end of her
+in less than one minute if Ah Foo had not been there. But Ah Foo could
+move almost as quickly as a cat; and it was not a quarter of a second
+after Fairy gave her piteous cry, when she was safe and sound in her
+mistress's arms, and Ah Foo had Skipper by the scruff of his neck, and
+was holding him high up, boxing his ears, right and left, with blows so
+hard they rang.
+
+"Cat heap wicked," he said. "You killee missy's dog, I killee you!" and
+he flung Skipper with all his might and main through the air.
+
+Rea screamed, "Oh, don't!" She did not want to see the cat killed, even
+if he had flown at Fairy. "It will kill him," she cried.
+
+Ah Foo laughed. "Heap hard killee cat," he said. "Cat get nine time life
+good;" and as he spoke, Skipper, after whirling through the air in
+several somersaults, came down on his feet all right, and slunk off into
+the woodpile.
+
+"I tellee you," said Ah Foo, chuckling.
+
+"Thatee isee heapee goodee manee," cried Jusy. "I havee learnee talkee
+oneee language already!"
+
+A roar of laughter came from the dining-room window. There stood Uncle
+George, holding his sides.
+
+"Bravo, Jusy!" he exclaimed. "You have begun on pigeon English, have
+you, for the first of your nine languages?"
+
+"Isn't that Chinese?" said Jusy, much crestfallen.
+
+"Oh, no!" said Uncle George, "not by any manner of means. It is only the
+Chinese way of talking English. It is called pigeon English. But come in
+to breakfast now, and I will tell you all about my cats,--my hunting
+cats, I call them. They are just as good as a pack of hunting dogs; and
+better, for they do not need anybody to go with them."
+
+How pleasant the breakfast-table looked!--a large square table set with
+gay china, pretty flowers in the middle, nice broiled chicken and fried
+potatoes, and baked apples and cream; and Jusy's and Rea's bright faces,
+one on Mr. Connor's left hand, the other on his right.
+
+As Jim moved about the table and waited on them, he thought to himself,
+"Now, if this doesn't make Mr. George well, it will be because he can't
+be cured."
+
+Jim had found the big house so lonely, with nobody in it except Mr.
+Connor and the two Chinese servants, he would have been glad to see
+almost anything in the shape of a human being,--man, woman, or
+child,--come there to live. How much more, then, these two beautiful and
+merry children!
+
+Jusy and Rea thought they had never in all their lives tasted anything
+so good as the broiled chicken and the baked apples.
+
+"Heapee goodee cookee, Uncle George!" said Jusy. He was so tickled with
+the Chinaman's way of talking, he wanted to keep doing it.
+
+"Tooee muchee putee onee letter e, Master Jusy," said Uncle George.
+"After you have listened to their talk a little longer, you will see
+that they do not add the 'ee' to every word. It is hard to imitate them
+exactly."
+
+Jusy was crestfallen. He thought he had learned a new language in half
+an hour, and he was proud of it. But no new language was ever learned
+without more trouble and hard work than that; not even pigeon English!
+
+[Illustration: decorative panel]*
+
+[Illustration: decorative panel]*
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+
+It had come about by chance, Mr. Connor's keeping this pack of hunting
+cats. He had been greatly troubled by gophers and rabbits: the gophers
+killed his trees by gnawing their roots; the rabbits burrowed under his
+vines, ate the tender young leaves, and gnawed the stems.
+
+Jim had tried every device,--traps of all kinds and all the poisons he
+could hear of. He had also tried drowning the poor little gophers out
+by pouring water down their holes. But, spite of all he could do, the
+whole hill was alive with them. It had been wild ground so long, and
+covered so thick with bushes, that it had been like a nice house built
+on purpose for all small wild animals to live in.
+
+I suppose there must have been miles of gophers' underground tunnels,
+leading from hole to hole. They popped their heads up, and you saw them
+scampering away wherever you went; and in the early morning it was very
+funny to see the rabbits jumping and leaping to get off out of sight
+when they heard people stirring. They were of a beautiful gray color,
+with a short bushy tail, white at the end. On account of this white tip
+to their tails, they are called "cotton-tails."
+
+When Mr. Connor first moved up on the hill, Jim used to shoot a
+cottontail almost every day, and some days he shot two. The rabbits,
+however, are shyer than the gophers; when they find out that they get
+shot as soon as they are seen, and that these men who shoot them have
+built houses and mean to stay, they will gradually desert their burrows
+and move away to new homes.
+
+But the gopher is not so afraid. He lives down in the ground, and can
+work in the dark as well as in the light; and he likes roots just as
+well as he likes the stems above ground; so as long as he stays in his
+cellar houses, he is hard to reach.
+
+The gopher is a pretty little creature, with a striped back,--almost as
+pretty as a chipmonk. It seems a great pity to have to kill them all
+off; but there is no help for it; fruit-trees and gophers cannot live in
+the same place.
+
+Soon after Mr. Connor moved into his new house, he had a present of a
+big cat from the Mexican woman who sold him milk.
+
+She said to Jim one day, "Have you got a cat in your house yet?"
+
+"No," said Jim. "Mr. George does not like cats."
+
+"No matter," said she, "you have got to have one. The gophers and
+squirrels in this country are a great deal worse than rats and mice.
+They'll come right into your kitchen and cellar, if your back is turned
+a minute, and eat you out of house and home. I'll give you a splendid
+cat. She's a good hunter. I've got more cats than I know what to do
+with."
+
+So she presented Jim with a fine, big black and white cat; and Jim named
+the cat "Mexican," because a Mexican woman gave her to him.
+
+The first thing Mexican did, after getting herself established in her
+new home in the woodpile, was to have a litter of kittens, six of them.
+The next thing she did, as soon as they got big enough to eat meat, was
+to go out hunting for food for them; and one day, as Mr. Connor was
+riding up the hill, he saw her running into the woodpile, with a big fat
+gopher in her mouth.
+
+"Ha!" thought Mr. Connor to himself. "There's an idea! If one cat will
+kill one gopher in a day, twenty cats would kill twenty gophers in a
+day! I'll get twenty cats, and keep them just to hunt gophers. They'll
+clear the place out quicker than poison, or traps, or drowning."
+
+"Jim," he called, as soon as he entered the house,--"Jim, I've got an
+idea. I saw Mexican just now carrying a dead gopher to her kittens. Does
+she kill many?"
+
+"Oh, yes, sir," replied Jim. "Before she got her kittens I used to see
+her with them every day. But she does not go out so often now."
+
+"Good mother!" said Mr. Connor. "Stays at home with her family, does
+she?"
+
+"Yes, sir," laughed Jim; "except when she needs to go out to get food
+for them."
+
+"You may set about making a collection of cats, Jim, at once," said Mr.
+Connor. "I'd like twenty."
+
+Jim stared. "I thought you didn't like cats, Mr. George," he exclaimed.
+"I was afraid to bring Mexican home, for fear you wouldn't like having
+her about."
+
+"No more do I," replied Mr. Connor. "But I do not dislike them so much
+as I dislike gophers. And don't you see, if we have twenty, and they
+all hunt gophers as well as she does, we'll soon have the place
+cleared?"
+
+"We'd have to feed them, sir," said Jim. "So many's that, they'd never
+make all their living off gophers."
+
+"Well, we'll feed them once a day, just a little, so as not to let them
+starve. But we must keep them hungry, or else they won't hunt."
+
+"Very well, sir," said Jim. "I will set about it at once."
+
+"Beg or buy them," laughed Mr. Connor. "I'll pay for them, if I can't
+get them any other way. There is room in the woodpile for fifty to
+live."
+
+Jim did not much like the idea of having such an army of cats about; but
+he went faithfully to work; and in a few weeks he had seventeen. One
+morning, when they were all gathered together to be fed, he called Mr.
+Connor to look at them.
+
+"Do you think there are enough, sir?" he said.
+
+"Goodness! Jim," cried Mr. Connor, "what did you get so many for? We
+shall be overrun."
+
+Jim laughed. "I'm three short yet, sir, of the number you ordered," he
+said. "There are only seventeen in that batch."
+
+"Only seventeen! You are joking, Jim," cried Mr. Connor; and he tried
+to count; but the cats were in such a scrambling mass, he could not
+count them.
+
+"I give it up, Jim," he said at last. "But are there really only
+seventeen?"
+
+"That's all, sir, and it takes quite a lot of meat to give them all a
+bite of a morning. I think here are enough to begin with, unless you
+have set your heart, sir, on having twenty. Mexican has got six kittens,
+you know, and they will be big enough to hunt before long. That will
+make twenty-three."
+
+"Plenty! plenty!" said Mr. Connor. "Don't get another one. And, Jim," he
+added, "wouldn't it be better to feed them at night? Then they will be
+hungry the next morning."
+
+"I tried that, sir," said Jim, "but they didn't seem so lively. I don't
+give them any more than just enough to whet their appetites. At first
+they sat round the door begging for more, half the morning, and I had to
+stone them away; now they understand it. In a few minutes, they'll all
+be off; and you won't see much of any of them till to-morrow morning.
+They are all on hand then, as regular as the sun rises."
+
+"Where do they sleep?" said Mr. Connor.
+
+"In the woodpile, every blessed cat of them," replied Jim. "And there
+are squirrels living in there too. It is just a kind of cage, that
+woodpile, with its crooks and turns. I saw a squirrel going up, up, in
+it the other day; I thought he'd make his way out to the top; I thought
+the cats would have cleaned them all out before this time, but they
+haven't; I saw one there only yesterday."
+
+Jim had counted too soon on Mexican's kittens. Five of them came to a
+sad end. Their mother carried to them, one day, a gopher which she found
+lying dead in the road. Poor cat-mother! I suppose she thought to
+herself when she saw it lying there, "Oh, how lucky! I sha'n't have to
+sit and wait and watch for a gopher this morning. Here is one all ready,
+dead!" But that gopher had died of poison which had been put down his
+hole; and as soon as the little kittens ate it, they were all taken
+dreadfully ill, and all but one died. Either he hadn't had so much of
+the gopher as the rest had, or else he was stronger; he lingered along
+in misery for a month, as thin, wretched-looking a little beast as ever
+was seen; then he began to pick up his flesh, and finally got to be as
+strong a cat as there was in the whole pack.
+
+He was most curiously marked: in addition to the black and white of his
+mother's skin, he had gray and yellow mottled in all over him. Jim
+thought it looked as if his skin had been painted, so he named him
+Fresco.
+
+Jim had names for all the best cats; there were ten that were named.
+The other seven, Jim called "the rabble;" but of the ten he had named,
+Jim grew to be very proud. He thought they were remarkable cats.
+
+First there was Mexican, the original first-comer in the colony. Then
+there was Big Tom, and another Tom called China Tom, because he would
+stay all the time he could with the Chinamen. He was dark-gray, with
+black stripes on him.
+
+Next in size and beauty was a huge black cat, called Snowball. He was
+given to Mr. Connor by a miner's wife, who lived in a cabin high up on
+the mountain. She said she would let him have the cat on the condition
+that he would continue to call him Snowball, as she had done. She named
+him Snowball, she said, to make herself laugh every time she called him,
+he being black as coal; and there was so little to laugh at where she
+lived, she liked a joke whenever she could contrive one.
+
+Then there was Skipper, the one who nearly ate up Fairy that first
+morning; he also was as black as coal, and fierce as a wolf; all the
+cats were more or less afraid of him. Jim named him Skipper, because he
+used to race about in trees like a squirrel. Way up to the very top of
+the biggest sycamore trees in the caņon back of the house, Skipper would
+go, and leap from one bough to another. He was especially fond of birds,
+and in this way he caught many. He thought birds were much better
+eating than gophers.
+
+Mexican, Big Tom, China Tom, Snowball, Skipper, and Fresco,--these are
+six of the names; the other four were not remarkable; they did not mean
+anything in especial; only to distinguish their owners from the rest,
+who had no names at all.
+
+Oh, yes; I am forgetting the drollest of all: that was Humbug. Jim gave
+her that name because she was so artful and sly about getting more than
+her share of the meat. She would watch for the biggest pieces, and
+pounce on them right under some other cat's nose, and almost always
+succeed in getting them. So Jim named her Humbug, which was a very good
+name; for she always pretended to be quieter and stiller than the rest,
+as if she were not in any great hurry about her breakfast; and then she
+whisked in, and got the biggest pieces, and twice as much as any other
+cat there.
+
+The other names were Jenny, Capitan, and Growler. That made the ten.
+
+In a very few days after Jusy and Rea arrived, they knew all these cats'
+names as well as Jim did; and they were never tired of watching them at
+their morning meal, or while they were prowling, looking, and waiting
+for gophers and rabbits.
+
+For a long time, Rea carried Fairy tight in her arms whenever there was
+a cat in sight; but after a while, the cats all came to know Fairy so
+well that they took no notice of her, and it was safe to put her on the
+ground and let her run along. But Rea kept close to her, and never
+forgot her for a single minute.
+
+There were many strange things which these cats did, besides hunting the
+gophers. They used also to hunt snakes. In one of the rocky ravines near
+the house there were large snakes of a beautiful golden-brown color. On
+warm days these used to crawl out, and lie sunning themselves on the
+rocks. Woe to any such snake, if one of the cats caught sight of him!
+Big Tom had a special knack at killing them. He would make a bound, and
+come down with his fore claws firm planted in the middle of the snake's
+back; then he would take it in his teeth, and shake it, flapping its
+head against the stones every time, till it was more dead than alive.
+You would not have thought that so big a snake could have been so
+helpless in the claws of a cat.
+
+Another thing the cats did, which gave the men much amusement, was, that
+when they had killed rabbits they carried the bodies into the mules'
+stables. Mules are terribly frightened at the smell of a dead rabbit.
+Whenever this happened, a great braying and crying and stamping would be
+heard in the stables; and on running to see what was the matter, there
+would be found Big Tom or Skipper, sitting down calm and happy by the
+side of a dead rabbit, which he had carried in, and for some reason or
+other best known to himself had deposited in plain sight of the mules.
+Why they chose to carry dead rabbits there, unless it was that they
+enjoyed seeing the mules so frightened, there seemed no explaining. They
+never took dead gophers up there, or snakes; only the rabbits. Once a
+mule was so frightened that he plunged till he broke his halter, got
+free, and ran off down the hill; and the men had a big chase before they
+overtook him.
+
+But the queerest thing of all that happened, was that the cats adopted a
+skunk; or else it was the skunk that adopted the cats; I don't know
+which would be the proper way of stating it; but at any rate the skunk
+joined the family, lived with them in the woodpile, came with them every
+morning to be fed, and went off with them hunting gophers every day. It
+must have been there some time before Jim noticed it, for when he first
+saw it, it was already on the most familiar and friendly terms with all
+the cats. It was a pretty little black and white creature, and looked a
+good deal like one of Mexican's kittens.
+
+Finally it became altogether too friendly: Jim found it in the kitchen
+cellar one day; and a day or two after that, it actually walked into
+the house. Mr. Connor was sitting in his library writing. He heard a
+soft, furry foot patting on the floor, and thought it was Fairy.
+Presently he looked up; and, to his horror, there was the cunning little
+black and white skunk in the doorway, looking around and sniffing
+curiously at everything, like a cat. Mr. Connor held his breath and did
+not dare stir, for fear the creature should take it into its head that
+he was an enemy. Seeing everything so still, the skunk walked in, walked
+around both library and dining-room, taking minute observations of
+everything by means of its nose. Then it softly patted out again, across
+the hall, and out of the front door, down the veranda steps.
+
+It had seemed an age to Mr. Connor; he could hardly help laughing too,
+as he sat there in his chair, to think how helpless he, a grown-up man,
+felt before a creature no bigger than that,--a little thing whose neck
+he could wring with one hand; and yet he no more dared to touch it, or
+try to drive it out, than if it had been a roaring lion. As soon as it
+was fairly out of the way, Mr. Connor went in search of Jim.
+
+"Jim," said he, "that skunk you were telling me about, that the cats had
+adopted, seems to be thinking of adopting me; he spent some time in the
+library with me this morning, looking me over; and I am afraid he liked
+me and the place much too well. I should like to have him killed. Can
+you manage it?"
+
+"Yes, sir," laughed Jim. "I was thinking I'd have to kill him. I caught
+him in the cellar a day or two since, and I thought he was getting to
+feel too much at home. I'll fix him."
+
+So the next morning Jim took a particularly nice and tempting piece of
+meat, covered it with poison, and just as the cats' breakfast was
+finished, and the cats slowly dispersing, he threw this tidbit directly
+at the little skunk. He swallowed it greedily, and before noon he was
+dead.
+
+Jim could not help being sorry when he saw him stretched out stiff near
+his home in the woodpile. "He was a pert little rascal;" said Jim. "I
+did kind o' hate to kill him; but he should have stayed with his own
+folks, if he wanted to be let alone. It's too dangerous having skunks
+round."
+
+In less than a year's time, there was not a rabbit to be seen on Mr.
+Connor's grounds, and only now and then a gopher, the hunter cats had
+done their work so thoroughly.
+
+But there was one other enemy that Mr. Connor would have to be rid of,
+before he could have any great success with his fruit orchards. You will
+be horrified to hear the name of this enemy. It was the linnet. Yes, the
+merry, chirping, confiding little linnets, with their pretty red heads
+and bright eyes, they also were enemies, and must be killed. They were
+too fond of apricots and peaches and pears and raspberries, and all
+other nice fruits.
+
+If birds only had sense enough, when they want a breakfast or dinner of
+fruit, to make it off one, or even two,--eat the peach or the pear or
+whatever it might be all up, as we do,--they might be tolerated in
+orchards; nobody would grudge a bird one peach or cherry. But that isn't
+their way. They like to hop about in the tree, and take a nip out of
+first one, then another, and then another, till half the fruit on the
+tree has been bitten into and spoiled. In this way, they ruin bushels of
+fruit every season.
+
+"I wonder if we could not teach the cats to hunt linnets, Jim," said Mr.
+Connor one morning. It was at the breakfast-table.
+
+"O Uncle George! the dear sweet little linnets!" exclaimed Rea, ready to
+cry.
+
+"Yes, my dear sweet little girl," said Uncle George. "The dear sweet
+little linnets will not leave us a single whole peach or apricot or
+cherry to eat."
+
+"No!" said Jusy, "they're a perfect nuisance. They've pecked at every
+apricot on the trees already."
+
+"I don't care," said Rea. "Why can't they have some? I'd just as soon
+eat after a linnet as not. Their little bills must be all clean and
+sweet. Don't have them killed, Uncle George."
+
+"No danger but that there will be enough left, dear," said Uncle George.
+"However many we shoot, there will be enough left. I believe we might
+kill a thousand to-day and not know the difference."
+
+The cats had already done a good deal at hunting linnets on their own
+account, in a clandestine and irregular manner. They were fond of linnet
+flesh, and were only too glad to have the assistance of an able-bodied
+man with a gun.
+
+When they first comprehended Jim's plan,--that he would go along with
+his gun, and they should scare the linnets out of the trees, wait for
+the shot, watch to see where the birds fell, and then run and pick them
+up,--it was droll to see how clever they became in carrying it out.
+Retriever dogs could not have done better. The trouble was, that Jim
+could shoot birds faster than the cats could eat them; and no cat would
+stir from his bird till it was eaten up, sometimes feathers and all; and
+after he had had three or four, he didn't care about any more that day.
+To tell the truth, after the first few days, they seemed a little tired
+of the linnet diet, and did not work with so much enthusiasm. But at
+first it was droll, indeed, to see their excitement. As soon as Jim
+appeared with his gun, every cat in sight would come scampering; and it
+would not be many minutes before the rest of the band--however they
+might have been scattered,--would somehow or other get wind of what was
+going on, and there would be the whole seventeen in a pack at Jim's
+heels, all keeping a sharp lookout on the trees; then, as soon as a cat
+saw a linnet, he would make for the tree, sometimes crouch under the
+tree, sometimes run up it; in either case the linnet was pretty sure to
+fly out: pop, would go Jim's rifle; down would come the linnet;
+helter-skelter would go the cats to the spot where it fell; and in a
+minute more, there would be nothing to be seen of that linnet, except a
+few feathers and a drop or two of blood on the ground.
+
+[Illustration: JIM AND THE CATS HUNTING LINNETS.--Page 111.]
+
+Jusy liked to go with Jim on these hunting expeditions. But Rea would
+never go. She used to sit sorrowfully at home, and listen for the
+gunshots; and at every shot she heard, she would exclaim to Anita, "Oh,
+dear! Oh, dear! There's another dear little linnet dead. I think Jusy is
+a cruel, cruel boy! I wouldn't see them shot for anything, and I don't
+like the cats any more."
+
+"But," said Anita, "my little seņorita did not mind having the gophers
+killed. It does not hurt the linnets half so much to be shot dead in one
+second, as it does the gophers to be caught in the cats' claws, and torn
+to pieces sometimes while they are yet alive. The shot-gun kills in a
+second."
+
+"I don't care," said Rea. "It seems different; the linnets are so
+pretty."
+
+"That is not a reason for pitying them any more," said Anita gravely.
+"You did not find those old Indians you saw yesterday pretty. On the
+contrary, they were frightful to look at; yet you pitied them so much
+that you shed tears."
+
+"Oh, yes!" cried Rea, "I should think I did; and, Anita, I dreamed about
+them all night long. I am going to ask Uncle George to build a little
+house for them up in the caņon. There is plenty of room there he does
+not want; and then nobody could drive them out of that place as long as
+they live; and I could carry them their dinner every day. Don't you
+think he will?"
+
+"Bless your kind little heart!" said Anita. "That would be asking a
+great deal of your Uncle George, but he is so kind, perhaps he will. If
+somebody does not take compassion on the poor things, they will starve,
+that is certain."
+
+"I shall ask him the minute he comes in," said Rea. "I am going down on
+the piazza now to watch for him." And taking Fairy in her arms, Rea
+hurried downstairs, went out on the veranda, and, climbing up into the
+hammock, was sound asleep in ten minutes.
+
+She was waked up by feeling herself violently swung from side to side,
+and opening her eyes, saw Jusy standing by her side, his face flushed
+with the heat, his eyes sparkling.
+
+"O Rea!" he said. "We have had a splendid hunt! What do you think! Jim
+has shot twenty linnets in this one morning! and that Skipper, he's
+eaten five of them! He's as good as a regular hunting dog."
+
+"Where's Uncle George?" asked Rea sleepily, rubbing her eyes. "I want
+Uncle George! I don't want you to tell me anything about the cats'
+eating the linnets. I hate them! They're cruel!"
+
+"'Tisn't cruel either!" retorted Jusy. "They've got to be killed. All
+people that have orchards have to kill birds."
+
+"I won't, when I have an orchard," said Rea.
+
+"Then you won't have any orchard. That will be all," said Jusy. "At
+least, you won't have any fruit orchard. You'll have just a tree
+orchard."
+
+"Well, a tree orchard is good enough for anybody," replied Rea half
+crossly. She was not yet quite wide awake. "There is plenty of fruit in
+stores, to buy. We could buy our fruit."
+
+"Are you talking in your sleep, Rea?" cried Jusy, looking hard at her.
+"I do believe you are! What ails you? The men that have the fruit to
+sell, had to kill all the linnets and things, just the same way, or else
+they wouldn't have had any fruit. Can't you see?"
+
+No, Rea could not see; and what was more, she did not want to see; and
+as the proverb says, "There are none so blind as those who won't see."
+
+"Don't talk any more about it, Jusy," she said. "Do you think Uncle
+George would build a little house up the caņon for poor old Ysidro?"
+
+"Who!" exclaimed Jusy.
+
+"Oh, you cruel boy!" cried Rea. "You don't think of anything but killing
+linnets, and such cruel things; I think you are real wicked. Don't you
+know those poor old Indians we saw yesterday?--the ones that are going
+to be turned out of their house, down in San Gabriel by the church. I
+have been thinking about them ever since; and I dreamed last night that
+Uncle George built them a house. I'm going to ask him to."
+
+"I bet you anything he won't, then," said Jusy. "The horrid old beggars!
+He wouldn't have such looking things round!"
+
+Rea was wide awake now. She fixed her lovely blue eyes on Jusy's face
+with a look which made him ashamed. "Jusy," she said, "I can't help it
+if you are older than I am; I must say, I think you are cruel. You like
+to kill linnets; and now you won't be sorry for these poor old Indians,
+just because they are dirty and horrid-looking. You'd look just as bad
+yourself, if your skin was black, and you were a hundred years old, and
+hadn't got a penny in the world. You are real hard-hearted, Jusy, I do
+think you are!" and the tears came into Rea's eyes.
+
+"What is all this?" said Uncle George, coming up the steps. "Not
+quarrelling, my little people!"
+
+"Oh, no! no!" cried both the children eagerly.
+
+"I never quarrel with Rea," added Jusy proudly. "I hope I am old enough
+to know better than that."
+
+"I'm only two years the youngest," said Rea, in a mortified tone. "I
+think I am old enough to be quarrelled with; and I do think you're
+cruel, Jusy."
+
+This made Uncle George smile. "Look out!" he said. "You will be in a
+quarrel yet, if you are not careful. What is it, Rea?"
+
+While Rea was collecting her thoughts to reply, Jusy took the words out
+of her mouth.
+
+"She thinks I am cruel, because I said I didn't believe you would build
+a house for Indians up in your caņon."
+
+"It was not that!" cried Rea. "You are real mean, Jusy!"
+
+And so I think, myself, he was. He had done just the thing which is so
+often done in this world,--one of the unfairest and most provoking of
+things; he had told the truth in such a way as to give a wrong
+impression, which is not so very far different, in my opinion, from
+telling a lie.
+
+"A home for Indians up in the caņon!" exclaimed Uncle George, drawing
+Rea to him, and seating her on his knee. "Did my little tender-hearted
+Rea want me to do that? It would take a very big house, girlie, for all
+the poor Indians around here;" and Uncle George looked lovingly at Rea,
+and kissed her hair, as she nestled her head into his neck. "Just like
+her mother," he thought. "She would have turned every house into an
+asylum if she could."
+
+"Oh, not for all the Indians, Uncle George," said Rea, encouraged by his
+kind smile,--"I am not such a fool as Jusy thinks,--only for those two
+old ones that are going to be turned out of their home they've always
+lived in. You know the ones I mean."
+
+"Ah, yes,--old Ysidro and his wife. Well, Rea, I had already thought of
+that myself. So you were not so much ahead of me."
+
+"There!" exclaimed Rea triumphantly, turning to Jusy. "What do you say
+now?"
+
+Jusy did not know exactly what to say, he was so astonished; and as he
+saw Jim and the cats coming up the road at that minute, he gladly took
+the opportunity to spring down from the veranda and run to meet them.
+
+[Illustration: decorative panel]*
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+The story of old Ysidro was indeed a sad one; and I think, with Rea,
+that any one must be hard-hearted, who did not pity him. He was a very
+old Indian; nobody knew how old; but he looked as if he must be a
+hundred at least. Ever since he could remember, he had lived in a little
+house in San Gabriel. The missionaries who first settled San Gabriel had
+given a small piece of land to his father, and on it his father had
+built this little house of rough bricks made of mud. Here Ysidro was
+born, and here he had always lived. His father and mother had been dead
+a long time. His brothers and sisters had all died or gone away to live
+in some other place.
+
+When he was a young man, he had married a girl named Carmena. She was
+still living, almost as old as he; all their children had either died,
+or married and gone away, and the two old people lived alone together in
+the little mud house.
+
+They were very poor; but they managed to earn just enough to keep from
+starving. There was a little land around the house,--not more than an
+acre; but it was as much as the old man could cultivate. He raised a few
+vegetables, chiefly beans, and kept some hens.
+
+Carmena had done fine washing for the San Gabriel people as long as her
+strength held out; but she had not been able for some years to do that.
+All she could do now was to embroider and make lace. She had to stay in
+bed most of the time, for she had the rheumatism in her legs and feet so
+she could but just hobble about; but there she sat day after day,
+propped up in her bed, sewing. It was lucky that the rheumatism had not
+gone into her hands, for the money she earned by making lace was the
+chief part of their living.
+
+Sometimes Ysidro earned a little by days' works in the fields or
+gardens; but he was so old, people did not want him if they could get
+anybody else, and nobody would pay him more than half wages.
+
+When he could not get anything else to do, he made mats to sell. He made
+them out of the stems of a plant called yucca; but he had to go a long
+way to get these plants. It was slow, tedious work making the mats, and
+the store-keepers gave him only seventy-five cents apiece for them; so
+it was very little he could earn in that way.
+
+Was not this a wretched life? Yet they seemed always cheerful, and they
+were as much attached to this poor little mud hovel as any of you can
+be to your own beautiful homes.
+
+Would you think any one could have the heart to turn those two poor old
+people out of their home? It would not seem as if a human being could be
+found who would do such a thing. But there was. He was a lawyer; I could
+tell you his true name, but I will not. He had a great deal to do with
+all sorts of records and law papers, about land and titles and all such
+things.
+
+There has always been trouble about the ownership of land in California,
+because first it belonged to Spain, and then it belonged to Mexico; and
+then we fought with Mexico, and Mexico gave it to us. So you can easily
+see that where lands are passed along in that way, through so many
+hands, it might often be hard to tell to whom they justly belonged.
+
+Of course this poor old Ysidro did not know anything about papers. He
+could not read or write. The missionaries gave the land to his father
+more than a hundred years ago, and his father gave it to him, and that
+was all Ysidro knew about it.
+
+Well, this lawyer was rummaging among papers and titles and maps of
+estates in San Gabriel, and he found out that there was this little bit
+of land near the church, which had been overlooked by everybody, and to
+which nobody had any written title. He went over and looked at it, and
+found Ysidro's house on it; and Ysidro told him he had always lived
+there; but the lawyer did not care for that.
+
+Land is worth a great deal of money now in San Gabriel. This little
+place of Ysidro's was worth a good many hundred dollars; and this lawyer
+was determined to have it. So he went to work in ways I cannot explain
+to you, for I do not understand them myself; and you could not
+understand them even if I could write them out exactly: but it was all
+done according to law; and the lawyer got it decided by the courts and
+the judges in San Francisco that this bit of land was his.
+
+When this was all done, he had not quite boldness enough to come forward
+himself, and turn the poor old Indians out. Even he had some sense of
+shame; so he slyly sold the land to a man who did not know anything
+about the Indians being there.
+
+You see how cunning this was of him! When it came to the Indians being
+turned out, and the land taken by the new owner, this lawyer's name
+would not need to come out in the matter at all. But it did come out; so
+that a few people knew what a mean, cruel thing he had done. Just for
+the sake of the price of an acre of land, to turn two aged helpless
+people out of house and home to starve! Do you think those dollars will
+ever do that man any good as long as he lives? No, not if they had been
+a million.
+
+Well, Mr. Connor was one of the persons who had found out about this;
+and he had at first thought he would help Ysidro fight, in the courts,
+to keep his place; but he found there would be no use in that. The
+lawyer had been cunning enough to make sure he was safe, before he went
+on to steal the old Indian's farm. The law was on his side. Ysidro did
+not really own the land, according to law, though he had lived on it all
+his life, and it had been given to his father by the missionaries,
+almost a hundred years ago.
+
+Does it not seem strange that the law could do such a thing as that?
+When the boys who read this story grow up to be men, I hope they will
+do away with these bad laws, and make better ones.
+
+The way Rea had found out about old Ysidro was this: when Jim went to
+the post-office for the mail, in the mornings, he used generally to take
+Anita and Rea in the wagon with him, and leave them at Anita's mother's
+while he drove on to the post-office, which was a mile farther.
+
+Rea liked this very much. Anita's mother had a big blue and green
+parrot, that could talk in both Spanish and English; and Rea was never
+tired of listening to her. She always carried her sugar; and she used to
+cock her head on one side, and call out, "Seņorita! seņorita! Polly
+likes sugar! sugar! sugar!" as soon as she saw Rea coming in at the
+door. It was the only parrot Rea had ever seen, and it seemed to her the
+most wonderful creature in the world.
+
+Ysidro's house was next to Anita's mother's; and Rea often saw the old
+man at work in his garden, or sitting on his door-step knitting lace,
+with needles as fine as pins.
+
+One day Anita took her into the house to see Carmena, who was sitting in
+bed at work on her embroidery. When Carmena heard that Rea was Mr.
+Connor's niece, she insisted upon giving her a beautiful piece of lace
+which she had made. Anita did not wish to take it, but old Carmena
+said,--
+
+"You must take it. Mr. Connor has given us much money, and there was
+never anything I could do for him. Now if his little seņorita will take
+this, it will be a pleasure."
+
+So Rea carried the lace home, and showed it to her Uncle George, and he
+said she might keep it; and it was only a few weeks after this that when
+Anita and Rea went down to San Gabriel, one day, they found the old
+couple in great distress, the news having come that they were going to
+be turned out of their house.
+
+And it was the night after this visit that Rea dreamed about the poor
+old creatures all night, and the very next morning that she asked her
+Uncle George if he would not build them a house in his caņon.
+
+After lunch, Mr. Connor said to Rea,--
+
+"I am going to drive this afternoon, Rea. Would you like to come with
+me?"
+
+His eyes twinkled as he said it, and Rea cried out,--
+
+"Oh! oh! It is to see Ysidro and Carmena, I am sure!"
+
+"Yes," said her uncle; "I am going down to tell them you are going to
+build them a house."
+
+"Uncle George, will you really, truly, do it?" said Rea. "I think you
+are the kindest man in all the world!" and she ran for her hat, and was
+down on the veranda waiting, long before the horses were ready.
+
+They found old Ysidro sitting on the ground, leaning against the wall of
+his house. He had his face covered up with both hands, his elbows
+leaning on his knees.
+
+"Oh, look at him! He is crying, Uncle George," said Rea.
+
+"No, dear," replied Mr. Connor. "He is not crying. Indian men very
+rarely cry. He is feeling all the worse that he will not let himself
+cry, but shuts the tears all back."
+
+"Yes, that is lots worse," said Rea.
+
+"How do you know, pet?" laughingly said her uncle. "Did you ever try
+it?"
+
+"I've tried to try it," said Rea, "and it felt so much worse, I
+couldn't."
+
+It was not easy at first to make old Ysidro understand what Mr. Connor
+meant. He could not believe that anybody would give him a house and home
+for nothing. He thought Mr. Connor wanted to get him to come and work;
+and, being an honest old fellow, he was afraid Mr. Connor did not know
+how little strength he had; so he said,--
+
+"Seņor Connor, I am very old; I am sick too. I am not worth hiring to
+work."
+
+"Bless you!" said Mr. Connor. "I don't want you to work any more than
+you do now. I am only offering you a place to live in. If you are
+strong enough to do a day's work, now and then, I shall pay you for it,
+just as I would pay anybody else."
+
+Ysidro gazed earnestly in Mr. Connor's face, while he said this; he
+gazed as if he were trying to read his very thoughts. Then he looked up
+to the sky, and he said,--
+
+"Seņor, Ysidro has no words. He cannot speak. Will you come into the
+house and tell Carmena? She will not believe if I tell it."
+
+So Mr. Connor and Rea went into the house, and there sat Carmena in bed,
+trying to sew; but the tears were running out of her eyes. When she saw
+Mr. Connor and Rea coming in at the door, she threw up her hands and
+burst out into loud crying.
+
+"O seņor! seņor!" she said. "They drive us out of our house. Can you
+help us? Can you speak for us to the wicked man?"
+
+Ysidro went up to the bed and took hold of her hand, and, pointing with
+his other hand to Mr. Connor, said,--
+
+"He comes from God,--the seņor. He will help us!"
+
+"Can we stay?" cried Carmena.
+
+Here Rea began to cry.
+
+"Don't cry, Rea," said Mr. Connor. "That will make her feel worse."
+
+Rea gulped down her sobs, enough to say,--
+
+"But she doesn't want to come into the caņon! All she wants is to stay
+here! She won't be glad of the new house."
+
+"Yes, she will, by and by," whispered Mr. Connor. "Stop crying, that's
+my good Rea."
+
+But Rea could not. She stood close to the bed, looking into old
+Carmena's distressed face; and the tears would come, spite of all her
+efforts.
+
+When Carmena finally understood that not even Mr. Connor, with all his
+good will and all his money, could save them from leaving their home,
+she cried again as hard as at first; and Ysidro felt ashamed of her, for
+he was afraid Mr. Connor would think her ungrateful. But Mr. Connor
+understood it very well.
+
+"I have lived only two years in my house," he said to Rea, "and I would
+not change it for one twice as good that anybody could offer me. Think
+how any one must feel about a house he has lived in all his life."
+
+"But it is a horrible little house, Uncle George," said Rea,--"the
+dirtiest hovel I ever saw. It is worse than they are in Italy."
+
+"I do not believe that makes much difference, dear," said Uncle George.
+"It is their home, all the same, as if it were large and nice. It is
+that one loves."
+
+Just as Mr. Connor and Rea came out of the house, who should come riding
+by, but the very man that had caused all this unhappiness,--the lawyer
+who had taken Ysidro's land! He was with the man to whom he had sold it.
+They were riding up and down in the valley, looking over all their
+possessions, and planning what big vineyards and orchards they would
+plant and how much money they would make.
+
+When this man saw Mr. Connor, he turned as red as a turkey-cock's
+throat. He knew very well what Mr. Connor thought of him; but he bowed
+very low.
+
+Mr. Connor returned his bow, but with such a stern and scornful look on
+his face, that Rea exclaimed,--
+
+"What is the matter, Uncle George? What makes you look so?"
+
+"That man is a bad man, dear," he replied; "and has the kind of badness
+I most despise." But he did not tell her that he was the man who was
+responsible for the Indians being driven out of their home. He thought
+it better for Rea not to know it.
+
+"Are there different sorts of badness,--some badnesses worse than
+others?" asked Rea.
+
+"I don't know whether one kind is really any worse than another," said
+Mr. Connor. "But there are some kinds which seem to me twice as bad as
+others; and meanness and cruelty to helpless creatures seem to me the
+very worst of all."
+
+"To me too!" said Rea. "Like turning out poor Ysidro."
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Connor. "That is just one of the sort I mean."
+
+Just before they reached the beginning of the lands of Connorloa, they
+crossed the grounds of a Mr. Finch, who had a pretty house and large
+orange orchards. Mr. Finch had one son, Harry, about Jusy's age, and the
+two boys were great cronies.
+
+As Mr. Connor turned the horses' heads into these grounds, he saw Jusy
+and Harry under the trees in the distance.
+
+"Why, there is Jusy," he said.
+
+"Yes," said Rea. "Harry came for him before lunch. He said he had
+something to show him."
+
+As soon as Jusy caught sight of the carriage, he came running towards
+it, crying,--
+
+"Oh, Uncle George, stop! Rea! come! I've found Snowball! Come, see him!"
+
+Snowball had been missing for nearly a month, and nobody could imagine
+what had become of him. They finally came to the conclusion that he must
+have got killed in some way.
+
+Mr. Connor stopped the horses; and Rea jumped out and ran after Jusy,
+and Mr. Connor followed. They found the boys watching excitedly, one at
+each end of a little bridge over the ditch, through which the water was
+brought down for irrigating Mr. Finch's orchards. Harry's dogs were
+there too, one at each end of the bridge, barking, yelping, watching as
+excitedly as the boys. But no Snowball.
+
+"Where is he?" cried Rea.
+
+"In under there," exclaimed Jusy. "He's got a rabbit in there; he'll be
+out presently."
+
+Sure enough, there he was, plainly to be heard, scuffling and spitting
+under the bridge.
+
+The poor little rabbit ran first to one end of the bridge, then to the
+other, trying to get out; but at each end he found a dog, barking to
+drive him back.
+
+Presently Snowball appeared with the dead rabbit in his teeth. Dropping
+it on the ground, he looked up at the dogs, as much as to say, "There!
+Can't I hunt rabbits as well as you do?" Then they all three, the two
+dogs and he, fell to eating the rabbit in the friendliest manner.
+
+"Don't you think!" cried Jusy. "He's been hunting this way, with these
+dogs, all this time. You see they are so big they can't get in under the
+bridge, and he can; so they drive the rabbits in under there, and he
+goes in and gets them. Isn't he smart? Harry first saw him doing it two
+weeks ago, he says. He didn't know it was our cat, and he wondered whose
+it could be. But Snowball and the dogs are great friends. They go
+together all the time; and wherever he is, if he hears them bark, he
+knows they've started up something, and he comes flying! I think it is
+just splendid!"
+
+"Poor little thing!" said Rea, looking at the fast-disappearing rabbit.
+
+"Why, you eat them yourself!" shouted Jusy. "You said it was as good as
+chicken, the other day. It isn't any worse for cats and dogs to eat
+them, than it is for us; is it, Uncle George?"
+
+"I think Jusy has the best of the argument this time, pet," said Uncle
+George, looking fondly at Jusy.
+
+"Girls are always that way," said Harry politely. "My sisters are just
+so. They can't bear to see anything killed."
+
+After this day, Rea spent most of her time in the caņon, watching the
+men at work on Ysidro's house.
+
+The caņon was a wild place; it was a sort of split in the rocky sides of
+the mountain; at the top it was not much more than two precipices joined
+together, with just room enough for a brook to come down. You can see in
+the picture where it was, though it looks there like little more than a
+groove in the rocks. But it was really so big in some places that huge
+sycamore trees grew in it, and there were little spaces of good earth,
+where Mr. Connor had planted orchards.
+
+It was near these, at the mouth of the caņon, that he put Ysidro's
+house. It was built out of mud bricks, called adobe, as near as
+possible like Ysidro's old house,--two small rooms, and a thatched roof
+made of reeds, which grew in a swamp.
+
+But Mr. Connor did not call it Ysidro's house. He called it Rea's house;
+and the men called it "the seņorita's house." It was to be her own, Mr.
+Connor said,--her own to give as a present to Ysidro and Carmena.
+
+When the day came for them to move in, Jim went down with the big wagon,
+and a bed in the bottom, to bring old Carmena up. There was plenty of
+room in the wagon, besides, for the few little bits of furniture they
+had.
+
+Mr. Connor and Jusy and Rea were at the house waiting, when they came.
+The cook had made a good supper of meat and potato, and Rea had put it
+on the table, all ready for them.
+
+When they lifted Carmena out of the wagon, she held, tight clutched in
+her hand, a small basket filled with earth; she seemed hardly willing to
+let go of it for a moment.
+
+"What is that?" said Jusy.
+
+"A few handfuls of the earth that was ours," replied Ysidro. "We have
+brought it with us, to keep it always. The man who has our home will not
+miss it."
+
+The tears came into Mr. Connor's eyes, and he turned away.
+
+Rea did not understand. She looked puzzled; so did Jusy.
+
+Jim explained. "The Indian women often do that," he said. "When they
+have to move away from a home they love they carry a little of the earth
+with them; sometimes they put it in a little bag, and wear it hanging on
+their necks; sometimes they put it under their heads at night."
+
+"Yes," said Carmena, who had listened to what Jim said. "One can sleep
+better on the earth that one loves."
+
+"I say, Rea!" cried Jusy. "It is a shame they had to come away!"
+
+"I told you so, Jusy," said Rea gently. "But you didn't seem to care
+then."
+
+"Well, I do now!" he cried. "I didn't think how bad they'd feel. Now if
+it were in Italy, I'd go and tell the King all about it. Who is there
+to tell here?" he continued, turning to his Uncle George. "Who is there
+here, to tell about such things? There must be somebody."
+
+Mr. Connor smiled sadly. "The trouble is, there are too many," he said.
+
+"Who is above all the rest?" persisted Jusy. "Isn't there somebody at
+the top, as our King is in Italy?"
+
+"Yes, there is one above all the rest," replied Mr. Connor. "We call him
+the President."
+
+"Well, why don't you write and tell him about Ysidro?" said Jusy. "I
+wish I could see him, I'd tell him. It's a shame!"
+
+"Even the President could not help this, Jusy," said Mr. Connor. "The
+law was against poor Ysidro; there was no help; and there are thousands
+and thousands of Indians in just the same condition he is."
+
+"Doesn't the President make the laws?" said Jusy.
+
+"No," said Mr. Connor. "Congress makes the laws."
+
+"Oh," said Jusy, "like our Parliament."
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Connor.
+
+Jusy said no more; but he thought of little else all the afternoon; and
+at bedtime he said to Rea,--
+
+"Rea, I am real sorry I didn't care about those old Indians at first,
+when you did. But I'm going to be good to them now, and help them all I
+can; and I have made up my mind that when I am a man I shall not go to
+Italy, as I said I would, to be an officer for the King. I shall stay
+here, and be an officer for the American President, instead; and I shall
+tell him about Ysidro, and about all the rest of the Indians."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is nothing more to be told about the Hunter Cats. By degrees they
+disappeared: some of them went to live at other houses in the San
+Gabriel Valley; some of them ran off and lived a wild life in the
+caņons; and some of them, I am afraid, must have died for want of food.
+
+Rea was glad when they were all gone; but Jusy missed the fun of seeing
+them hunt gophers and linnets.
+
+Perhaps, some day, I shall write another story, and tell you more about
+Jusy and Rea, and how they tried to help the Indians.
+
+[Illustration: MATS MADE BY YSIDRO.--Page 126.]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Hunter Cats of Connorloa, by Helen Jackson
+
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Hunter Cats of Connorloa, by Helen Jackson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
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+
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+Title: The Hunter Cats of Connorloa
+
+Author: Helen Jackson
+
+Release Date: March 22, 2009 [EBook #28385]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HUNTER CATS OF CONNORLOA ***
+
+
+
+
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+</pre>
+
+
+<h1>CAT STORIES.</h1>
+
+<h5>BY</h5>
+
+<h3>HELEN JACKSON (H. H.),</h3>
+
+<h6>AUTHOR OF "RAMONA," "NELLY'S SILVER MINE," "BITS OF TALK," ETC.</h6>
+
+<h2><span class="smcap">Letters from a Cat.</span><br />
+
+<span class="smcap">Mammy Tittleback and her<br />
+Family.</span><br />
+
+<span class="smcap">The Hunter Cats of Connorloa.</span></h2>
+
+<h6>WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.</h6>
+
+<h3>BOSTON:</h3>
+
+<h3>ROBERTS BROTHERS.</h3>
+
+<h4>1886.</h4>
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+
+<h2>THE HUNTER CATS<br />
+
+OF<br />
+
+CONNORLOA.</h2>
+
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 446px;">
+<img src="images/frontispiece.png" width="446" height="600" alt="Connorloa" title="Connorloa" />
+<span class="caption">Connorloa</span>
+</div>
+
+<h4>THE</h4>
+
+<h2>HUNTER CATS</h2>
+
+<h5>OF</h5>
+
+<h3>CONNORLOA.</h3>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">By</span> HELEN JACKSON</h4>
+
+<h4>(<i>H. H.</i>),</h4>
+
+<h6>AUTHOR OF "LETTERS FROM A CAT," "MAMMY TITTLEBACK AND HER<br />
+FAMILY," ETC.</h6>
+
+<h6>WITH ILLUSTRATIONS</h6>
+
+<h4>BOSTON:</h4>
+
+<h4>ROBERTS BROTHERS.</h4>
+
+<h5>1886.</h5>
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+
+<h6><i>Copyright</i>, 1884,<br />
+<span class="smcap">By Roberts Brothers.</span><br /></h6>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/i001.png" width="300" height="79" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="THE_HUNTER_CATS" id="THE_HUNTER_CATS"></a>THE HUNTER CATS</h2>
+
+<h5>OF</h5>
+
+<h2>CONNORLOA.</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 15%;" />
+
+<h2>I.</h2>
+
+<p>Once on a time, there lived in California a gentleman whose name was
+Connor,&mdash;Mr. George Connor. He was an orphan, and had no brothers and
+only one sister. This sister was married to an Italian gentleman, one of
+the chamberlains to the King of Italy. She might almost as well have
+been dead, so far as her brother George's seeing her was concerned; for
+he, poor gentleman, was much too ill to cross the ocean to visit her;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>
+and her husband could not be spared from his duties as chamberlain to
+the King, to come with her to America, and she would not leave him and
+come alone. So at the time my story begins, it had been many years since
+the brother and sister had met, and Mr. Connor had quite made up his
+mind that he should never see her again in this world. He had had a
+sorry time of it for a good many years. He had wandered all over the
+world, trying to find a climate which would make him well. He had lived
+in Egypt, in Ceylon, in Italy, in Japan, in the Sandwich Islands, in the
+West India Islands. Every place that had ever been heard of as being
+good for sick people, he had tried; for <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>he had plenty of money, and
+there was nothing to prevent his journeying wherever he liked. He had a
+faithful black servant Jim, who went with him everywhere, and took the
+best of care of him; but neither the money, nor the good nursing, nor
+the sea air, nor the mountain air, nor the north, south, east or west
+air, did him any good. He only tired himself out for nothing, roaming
+from place to place; and was all the time lonely, and sad too, not
+having any home. So at last he made up his mind that he would roam no
+longer; that he would settle down, build himself a house, and if he
+could not be well and strong and do all the things he liked to, he
+would at least have a home, and have his bo<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>oks about him, and have a
+good bed to sleep in, and good food to eat, and be comfortable in all
+those ways in which no human being ever can be comfortable outside of
+his own house.</p>
+
+<p>He happened to be in California when he took this resolution. He had
+been there for a winter; and on the whole had felt better there than he
+had felt anywhere else. The California sunshine did him more good than
+medicine: it is wonderful how the sun shines there! Then it was never
+either very hot or very cold in the part of California where he was; and
+that was a great advantage. He was in the southern part of the State,
+only thirty miles from the sea-shore, in San Gabriel. You can find this
+name "San Gabriel<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>" on your atlas, if you look very carefully. It is in
+small print, and on the Atlas it is not more than the width of a pin
+from the water's edge; but it really is thirty miles,&mdash;a good day's
+ride, and a beautiful day's ride too, from the sea. San Gabriel is a
+little village, only a dozen or two houses in it, and an old,
+half-ruined church,&mdash;a Catholic church, that was built there a hundred
+years ago, when the country was first settled by the Spaniards. They
+named all the places they settled, after saints; and the first thing
+they did in every place was to build a church, and get the Indians to
+come and be baptized, and learn to pray. They did not call their
+settlements towns at first, only Mission<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>s; and they had at one time
+twenty-one of these Missions on the California coast, all the way up
+from San Diego to Monterey; and there were more than thirty thousand
+Indians in them, all being taught to pray and to work, and some of them
+to read and write. They were very good men, those first Spanish
+missionaries in California. There are still alive some Indians who
+recollect these times. They are very old, over a hundred years old; but
+they remember well about these things.</p>
+
+<p>Most of the principal California towns of which you have read in your
+geographies were begun in this way. San Diego, Santa Barbara, San Luis
+Obispo, San Rafael, San Francisco, Monterey, Los Ang<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>eles,&mdash;all of these
+were first settled by the missionaries, and by the soldiers and officers
+of the army who came to protect the missionaries against the savages.
+Los Angeles was named by them after the Virgin Mary. The Spanish name
+was very long, "Nuestra Seņora Reina de Los Angeles,"&mdash;that means, "Our
+Lady the Queen of the Angels." Of course this was quite too long to use
+every day; so it soon got cut down to simply "Los Angeles," or "The
+Angels,"&mdash;a name which often amuses travellers in Los Angeles to-day,
+because the people who live there are not a bit more like angels than
+other people; and that, as we all know, is very unlike indeed. Near Los
+Angeles is San Gabriel, only about fifteen<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> miles away. In the olden
+time, fifteen miles was not thought any distance at all; people were
+neighbors who lived only fifteen miles apart.</p>
+
+<p>There are a great many interesting stories about the first settlement of
+San Gabriel, and the habits and customs of the Indians there. They were
+a very polite people to each other, and used to train their children in
+some respects very carefully. If a child were sent to bring water to an
+older person, and he tasted it on the way, he was made to throw the
+water out and go and bring fresh water; when two grown-up persons were
+talking together, if a child ran between them he was told that he had
+done an uncivil thin<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>g, and would be punished if he did it again. These
+are only specimens of their rules for polite behavior. They seem to me
+as good as ours. These Indians were very fond of flowers, of which the
+whole country is in the spring so full, it looks in places like a garden
+bed; of these flowers they used to make long garlands and wreaths, not
+only to wear on their heads, but to reach way down to their feet. These
+they wore at festivals and celebrations; and sometimes at these
+festivals they used to have what they called "song contests." Two of the
+best singers, or poets, would be matched together, to see which could
+sing the better, or make the better verses. That seems to me a more
+interesting kind of match th<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>an the spelling matches we have in our
+villages. But there is nothing of this sort to be seen in San Gabriel
+now, or indeed anywhere in California. The Indians, most of them, have
+been driven away by the white people who wanted their lands; year by
+year more and more white people have come, and the Indians have been
+robbed of more and more of their lands, and have died off by hundreds,
+until there are not many left.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/i002.png" width="600" height="456" alt="Indian Making Bowls.&mdash;Page 19." title="Indian Making Bowls.&mdash;Page 19." />
+<span class="caption">Indian Making Bowls.&mdash;Page 19.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Mr. Connor was much interested in learning all he could about them, and
+collecting all he could of the curious stone bowls and pestles they used
+to make, and of their baskets and lace work. He spent much of his
+time riding about the country; and whenever he <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>came to an Indian hut he
+would stop and talk with them, and ask if they had any stone bowls or
+baskets they would like to sell. The bowls especially were a great
+curiosity. Nobody knew how long ago they had been made. When the
+missionaries first came to the country, they found the Indians using
+them; they had them of all sizes, from those so large that they are
+almost more than a man can lift, down to tiny ones no bigger than a
+tea-cup. But big and little, they were all made in the same way out of
+solid stone, scooped out in the middle, by rubbing another stone round
+and round on them. You would think it would have taken a lifetime to
+make one; but they seem to have been plenty in the olden time<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>. Even yet,
+people who are searching for such curiosities sometimes find big
+grave-mounds in which dozens of them are buried,&mdash;buried side by side
+with the people who used to eat out of them. There is nothing left of
+the people but their skulls and a few bones; but the bowls will last as
+long as the world stands.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Now I suppose you are beginning to wonder when I am coming to the Hunter
+Cats! I am coming to them just the way Mr. Connor did,&mdash;by degrees. I
+want you to know about the place he lived in, and how he used to amuse
+himself, before he decided to build his house; and then I must tell you
+about the house, a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>nd then about the children that came to live with him
+in it, and then about the Chinamen that came to do his work, and about
+his orange-trees, and the gophers that gnawed the bark off them, and the
+rabbits that burrowed under his vines. Oh! it will be a good many pages
+yet before I can possibly get to the time when the Hunter Cats come in.
+But I will tell it as fast as I can, for I dislike long stories myself.</p>
+
+<p>The village of San Gabriel is in a beautiful broad valley, running east
+and west. The north wall of the valley is made by a range of mountains,
+called the Sierra Madre; that is Spanish and means "Mother Mountains."
+They are grand mountains; their tops are almost so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>lid stone, all sharp
+and jagged, with more peaks and ridges, crowded in together, than you
+could possibly count. At the bottom, they reach out into the valley by
+long slopes, which in the olden time were covered thick with trees and
+shrubs; but now, the greater part of these have been cut down and
+cleared off, and the ground planted full of orange-trees and grapevines.
+If you want to see how it looks to have solid miles upon miles of orange
+orchards and vineyards together, you must go to this San Gabriel Valley.
+There is no other such place in the world.</p>
+
+<p>As Mr. Connor rode about, day after day, and looked at these orchards
+and vineyards, he began to think he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> should like to have some too. So he
+went up and down along the base of the mountains, looking for a good
+place. At last he found one. It was strange nobody had picked it out
+before. One reason was that it was so wild, and lay so high up, that it
+would be a world of trouble, and cost a deal of money, to make a road up
+to it and to clear the ground. But Mr. Connor did not care for that. It
+was a sort of ridge of the mountains, and it was all grown over thick
+with what is called in California "chapparal." That is not the name of
+any one particular shrub or tree; it means a mixture of every sort and
+kind. You all know what mixed candy is! Well, "chapparal" is mixed
+bushes and shrubs;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> mixed thick too! From a little way off, it looks as
+smooth as moss; it is so tangled, and the bushes have such strong and
+tough stems, you can't possibly get through it, unless you cut a path
+before you with a hatchet; it is a solid thicket all the way.</p>
+
+<p>As Mr. Connor rode to and fro, in front of this green ridge, he thought
+how well a house would look up there, with the splendid mountain wall
+rising straight up behind it. And from the windows of such a house, one
+could look off, not only over the whole valley, but past the hills of
+its southern wall, clear and straight thirty miles to the sea. In a
+clear day, the line of the water flashed and shone there like a silver
+thread.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mr. Connor used to sit on his horse by the half hour at a time gazing at
+this hillside, and picturing the home he would like to make there,&mdash;a
+big square house with plenty of room in it, wide verandas on all sides,
+and the slope in front of it one solid green orange orchard. The longer
+he looked the surer he felt that this was the thing he wanted to do.</p>
+
+<p>The very day he decided, he bought the land; and in two days more he had
+a big force of men hacking away at the chapparal, burning it, digging up
+the tough, tangled roots; oh, what slow work it was! Just as soon as a
+big enough place was cleared, he built a little house of rough
+boards,&mdash;only two ro<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>oms in it; and there he went to live, with Jim.</p>
+
+<p>Now that he had once begun the making of his house, he could hardly wait
+for it to be done; and he was never happy except when he was overseeing
+the men, hurrying them and working himself. Many a tough old bush he
+chopped down with his own hands, and tugged the root up; and he grew
+stronger every day. This was a kind of medicine he had not tried before.</p>
+
+<p>A great part of the bushes were "manzanita." The roots and lower stems
+of this shrub are bright red, and twisted almost into knots. They make
+capital firewood; so Mr. Connor had them all piled up in a pile to keep
+to burn in his big fireplaces; and you would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> have laughed to see such a
+woodpile. It was almost as high as the house; and no two sticks
+alike,&mdash;all prongs and horns, and crooks and twists; they looked like
+monster's back teeth.</p>
+
+<p>At last the house was done. It was a big, old-fashioned, square house,
+with a wide hall running through the middle; on the east side were the
+library and dining-room; on the west, the parlor and a big
+billiard-room; upstairs were four large bedrooms; at the back of the
+house, a kitchen. No servants were to sleep in the house. Mr. Connor
+would have only Chinamen for servants; and they would sleep, with the
+rest of his Chinamen laborers, in what he called the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>Chinese quarter,&mdash;a
+long, low wooden building still farther up on the hill. Only Jim was to
+sleep in the house with Mr. Connor.</p>
+
+<p>The Chinese quarter was a very comfortable house; and was presided over
+by a fat old Chinaman, who had such a long queue that Jim called him
+"Long Tail." His name was See Whong Choo, which, Jim said, was entirely
+too long to pronounce. There were twenty Chinamen on the place; and a
+funny sight it was to see them all file out of a morning to their work,
+every one with what looked like a great dinner-plate upside down on his
+head for a hat, and his long, black hair braided in a queue, not much
+bigger than a rat tail, hanging down his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> back.</p>
+
+<p>People in California are so used to seeing Chinamen, that they do not
+realize how droll they look to persons not accustomed to the sight.</p>
+
+<p>Their yellow skins, their funny little black eyes, set so slanting in
+their heads that you can't tell half the time whether they are looking
+straight at you or not, their shiny shaved heads and pig-tails, are all
+very queer. And when you first hear them talking together in their own
+tongue, you think it must be cats trying to learn English; it is a
+mixture of caterwaul and parrot, more disagreeable in sound than any
+language I ever heard.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p>
+<p>About a year after Mr. Connor had moved into his new house, he got a
+letter, one night, which made him very unhappy. It told him that his
+sister and her husband were dead; they had died, both of them in one
+week, of a dreadful fever. Their two children had had the fever at the
+same time, but they were getting well; and now, as there was nobody in
+Italy to take care of them, the letter asked what should be done with
+them. Would Mr. Connor come out himself, or would he send some one? The
+Count and his wife had been only a few days ill, and the fever had made
+them delirious from the first, so that no directions had been given to
+any one about the children; and there the two poor little things
+were, all alone with their <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>nurse in their apartment in the King's
+palace. They had had to live in the palace always, so that the Count
+could be ready to attend on the King whenever he was wanted.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/i003.png" width="600" height="423" alt="The King&#39;s Palace.&mdash;Page 31." title="The King&#39;s Palace.&mdash;Page 31." />
+<span class="caption">The King&#39;s Palace.&mdash;Page 31.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Giuseppe and Maria (those were their names) never liked living there.
+The palace was much too grand, with its marble staircases, and marble
+floored rooms, so huge and cold; and armed soldiers for sentinels,
+standing at the corners and doors, to keep people from going into rooms
+without permission, and to keep watch also, lest somebody should get in
+and kill the King. The King was always afraid of being killed; there
+were so many unhappy and discontented persons in Italy, who did not
+want him to <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>be King. Just think how frightful it must be to know every
+day,&mdash;morning, noon, and night,&mdash;that there was danger of somebody's
+coming stealthily into your room to kill you! Who would be a king? It
+used to make the children afraid whenever they passed these tall
+soldiers in armor, in the halls. They would hold tight to each other's
+hands, and run as fast as they could, past them; and when they got out
+in the open air, they were glad; most of all when their nurse took them
+into the country, where they could run on the grass and pick flowers.
+There they used often to see poor little hovels of houses, with gardens,
+and a donkey and chickens in the yard, and children playing; and they
+used <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>to say they wished their father and mother were poor, and lived in
+a house like that, and kept a donkey. And then the nurse would tell them
+they were silly children; that it was a fine thing to live in a palace,
+and have their father one of the King's officers, and their mother one
+of the most beautiful of the Queen's ladies; but you couldn't have made
+the children believe it. They hated the palace, and everything about it,
+more and more every day of their lives.</p>
+
+<p>Giuseppe was ten, and Maria was seven. They were never called by their
+real names: Giuseppe was called Jusy, and Maria was called Rea; Jusy and
+Rea, nobody would ever have guessed from that, what their real names
+were. M<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>aria is pronounced <i>Mahrea</i> in Italy; so that was the way she
+came to be called Rea for shortness. Jusy gave himself his nickname when
+he was a baby, and it had always stuck to him ever since.</p>
+
+<p>It was enough to make anybody's heart ache to see these two poor little
+things, when they first got strong enough to totter about after this
+fever; so weak they felt, they could hardly stand; and they cried more
+than half the time, thinking about their papa and mamma, dead and buried
+without their even being able to kiss them once for good-by. The King
+himself felt so sorry for the little orphans, he came to speak to them;
+and the kind Queen came almost every day, and sent them beauti<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>ful toys,
+and good things to eat; but nothing comforted the children.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you suppose will become of us, Jusy?" Rea often said; and Jusy
+would reply,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know, Rea. As soon as I'm a man, I can take care of you and
+myself too, easy enough; and that won't be a great while. I shall ask
+the King to let me be one of his officers like papa."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no! no! Jusy," Rea would reply. "Don't! Don't let's live in this
+horrid palace. Ask him to give you a little house in the country, with a
+donkey; and I will cook the dinner. Caterina will teach me how."</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p>
+<p>Caterina was their nurse.</p>
+
+<p>"But there wouldn't be any money to pay Caterina," Jusy would say.</p>
+
+<p>"The King might give us enough for that, Jusy. He is so kind. I'm sure
+he would, don't you think so?" was Rea's answer to this difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Jusy, "I don't think he would, unless I earned it. Papa had
+to work for all the money he had."</p>
+
+<p>It was a glad day for the children when the news came that their uncle
+in America was going to send for them to come and live with him; and
+that in three weeks the man who was to take them there would arrive.
+This news came over by telegraph, on that wonderful telegraph wire,
+down at the bottom of the ocean. Their kind Uncle George thought he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>
+would not leave the children uncheered in their suspense and loneliness
+one minute longer than he could help; so he sent the message by
+telegraph; and the very day after this telegraphic message went, Jim set
+out for Italy.</p>
+
+<p>Jim had travelled so much with Mr. Connor that he was just the best
+possible person to take charge of the children on their long journey. He
+knew how to manage everything; and he could speak Italian and French and
+German well enough to say all that was necessary in places where no
+English was spoken. Moreover, Jim had been a servant in Mr. Connor's
+father's house all his life; had taken care of Mr. Connor a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>nd his sister
+when they were a little boy and girl together, just as Jusy and Rea were
+now. He always called Mr. Connor "Mr. George," and his sister "Miss
+Julia;" and when he set out to go for the children he felt almost as if
+he were going to the help and rescue of his own grandchildren.</p>
+
+<p>Jusy and Rea did not feel that they were going to a stranger; for they
+had heard about their Uncle George ever since they could remember; and
+all about "Jim" too. Almost every year Mr. Connor used to send his
+sister a new picture of himself; so the children knew very well how he
+looked.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p>
+<p>When the news came that they were to go to America and live with him,
+they got out all of these pictures they could find, and ranged them in a
+line on the mantelpiece in their parlor. There was a picture of Jim too,
+as black as charcoal. At first, Rea had been afraid of this; but Jusy
+thought it was splendid. Every morning the lonely little creatures used
+to stand in front of this line of pictures and say, "Good-morning, Uncle
+George! Good-morning to you, Mr. Black Man! How soon will you get here?
+We shall be very glad to see you."</p>
+
+<p>It was over a month before he arrived. The children had been told that
+he might be there in three weeks from the day the despatch came; and as
+soon as the three weeks were ended, they began al<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>most to hold their
+breaths listening for him; they were hardly willing to stir out of the
+palace for a walk, for fear he might come while they were away. Rea
+watched at the windows, and Jusy watched at the doorway which led into
+the corridor.</p>
+
+<p>"He might be afraid of the sentinel at the corner there," he said.
+"Caterina says there are no palaces in America."</p>
+
+<p>"Goody!" interrupted Rea, "I'm so glad."</p>
+
+<p>"And so perhaps he has never seen a man in armor like that; and I'd
+better be at the door to run and meet him."</p>
+
+<p>All their clothes were packed ready for the journey; and all the things
+which had belonged to their mamma were <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>packed up too, to go with them.
+The huge rooms looked drearier than ever. The new chamberlain's wife was
+impatient to get settled in the apartment herself, and kept coming to
+look at it, and discussing, in the children's presence, where she would
+put this or that piece of furniture, and how she would have her pictures
+hung.</p>
+
+<p>"I think she is a very rude lady," said Jusy. "The Queen said these were
+our rooms so long as we stayed, just the same as if mamma were here with
+us; and I think I see her coming in here that way if mamma was here!"</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/i004.png" width="300" height="76" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II.</h2>
+
+
+<p>After all their precautions, Jusy and Rea were out when Jim arrived.
+They had been to take a walk with Caterina; and when they came back, as
+they passed the big sentinel at the outside gate, he nodded to them
+pleasantly, and said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"He has come!&mdash;the black signor from America." ("Signor" is Italian for
+"Mr.")<br /><br /></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 430px;">
+<img src="images/i005.png" width="430" height="600" alt="Jusy and Rea. &quot;He has come!&mdash;the black signor from
+America.&quot;&mdash;Page 42." title="Jusy and Rea. &quot;He has come!&mdash;the black signor from
+America.&quot;&mdash;Page 42." />
+<span class="caption">Jusy and Rea. &quot;He has come!&mdash;the black signor from
+America.&quot;&mdash;Page 42.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>You see everybody in the palace, from the King down to the scullions in
+the kitchen, was interested in the two fatherless and motherless
+children, and glad to hear that Jim had arriv<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>ed.</p>
+
+<p>The very next day they set off. Jim was impatient to be back in
+California again; there was nothing to wait for. Caterina was greatly
+relieved to find that he did not wish her to go with him. The Queen had
+said she must go, if the black signor wished it; and Caterina was
+wretched with fright at the thought of the journey, and of the country
+full of wild beasts and savages. "Worse than Africa, a hundred times,"
+she said, "from all I can hear. But her Majesty says I must go, if I am
+needed. I'd rather die, but I see no way out of it."</p>
+
+<p>When it came to bidding Rea good-by, however, she was almost ready to
+beg to be allowed to go. The child cried and clung to her neck; and
+Cateri<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>na cried and sobbed too.</p>
+
+<p>But the wise Jim had provided himself with a powerful helper. He had
+bought a little white spaniel, the tiniest creature that ever ran on
+four legs; she was no more than a doll, in Rea's arms; her hair was like
+white silk floss. She had a blue satin collar with a gilt clasp and
+padlock; and on the padlock, in raised letters, was the name "Fairy."
+Jim had thought of this in New York, and bought the collar and padlock
+there; and the dog he had bought only one hour before they were to set
+out on their journey. She was in a beautiful little flannel-lined
+basket; and when Rea clung to Caterina's neck crying and sobbing, Jim
+stepped up to her and said<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Don't cry, missy; here's your little dog to take care of; she'll be
+scared if she sees you cry."</p>
+
+<p>"Mine! Mine! That sweet doggie!" cried Rea. She could not believe her
+eyes. She stopped crying; and she hardly noticed when the Queen herself
+kissed her in farewell, so absorbed was she in "Fairy" and the blue
+satin collar. "Oh, you are a very good black man, Signor Jim," she
+cried. "I never saw such a sweet doggie; I shall carry her in my own
+arms all the way there."</p>
+
+<p>It was a hard journey; but the children enjoyed every minute of it. The
+account of all they did and saw, and the good times they had with the
+kind Ji<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>m, would make a long story by itself; but if I told it, we should
+never get to the Hunter Cats; so I will not tell you anything about the
+journey at all except that it took about six weeks, and that they
+reached San Gabriel in the month of March, when everything was green and
+beautiful, and the country as full of wild flowers as the children had
+ever seen the country about Florence in Italy.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Connor had not been idle while Jim was away. After walking up and
+down his house, with his thinking-cap on, for a few days, looking into
+the rooms, and trying to contrive how it should be rearranged to
+accommodate his new and unexpected family, he suddenly <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>decided to build
+on a small wing to the house. He might as well arrange it in the outset
+as it would be pleasantest to have it when Jusy and Rea were a young
+gentleman and a young lady, he thought. What might do for them very well
+now, while they were little children, would not do at all when they were
+grown up.</p>
+
+<p>So, as I told you, Mr. Connor being a gentleman who never lost any time
+in doing a thing he had once made up his mind to, set carpenters at work
+immediately tearing out half of one side of his new house; and in little
+over a month, there was almost another little house joined on to it.
+There was a good big room for Rea's bedroom, and a <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>small room opening
+out of it, for her sitting-room; beyond this another room in which her
+nurse could sleep, while she needed one, and after she grew older, the
+governess who must come to teach her; and after she did not need any
+governess, the room would be a pleasant thing to have for her young
+friends who came to visit her. This kind uncle was planning for a good
+many years ahead, in this wing to his house.</p>
+
+<p>These rooms for Rea were in the second story. Beneath them were two
+large rooms, one for Jusy, and one for Jim. A pretty stairway, with a
+lattice-work wall, went up outside to Rea's room, and at the door of
+her room spread out into a sort of loggia, or upstairs piazz<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>a, such as
+Mr. Connor knew she had been used to in Italy. In another year this
+stairway and loggia would be a bower of all sorts of vines, things grow
+so fast in California.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>And now we are really coming to the Cats. They had arrived before the
+children did.</p>
+
+<p>When the children got out of the cars at San Gabriel, there stood their
+Uncle George on the platform waiting for them. Jusy spied him first.
+"There's Uncle George," he shouted, and ran towards him shouting, "Uncle
+George! Uncle George! Here we are."</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p>
+<p>Rea followed close behind, holding up Fairy. "Look at my doggie that
+Signor black Jim gave me," she cried, holding Fairy up as high as she
+could reach; and in the next minute she herself, doggie and all, was
+caught up in Uncle George's arms.</p>
+
+<p>"What makes you cry, Uncle George?" she exclaimed; "we thought you would
+be very glad to see us!"</p>
+
+<p>"So I am, you dear child," he said. "I am only crying because I am so
+glad."</p>
+
+<p>But Jusy knew better, and as soon as he could get a chance, he whispered
+to Rea, "I should have thought you would have known better than to say
+anything to Uncle George about his having tears in his eyes. It was
+because we reminded him so much of mamma, that he cried. I saw the
+tears come in his e<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>yes, the first minute he saw us, but I wasn't going
+to say a word about it."</p>
+
+<p>Poor little Rea felt badly enough to think she had not understood as
+quickly as Jusy did; but the only thing she could think of to do was to
+spring up in the seat of the wagon, and put her arms around her uncle's
+neck, and kiss him over and over, saying, "We are going to love you,
+like,&mdash;oh,&mdash;like everything, Jusy and me! I love you better than my
+doggie!"</p>
+
+<p>But when she said this, the tears came into Mr. Connor's eyes again; and
+Rea looked at Jusy in despair.</p>
+
+<p>"Keep quiet, Rea," whispered Jusy. "He doesn't want us to talk just
+yet, I guess;" and Rea sat down ag<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>ain, and tried to comfort herself with
+Fairy. But she could not keep her eyes from watching her uncle's face.
+Her affectionate heart was grieved to see him look so sad, instead of
+full of joy and gladness as she had thought it would be. Finally she
+stole her hand into his and sat very still without speaking, and that
+really did comfort Mr. Connor more than anything she could have done.
+The truth was, Rea looked so much like her mother, that it was almost
+more than Mr. Connor could bear when he first saw her; and her voice
+also was like her mother's.</p>
+
+<p>Jusy did not in the least resemble his mother; he was like his father
+in every way,&mdash;hair as black as black <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>could be, and eyes almost as black
+as the hair; a fiery, flashing sort of face Jusy had; and a fiery,
+flashing sort of temper too, I am sorry to say. A good deal like
+thunder-storms, Jusy's fits of anger were; but, if they were swift and
+loud, like the thunder, they also were short-lived,&mdash;cleared off
+quickly,&mdash;like thunder-storms, and showed blue sky afterward, and a
+beautiful rainbow of sorrow for the hasty words or deeds.</p>
+
+<p>Rea was fair, with blue eyes and yellow hair, and a temper sunny as her
+face. In Italy there are so few people with blue eyes and fair hair,
+that whenever Rea was seen in the street, everybody turned to look at
+her, and asked who she was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>, and remembered her; and when she came again,
+they said, "Ecco! Ecco! (That is Italian for Look! Look!) There is the
+little blue-eyed, golden-haired angel." Rea did not know that the people
+said this, which was well, for it might have made her vain.</p>
+
+<p>It was six miles from the railway station to Mr. Connor's house. But the
+house was in sight all the way; it was so high up on the mountain-side
+that it showed plainly, and as it was painted white, you could see it in
+all directions like a lighthouse. Mr. Connor liked to be able to see it
+from all places when he was riding about the valley. He said it looked
+friendly to him; as if it said, all the time, "Here I am, you can come<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>
+home any minute you want to."</p>
+
+<p>After they had driven about half way, Mr. Connor said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Children, do you see that big square house up there on the mountain?
+That is Connorloa."</p>
+
+<p>"Whose house is it, Uncle George?" said Jusy.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, did you not hear?" replied Mr. Connor. "It is Connorloa."</p>
+
+<p>The children looked still more puzzled.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," laughed their uncle. "Is it possible nobody has told you the name
+of my house? I have called it Connorloa, from my own name, and 'loa,'
+which is the word in the Sandwich Islands for 'hill.' I suppose I might
+have called <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>it Connor Hill, but I thought 'loa' was prettier."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, so do I," said Jusy. "It is lovely. Connorloa, Connorloa," he
+repeated. "Doesn't it sound like some of the names in Italy, Rea?" he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"Prettier!" said little Rea. "No word in Italy, so pretty as Connorloa;
+nor so nice as Uncle George."</p>
+
+<p>"You dear, loving little thing!" cried Uncle George, throwing his arms
+around her. "You are for all the world your mother over again."</p>
+
+<p>"That's just what I've been saying to myself all the way home, Mr.
+George," said Jim. "It's seemed to me half the time as if it were Miss
+Julia herself; but the boy is not much like yo<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>u."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Jusy proudly, throwing back his handsome head, and his eyes
+flashing. "I am always said to be exactly the portrait of my father; and
+when I am a man, I am going back to Italy to live in the King's palace,
+and wear my father's sword."</p>
+
+<p>"I sha'n't go," said Rea, nestling close to her uncle. "I shall stay in
+Connorloa with Uncle George. I hate palaces. Your house isn't a palace,
+is it, Uncle George? It looks pretty big."</p>
+
+<p>"No, my dear; not by any means," replied Mr. Connor, laughing heartily.
+"But why do you hate palaces, my little Rea? Most people think it would
+be the finest thing possible to live in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> a palace."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't," said Rea. "I just hate them; the rooms are so big and so
+cold; and the marble floors are so slip-py, I've had my knees all black
+and blue tumbling down on them; and the stairs are worse yet; I used to
+have to creep on them; and there is a soldier at every corner with a gun
+and a sword to kill you, if you break any of the rules. I think a palace
+is just like a prison!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well done, my little Republican!" cried Uncle George.</p>
+
+<p>"What is that?" said Rea.</p>
+
+<p>"I know," said Jusy. "It is a person that does not wish to have any
+king. There were Republicans in Italy; very bad men. Papa said they
+ought<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> to be killed. Why do you call Rea by that name, Uncle George?" and
+Jusy straightened himself up like a soldier, and looked fierce.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Connor could hardly keep his face straight as he replied to Jusy:
+"My dear boy the word does not mean anything bad in America; we are all
+Republicans here. You know we do not have any king. We do not think that
+is the best way to take care of a country."</p>
+
+<p>"My papa thought it was the best way," haughtily answered Jusy. "I shall
+think always as papa did."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, my man," laughed Uncle George. "Perhaps you will. You can
+think and say what you like while you live in America, and nobody wil<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>l
+put you in prison for your thoughts or your words, as they might if you
+lived in Italy."</p>
+
+<p>It was near night when they reached the house. As they drove slowly up
+the long hill, the Chinamen were just going, on the same road, to their
+supper. When they heard the sound of the wheels, they stepped off the
+road, and formed themselves into a line to let the carriage pass, and to
+get a peep at the children. They all knew about their coming, and were
+curious to see them.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 421px;">
+<img src="images/i006.png" width="421" height="600" alt="&quot;The Chinamen were just going to their supper, and they
+formed themselves into a line.&quot;&mdash;Page 60." title="&quot;The Chinamen were just going to their supper, and they
+formed themselves into a line.&quot;&mdash;Page 60." />
+<span class="caption">&quot;The Chinamen were just going to their supper, and they
+formed themselves into a line.&quot;&mdash;Page 60.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>When Rea caught sight of them, she screamed aloud, and shook with
+terror, and hid her face on her uncle's shoulder.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Are those the savages?" she cried. "Oh, don't let them kill Fairy;" and
+she nearly smothered the little dog, crowding her down out of sight on
+the seat between herself and her uncle.</p>
+
+<p>Jusy did not say a word, but he turned pale; he also thought these must
+be the savages of which they had heard.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Connor could hardly speak for laughing. "Who ever put such an idea
+as that into your head?" he cried. "Those are men from China; those are
+my workmen; they live at Connorloa all the time. They are very good men;
+they would not hurt anybody. There are not any savages here."</p>
+
+<p>"Caterina said America was all full of savages," sobbed Rea,&mdash;"savages
+and wild beasts, such as lions and wol<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>ves."</p>
+
+<p>"That girl was a fool," exclaimed Jim. "It was a good thing, Mr. George,
+you told me not to bring her over."</p>
+
+<p>"I should say so," replied Mr. Connor. "The idea of her trying to
+frighten these children in that way. It was abominable."</p>
+
+<p>"She did nothing of the kind," cried Jusy, his face very red. "She was
+talking to her cousin; and she thought we were asleep; and Rea and I
+listened; and I told Rea it was good enough for us to get so frightened
+because we had listened. But I did not believe it so much as Rea did."</p>
+
+<p>The Chinamen were all bowing and bending, and smiling in the gladness
+of their hearts. Mr. Connor was a good master to them; and they knew it
+wo<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>uld be to him great pleasure to have these little children in the
+house.</p>
+
+<p>While driving by he spoke to several of them by name, and they replied.
+Jusy and Rea listened and looked.</p>
+
+<p>"What are their heads made of, Uncle George?" whispered Rea. "Will they
+break if they hit them?"</p>
+
+<p>At first, Mr. Connor could not understand what she meant; then in a
+moment he shouted with laughter.</p>
+
+<p>Chinamen have their heads shorn of all hair, except one little lock at
+the top; this is braided in a tight braid, like a whiplash, and hangs
+down their backs, sometimes almost to the very ground. The longer this
+queer little braid is,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> the prouder the Chinaman feels. All the rest of
+his head is bare and shining smooth. They looked to Rea like the heads
+of porcelain baby dolls she had had; and that those would break, she
+knew by sad experience.</p>
+
+<p>How pleased Rea and Jusy were with their beautiful rooms, and with
+everything in their Uncle George's house, there are no words to tell.
+They would have been very unreasonable and ungrateful children, if they
+had not been; for Mr. Connor had not forgotten one thing which could add
+to their comfort or happiness: books, toys, everything he could think
+of, or anybody could suggest to him, he had bought. And when he led
+little Rea into her bedroom, there stood a sweet-fa<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>ced young Mexican
+girl, to be her nurse.</p>
+
+<p>"Anita," he said, "here is your young lady."</p>
+
+<p>"I am very glad to see you, seņorita," said the girl, coming forward to
+take off Rea's hat; on which Rea exclaimed,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Why, she is Italian! That is what Caterina called me. And Caterina had
+a sister whose name was Anita. How did you get over here?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was born here, seņorita," replied the girl.</p>
+
+<p>"It is not quite the same word, Rea," said Mr. Connor, "though it sounds
+so much like it. It was 'signorita' you were called in Italy; and it is
+'seņorita' that Anita here calls you. T<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>hat is Spanish; and Anita speaks
+much more Spanish than English. That is one reason I took her. I want
+you to learn to speak in Spanish."</p>
+
+<p>"Then we shall speak four languages," said Jusy proudly,&mdash;"Italian,
+French, and English and Spanish. Our papa spoke eleven. That was one
+reason he was so useful to the King. Nobody could come from any foreign
+country that papa could not talk to. My papa said the more languages a
+man spoke, the more he could do in the world. I shall learn all the
+American languages before I go back to Italy. Are there as many as nine,
+Uncle George?"</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Yes, a good many more," replied Uncle George. "Pretty nearly a language
+for every State, I should say. But the fewer you learn of them the
+better. If you will speak good English and Spanish, that is all you will
+need here."</p>
+
+<p>"Shall we not learn the language of the signors from China?" asked Rea.</p>
+
+<p>At which Jim, who had followed, and was standing in the background,
+looking on with delight, almost went into convulsions of laughter, and
+went out and told the Chinamen in the kitchen that Miss Rea wished to
+learn to speak Chinese at once. So they thought she must be a very nice
+little girl, and were all ready to be her warm friends.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p>
+<p>The next morning, as Rea was dressing, she heard a great caterwauling
+and miaowing. Fairy, who was asleep on the foot of her bed, sprang up
+and began to bark furiously; all the while, however, looking as if she
+were frightened half to death. Never before had Fairy heard so many
+cats' voices at once.</p>
+
+<p>Rea ran to the open window; before she reached it, she heard Jusy
+calling to her from below,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Rea! Rea! Are you up? Come out and see the cats."</p>
+
+<p>Jusy had been up ever since light, roaming over the whole place: the
+stables, the Chinamen's quarters, the tool-house, the kitchen, the
+woodpile; there was nothing he had not seen; and he was in a state of
+such delight he could no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>t walk straight or steadily; he went on the run
+and with a hop, skip, and jump from each thing to the next.</p>
+
+<p>"Hurry, Rea!" he screamed. "Do hurry. Never mind your hair. Come down.
+They'll be done!"</p>
+
+<p>Still the miaowing and caterwauling continued.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, hurry, hurry, Anita," said Rea. "Please let me go down; I'll come
+up to have my hair done afterwards. What is it, Anita? Is it really
+cats? Are there a thousand?"</p>
+
+<p>Anita laughed. "No, seņorita," she said. "Only seventeen! And you will
+see them every morning just the same. They always make this noise. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>y
+are being fed; and there is only a very little meat for so many. Jim
+keeps them hungry all the time, so they will hunt better."</p>
+
+<p>"Hunt!" cried Rea.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Anita. "That is what we keep them for, to hunt the gophers
+and rabbits and moles. They are clearing them out fast. Jim says by
+another spring there won't be a gopher on the place."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/i007.png" width="600" height="429" alt="The Chinaman, Ah Foo, Feeding the Cats&mdash;Page 70." title="The Chinaman, Ah Foo, Feeding the Cats&mdash;Page 70." />
+<span class="caption">The Chinaman, Ah Foo, Feeding the Cats&mdash;Page 70.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Before she had finished speaking, Rea was downstairs and out on the east
+veranda. At the kitchen door stood a Chinaman, throwing bits of meat to
+the scrambling seventeen cats,&mdash;black, white, tortoise-shell, gray,
+maltese, yellow, every color, size, shape of cat that was ever seen.
+And they were plunging<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> and leaping and racing about so, that it looked
+like twice as many cats as there really were, and as if every cat had a
+dozen tails. "Sfz! Sfz! Sputter! Scratch, spp, spt! Growl, growl, miaow,
+miaow," they went, till, between the noise and the flying around, it was
+a bedlam.</p>
+
+<p>Jusy had laughed till the tears ran out of his eyes; and Ah Foo (that
+was the Chinaman's name) was laughing almost as hard, just to see Jusy
+laugh. The cats were an old story to Ah Foo; he had got over laughing at
+them long ago.</p>
+
+<p>Ah Foo was the cook's brother. While Jim had been away, Ah Foo had
+waited at table, and done all the housework except the cooking. The
+cook's na<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>me was Wang Hi. He was old; but Ah Foo was young, not more than
+twenty. He did not like to work in the house, and he was glad Jim had
+got home, so he could go to working out of doors again. He was very
+glad, too, to see the children; and he had spoken so pleasantly to Jusy,
+that in one minute Jusy had lost all his fear of Chinamen.</p>
+
+<p>When Rea saw Ah Foo, she hung back, and was afraid to go nearer.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come on! come on!" shouted Jusy. "Don't be afraid! He is just like
+Jim, only a different color. They have men of all kinds of colors here
+in America. They are just like other people, all but the color. Come
+on, Rea. Don't be silly. You can't half see from there!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But Rea was afraid. She would not come farther than the last pillar of
+the veranda. "I can see very well here," she said; and there she stood
+clinging to the pillar. She was half afraid of the cats, too, besides
+being very much afraid of the Chinaman.</p>
+
+<p>The cats' breakfast was nearly over. In fact, they had had their usual
+allowance before Rea came down; but Ah Foo had gone on throwing out meat
+for Rea to see the scrambling. Presently he threw the last piece, and
+set the empty plate up on a shelf by the kitchen door. The cats knew
+very well by this sign that breakfast was over; after the plate was set
+on that shelf, they never had a mouthful <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>more of meat; and it was droll
+to see the change that came over all of them as soon as they saw this
+done. In less than a second, they changed from fierce, fighting,
+clawing, scratching, snatching, miaowing, spitting, growling cats, into
+quiet, peaceful cats, some sitting down licking their paws, or washing
+their faces, and some lying out full-length on the ground and rolling;
+some walking off in a leisurely and dignified manner, as if they had had
+all they wanted, and wouldn't thank anybody for another bit of meat, if
+they could have it as well as not. This was almost as funny as the first
+part of it.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p>
+<p>After Ah Foo had set the plate in its place on the shelf, he turned to
+go into the kitchen to help about the breakfast; but just as he had put
+his hand on the door-handle, there came a terrible shriek from Rea, a
+fierce sputter from one of the cats, and a faint bark of a dog, all at
+once; and Ah Foo, looking around, sprang just in time to rescue Fairy
+from the jaws of Skipper, one of the biggest and fiercest of the cats.</p>
+
+<p>Poor little Fairy, missing her mistress, had trotted downstairs; and
+smelling on the floor wherever Rea had set her feet, had followed her
+tracks, and had reached the veranda just in time to be spied by Skipper,
+who arched his back, set his tail up straight and stiff as a poker, and,
+making one bound from the ground to the middle of the veranda floor,
+clutch<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>ed Fairy with teeth and claws, and would have made an end of her
+in less than one minute if Ah Foo had not been there. But Ah Foo could
+move almost as quickly as a cat; and it was not a quarter of a second
+after Fairy gave her piteous cry, when she was safe and sound in her
+mistress's arms, and Ah Foo had Skipper by the scruff of his neck, and
+was holding him high up, boxing his ears, right and left, with blows so
+hard they rang.</p>
+
+<p>"Cat heap wicked," he said. "You killee missy's dog, I killee you!" and
+he flung Skipper with all his might and main through the air.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p>
+<p>Rea screamed, "Oh, don't!" She did not want to see the cat killed, even
+if he had flown at Fairy. "It will kill him," she cried.</p>
+
+<p>Ah Foo laughed. "Heap hard killee cat," he said. "Cat get nine time life
+good;" and as he spoke, Skipper, after whirling through the air in
+several somersaults, came down on his feet all right, and slunk off into
+the woodpile.</p>
+
+<p>"I tellee you," said Ah Foo, chuckling.</p>
+
+<p>"Thatee isee heapee goodee manee," cried Jusy. "I havee learnee talkee
+oneee language already!"</p>
+
+<p>A roar of laughter came from the dining-room window. There stood Uncle
+George, holding his sides.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Bravo, Jusy!" he exclaimed. "You have begun on pigeon English, have
+you, for the first of your nine languages?"</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't that Chinese?" said Jusy, much crestfallen.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no!" said Uncle George, "not by any manner of means. It is only the
+Chinese way of talking English. It is called pigeon English. But come in
+to breakfast now, and I will tell you all about my cats,&mdash;my hunting
+cats, I call them. They are just as good as a pack of hunting dogs; and
+better, for they do not need anybody to go with them."</p>
+
+<p>How pleasant the breakfast-table looked!&mdash;a large square table set with
+gay china, pretty flowers in the middle, nice broiled chicken and fried
+potatoes, and baked apples and cream; and Jusy's and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>Rea's bright faces,
+one on Mr. Connor's left hand, the other on his right.</p>
+
+<p>As Jim moved about the table and waited on them, he thought to himself,
+"Now, if this doesn't make Mr. George well, it will be because he can't
+be cured."</p>
+
+<p>Jim had found the big house so lonely, with nobody in it except Mr.
+Connor and the two Chinese servants, he would have been glad to see
+almost anything in the shape of a human being,&mdash;man, woman, or
+child,&mdash;come there to live. How much more, then, these two beautiful and
+merry children!</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p>
+<p>Jusy and Rea thought they had never in all their lives tasted anything
+so good as the broiled chicken and the baked apples.</p>
+
+<p>"Heapee goodee cookee, Uncle George!" said Jusy. He was so tickled with
+the Chinaman's way of talking, he wanted to keep doing it.</p>
+
+<p>"Tooee muchee putee onee letter e, Master Jusy," said Uncle George.
+"After you have listened to their talk a little longer, you will see
+that they do not add the 'ee' to every word. It is hard to imitate them
+exactly."</p>
+
+<p>Jusy was crestfallen. He thought he had learned a new language in half
+an hour, and he was proud of it. But no new language was ever learned
+without more trouble and hard work than tha<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>t; not even pigeon English!</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/i008.png" width="300" height="147" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/i009.png" width="300" height="81" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III.</h2>
+
+
+<p>It had come about by chance, Mr. Connor's keeping this pack of hunting
+cats. He had been greatly troubled by gophers and rabbits: the gophers
+killed his trees by gnawing their roots; the rabbits burrowed under his
+vines, ate the tender young leaves, and gnawed the stems.</p>
+
+<p>Jim had tried every device,&mdash;traps of all kinds and all the poisons he
+could hear of. He had also tried drowning the poor little gophers out
+by pouring water down their holes. But, spite of all he c<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>ould do, the
+whole hill was alive with them. It had been wild ground so long, and
+covered so thick with bushes, that it had been like a nice house built
+on purpose for all small wild animals to live in.</p>
+
+<p>I suppose there must have been miles of gophers' underground tunnels,
+leading from hole to hole. They popped their heads up, and you saw them
+scampering away wherever you went; and in the early morning it was very
+funny to see the rabbits jumping and leaping to get off out of sight
+when they heard people stirring. They were of a beautiful gray color,
+with a short bushy tail, white at the end. On account of this white tip
+to their tails, they are called "cotton-tails<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>."</p>
+
+<p>When Mr. Connor first moved up on the hill, Jim used to shoot a
+cottontail almost every day, and some days he shot two. The rabbits,
+however, are shyer than the gophers; when they find out that they get
+shot as soon as they are seen, and that these men who shoot them have
+built houses and mean to stay, they will gradually desert their burrows
+and move away to new homes.</p>
+
+<p>But the gopher is not so afraid. He lives down in the ground, and can
+work in the dark as well as in the light; and he likes roots just as
+well as he likes the stems above ground; so as long as he stays in his
+cellar houses, he is hard to reach.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The gopher is a pretty little creature, with a striped back,&mdash;almost as
+pretty as a chipmonk. It seems a great pity to have to kill them all
+off; but there is no help for it; fruit-trees and gophers cannot live in
+the same place.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after Mr. Connor moved into his new house, he had a present of a
+big cat from the Mexican woman who sold him milk.</p>
+
+<p>She said to Jim one day, "Have you got a cat in your house yet?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Jim. "Mr. George does not like cats."</p>
+
+<p>"No matter," said she, "you have got to have one. The gophers and
+squirrels in this country are a great deal worse than rats and mice.
+They'll come<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> right into your kitchen and cellar, if your back is turned
+a minute, and eat you out of house and home. I'll give you a splendid
+cat. She's a good hunter. I've got more cats than I know what to do
+with."</p>
+
+<p>So she presented Jim with a fine, big black and white cat; and Jim named
+the cat "Mexican," because a Mexican woman gave her to him.</p>
+
+<p>The first thing Mexican did, after getting herself established in her
+new home in the woodpile, was to have a litter of kittens, six of them.
+The next thing she did, as soon as they got big enough to eat meat, was
+to go out hunting for food for them; and one day, as Mr. Connor was
+riding up the hill, he saw her runni<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>ng into the woodpile, with a big fat
+gopher in her mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"Ha!" thought Mr. Connor to himself. "There's an idea! If one cat will
+kill one gopher in a day, twenty cats would kill twenty gophers in a
+day! I'll get twenty cats, and keep them just to hunt gophers. They'll
+clear the place out quicker than poison, or traps, or drowning."</p>
+
+<p>"Jim," he called, as soon as he entered the house,&mdash;"Jim, I've got an
+idea. I saw Mexican just now carrying a dead gopher to her kittens. Does
+she kill many?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, sir," replied Jim. "Before she got her kittens I used to see
+her with them every day. But she does not go out so often now."</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Good mother!" said Mr. Connor. "Stays at home with her family, does
+she?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," laughed Jim; "except when she needs to go out to get food
+for them."</p>
+
+<p>"You may set about making a collection of cats, Jim, at once," said Mr.
+Connor. "I'd like twenty."</p>
+
+<p>Jim stared. "I thought you didn't like cats, Mr. George," he exclaimed.
+"I was afraid to bring Mexican home, for fear you wouldn't like having
+her about."</p>
+
+<p>"No more do I," replied Mr. Connor. "But I do not dislike them so much
+as I dislike gophers. And don't you see, if we have twenty, and they
+all <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>hunt gophers as well as she does, we'll soon have the place
+cleared?"</p>
+
+<p>"We'd have to feed them, sir," said Jim. "So many's that, they'd never
+make all their living off gophers."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we'll feed them once a day, just a little, so as not to let them
+starve. But we must keep them hungry, or else they won't hunt."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, sir," said Jim. "I will set about it at once."</p>
+
+<p>"Beg or buy them," laughed Mr. Connor. "I'll pay for them, if I can't
+get them any other way. There is room in the woodpile for fifty to
+live."</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p>
+<p>Jim did not much like the idea of having such an army of cats about; but
+he went faithfully to work; and in a few weeks he had seventeen. One
+morning, when they were all gathered together to be fed, he called Mr.
+Connor to look at them.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think there are enough, sir?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Goodness! Jim," cried Mr. Connor, "what did you get so many for? We
+shall be overrun."</p>
+
+<p>Jim laughed. "I'm three short yet, sir, of the number you ordered," he
+said. "There are only seventeen in that batch."</p>
+
+<p>"Only seventeen! You are joking, Jim," cried Mr. Connor; and he tried
+to count; but the cats were in such a scrambling mass, he could not
+co<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>unt them.</p>
+
+<p>"I give it up, Jim," he said at last. "But are there really only
+seventeen?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's all, sir, and it takes quite a lot of meat to give them all a
+bite of a morning. I think here are enough to begin with, unless you
+have set your heart, sir, on having twenty. Mexican has got six kittens,
+you know, and they will be big enough to hunt before long. That will
+make twenty-three."</p>
+
+<p>"Plenty! plenty!" said Mr. Connor. "Don't get another one. And, Jim," he
+added, "wouldn't it be better to feed them at night? Then they will be
+hungry the next morning."</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p>
+<p>"I tried that, sir," said Jim, "but they didn't seem so lively. I don't
+give them any more than just enough to whet their appetites. At first
+they sat round the door begging for more, half the morning, and I had to
+stone them away; now they understand it. In a few minutes, they'll all
+be off; and you won't see much of any of them till to-morrow morning.
+They are all on hand then, as regular as the sun rises."</p>
+
+<p>"Where do they sleep?" said Mr. Connor.</p>
+
+<p>"In the woodpile, every blessed cat of them," replied Jim. "And there
+are squirrels living in there too. It is just a kind of cage, that
+woodpile, with its crooks and turns. I saw a squirrel going up, up, in
+it the other day; I thoug<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>ht he'd make his way out to the top; I thought
+the cats would have cleaned them all out before this time, but they
+haven't; I saw one there only yesterday."</p>
+
+<p>Jim had counted too soon on Mexican's kittens. Five of them came to a
+sad end. Their mother carried to them, one day, a gopher which she found
+lying dead in the road. Poor cat-mother! I suppose she thought to
+herself when she saw it lying there, "Oh, how lucky! I sha'n't have to
+sit and wait and watch for a gopher this morning. Here is one all ready,
+dead!" But that gopher had died of poison which had been put down his
+hole; and as soon as the little kittens ate it, they were all taken
+dread<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>fully ill, and all but one died. Either he hadn't had so much of
+the gopher as the rest had, or else he was stronger; he lingered along
+in misery for a month, as thin, wretched-looking a little beast as ever
+was seen; then he began to pick up his flesh, and finally got to be as
+strong a cat as there was in the whole pack.</p>
+
+<p>He was most curiously marked: in addition to the black and white of his
+mother's skin, he had gray and yellow mottled in all over him. Jim
+thought it looked as if his skin had been painted, so he named him
+Fresco.</p>
+
+<p>Jim had names for all the best cats; there were ten that were named.
+The other seven, Jim called "the rabble;" but of the ten he had named,
+Jim<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> grew to be very proud. He thought they were remarkable cats.</p>
+
+<p>First there was Mexican, the original first-comer in the colony. Then
+there was Big Tom, and another Tom called China Tom, because he would
+stay all the time he could with the Chinamen. He was dark-gray, with
+black stripes on him.</p>
+
+<p>Next in size and beauty was a huge black cat, called Snowball. He was
+given to Mr. Connor by a miner's wife, who lived in a cabin high up on
+the mountain. She said she would let him have the cat on the condition
+that he would continue to call him Snowball, as she had done. She named
+him Snowball, she said, to make herself laugh every tim<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>e she called him,
+he being black as coal; and there was so little to laugh at where she
+lived, she liked a joke whenever she could contrive one.</p>
+
+<p>Then there was Skipper, the one who nearly ate up Fairy that first
+morning; he also was as black as coal, and fierce as a wolf; all the
+cats were more or less afraid of him. Jim named him Skipper, because he
+used to race about in trees like a squirrel. Way up to the very top of
+the biggest sycamore trees in the caņon back of the house, Skipper would
+go, and leap from one bough to another. He was especially fond of birds,
+and in this way he caught many. He thought birds were much better
+eating than gopher<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>s.</p>
+
+<p>Mexican, Big Tom, China Tom, Snowball, Skipper, and Fresco,&mdash;these are
+six of the names; the other four were not remarkable; they did not mean
+anything in especial; only to distinguish their owners from the rest,
+who had no names at all.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, yes; I am forgetting the drollest of all: that was Humbug. Jim gave
+her that name because she was so artful and sly about getting more than
+her share of the meat. She would watch for the biggest pieces, and
+pounce on them right under some other cat's nose, and almost always
+succeed in getting them. So Jim named her Humbug, which was a very good
+name; for she always pretended <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>to be quieter and stiller than the rest,
+as if she were not in any great hurry about her breakfast; and then she
+whisked in, and got the biggest pieces, and twice as much as any other
+cat there.</p>
+
+<p>The other names were Jenny, Capitan, and Growler. That made the ten.</p>
+
+<p>In a very few days after Jusy and Rea arrived, they knew all these cats'
+names as well as Jim did; and they were never tired of watching them at
+their morning meal, or while they were prowling, looking, and waiting
+for gophers and rabbits.</p>
+
+<p>For a long time, Rea carried Fairy tight in her arms whenever there was
+a cat in sight; but after a while, the cats all came to know Fairy so
+well tha<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>t they took no notice of her, and it was safe to put her on the
+ground and let her run along. But Rea kept close to her, and never
+forgot her for a single minute.</p>
+
+<p>There were many strange things which these cats did, besides hunting the
+gophers. They used also to hunt snakes. In one of the rocky ravines near
+the house there were large snakes of a beautiful golden-brown color. On
+warm days these used to crawl out, and lie sunning themselves on the
+rocks. Woe to any such snake, if one of the cats caught sight of him!
+Big Tom had a special knack at killing them. He would make a bound, and
+come down with his fore claws firm planted in the middle of the snake's
+back; the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>n he would take it in his teeth, and shake it, flapping its
+head against the stones every time, till it was more dead than alive.
+You would not have thought that so big a snake could have been so
+helpless in the claws of a cat.</p>
+
+<p>Another thing the cats did, which gave the men much amusement, was, that
+when they had killed rabbits they carried the bodies into the mules'
+stables. Mules are terribly frightened at the smell of a dead rabbit.
+Whenever this happened, a great braying and crying and stamping would be
+heard in the stables; and on running to see what was the matter, there
+would be found Big Tom or Skipper, sitting down calm and happy by the
+side of a dead<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> rabbit, which he had carried in, and for some reason or
+other best known to himself had deposited in plain sight of the mules.
+Why they chose to carry dead rabbits there, unless it was that they
+enjoyed seeing the mules so frightened, there seemed no explaining. They
+never took dead gophers up there, or snakes; only the rabbits. Once a
+mule was so frightened that he plunged till he broke his halter, got
+free, and ran off down the hill; and the men had a big chase before they
+overtook him.</p>
+
+<p>But the queerest thing of all that happened, was that the cats adopted a
+skunk; or else it was the skunk that adopted the cats; I don't know
+which <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>would be the proper way of stating it; but at any rate the skunk
+joined the family, lived with them in the woodpile, came with them every
+morning to be fed, and went off with them hunting gophers every day. It
+must have been there some time before Jim noticed it, for when he first
+saw it, it was already on the most familiar and friendly terms with all
+the cats. It was a pretty little black and white creature, and looked a
+good deal like one of Mexican's kittens.</p>
+
+<p>Finally it became altogether too friendly: Jim found it in the kitchen
+cellar one day; and a day or two after that, it actually walked into
+the house. Mr. Connor was sitting in his library writing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>. He heard a
+soft, furry foot patting on the floor, and thought it was Fairy.
+Presently he looked up; and, to his horror, there was the cunning little
+black and white skunk in the doorway, looking around and sniffing
+curiously at everything, like a cat. Mr. Connor held his breath and did
+not dare stir, for fear the creature should take it into its head that
+he was an enemy. Seeing everything so still, the skunk walked in, walked
+around both library and dining-room, taking minute observations of
+everything by means of its nose. Then it softly patted out again, across
+the hall, and out of the front door, down the veranda steps.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p>
+<p>It had seemed an age to Mr. Connor; he could hardly help laughing too,
+as he sat there in his chair, to think how helpless he, a grown-up man,
+felt before a creature no bigger than that,&mdash;a little thing whose neck
+he could wring with one hand; and yet he no more dared to touch it, or
+try to drive it out, than if it had been a roaring lion. As soon as it
+was fairly out of the way, Mr. Connor went in search of Jim.</p>
+
+<p>"Jim," said he, "that skunk you were telling me about, that the cats had
+adopted, seems to be thinking of adopting me; he spent some time in the
+library with me this morning, looking me over; and I am afraid he liked
+me and the place much too well. I should like to have him killed. Can
+you manage it?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," laughed Jim. "I was thinking I'd have to kill him. I caught
+him in the cellar a day or two since, and I thought he was getting to
+feel too much at home. I'll fix him."</p>
+
+<p>So the next morning Jim took a particularly nice and tempting piece of
+meat, covered it with poison, and just as the cats' breakfast was
+finished, and the cats slowly dispersing, he threw this tidbit directly
+at the little skunk. He swallowed it greedily, and before noon he was
+dead.</p>
+
+<p>Jim could not help being sorry when he saw him stretched out stiff near
+his home in the woodpile. "He was a pert little rascal;" said Jim. "I
+did kind o' hate to kill him; but he sho<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>uld have stayed with his own
+folks, if he wanted to be let alone. It's too dangerous having skunks
+round."</p>
+
+<p>In less than a year's time, there was not a rabbit to be seen on Mr.
+Connor's grounds, and only now and then a gopher, the hunter cats had
+done their work so thoroughly.</p>
+
+<p>But there was one other enemy that Mr. Connor would have to be rid of,
+before he could have any great success with his fruit orchards. You will
+be horrified to hear the name of this enemy. It was the linnet. Yes, the
+merry, chirping, confiding little linnets, with their pretty red heads
+and bright eyes, they also were enemies, and must be killed. They were
+too<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> fond of apricots and peaches and pears and raspberries, and all
+other nice fruits.</p>
+
+<p>If birds only had sense enough, when they want a breakfast or dinner of
+fruit, to make it off one, or even two,&mdash;eat the peach or the pear or
+whatever it might be all up, as we do,&mdash;they might be tolerated in
+orchards; nobody would grudge a bird one peach or cherry. But that isn't
+their way. They like to hop about in the tree, and take a nip out of
+first one, then another, and then another, till half the fruit on the
+tree has been bitten into and spoiled. In this way, they ruin bushels of
+fruit every season.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p>
+<p>"I wonder if we could not teach the cats to hunt linnets, Jim," said Mr.
+Connor one morning. It was at the breakfast-table.</p>
+
+<p>"O Uncle George! the dear sweet little linnets!" exclaimed Rea, ready to
+cry.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my dear sweet little girl," said Uncle George. "The dear sweet
+little linnets will not leave us a single whole peach or apricot or
+cherry to eat."</p>
+
+<p>"No!" said Jusy, "they're a perfect nuisance. They've pecked at every
+apricot on the trees already."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care," said Rea. "Why can't they have some? I'd just as soon
+eat after a linnet as not. Their little bills must be all clean and
+sweet. Don't have them killed, Uncle George."</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p>
+<p>"No danger but that there will be enough left, dear," said Uncle George.
+"However many we shoot, there will be enough left. I believe we might
+kill a thousand to-day and not know the difference."</p>
+
+<p>The cats had already done a good deal at hunting linnets on their own
+account, in a clandestine and irregular manner. They were fond of linnet
+flesh, and were only too glad to have the assistance of an able-bodied
+man with a gun.</p>
+
+<p>When they first comprehended Jim's plan,&mdash;that he would go along with
+his gun, and they should scare the linnets out of the trees, wait for
+the shot, watch to see where the birds fell, and then run and pick them
+up,&mdash;it was droll to see how clever they became in carrying it out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>.
+Retriever dogs could not have done better. The trouble was, that Jim
+could shoot birds faster than the cats could eat them; and no cat would
+stir from his bird till it was eaten up, sometimes feathers and all; and
+after he had had three or four, he didn't care about any more that day.
+To tell the truth, after the first few days, they seemed a little tired
+of the linnet diet, and did not work with so much enthusiasm. But at
+first it was droll, indeed, to see their excitement. As soon as Jim
+appeared with his gun, every cat in sight would come scampering; and it
+would not be many minutes before the rest of the band&mdash;however they
+might have been scattered,&mdash;would somehow or other get wind of what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> was
+going on, and there would be the whole seventeen in a pack at Jim's
+heels, all keeping a sharp lookout on the trees; then, as soon as a cat
+saw a linnet, he would make for the tree, sometimes crouch under the
+tree, sometimes run up it; in either case the linnet was pretty sure to
+fly out: pop, would go Jim's rifle; down would come the linnet;
+helter-skelter would go the cats to the spot where it fell; and in a
+minute more, there would be nothing to be seen of that linnet, except a
+few feathers and a drop or two of blood on the ground.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 423px;">
+<img src="images/i010.png" width="423" height="600" alt="Jim and the Cats hunting Linnets.&mdash;Page 111." title="Jim and the Cats hunting Linnets.&mdash;Page 111." />
+<span class="caption">Jim and the Cats hunting Linnets.&mdash;Page 111.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Jusy liked to go with Jim on these hunting expeditions. But Rea would
+never go. She used to sit sorrowfully at home, and listen for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>
+gunshots; and at every shot she heard, she would exclaim to Anita, "Oh,
+dear! Oh, dear! There's another dear little linnet dead. I think Jusy is
+a cruel, cruel boy! I wouldn't see them shot for anything, and I don't
+like the cats any more."</p>
+
+<p>"But," said Anita, "my little seņorita did not mind having the gophers
+killed. It does not hurt the linnets half so much to be shot dead in one
+second, as it does the gophers to be caught in the cats' claws, and torn
+to pieces sometimes while they are yet alive. The shot-gun kills in a
+second."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care," said Rea. "It seems different; the linnets are so
+pretty."</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p>
+<p>"That is not a reason for pitying them any more," said Anita gravely.
+"You did not find those old Indians you saw yesterday pretty. On the
+contrary, they were frightful to look at; yet you pitied them so much
+that you shed tears."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes!" cried Rea, "I should think I did; and, Anita, I dreamed about
+them all night long. I am going to ask Uncle George to build a little
+house for them up in the caņon. There is plenty of room there he does
+not want; and then nobody could drive them out of that place as long as
+they live; and I could carry them their dinner every day. Don't you
+think he will?"</p>
+
+<p>"Bless your kind little heart!" said Anita. "That would be asking a
+great deal of your Uncle George, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> he is so kind, perhaps he will. If
+somebody does not take compassion on the poor things, they will starve,
+that is certain."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall ask him the minute he comes in," said Rea. "I am going down on
+the piazza now to watch for him." And taking Fairy in her arms, Rea
+hurried downstairs, went out on the veranda, and, climbing up into the
+hammock, was sound asleep in ten minutes.</p>
+
+<p>She was waked up by feeling herself violently swung from side to side,
+and opening her eyes, saw Jusy standing by her side, his face flushed
+with the heat, his eyes sparkling.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p>
+<p>"O Rea!" he said. "We have had a splendid hunt! What do you think! Jim
+has shot twenty linnets in this one morning! and that Skipper, he's
+eaten five of them! He's as good as a regular hunting dog."</p>
+
+<p>"Where's Uncle George?" asked Rea sleepily, rubbing her eyes. "I want
+Uncle George! I don't want you to tell me anything about the cats'
+eating the linnets. I hate them! They're cruel!"</p>
+
+<p>"'Tisn't cruel either!" retorted Jusy. "They've got to be killed. All
+people that have orchards have to kill birds."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't, when I have an orchard," said Rea.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Then you won't have any orchard. That will be all," said Jusy. "At
+least, you won't have any fruit orchard. You'll have just a tree
+orchard."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, a tree orchard is good enough for anybody," replied Rea half
+crossly. She was not yet quite wide awake. "There is plenty of fruit in
+stores, to buy. We could buy our fruit."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you talking in your sleep, Rea?" cried Jusy, looking hard at her.
+"I do believe you are! What ails you? The men that have the fruit to
+sell, had to kill all the linnets and things, just the same way, or else
+they wouldn't have had any fruit. Can't you see?"</p>
+
+<p>No, Rea could not see; and what was more, she did not want to see; and
+as the proverb says, "There are non<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>e so blind as those who won't see."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't talk any more about it, Jusy," she said. "Do you think Uncle
+George would build a little house up the caņon for poor old Ysidro?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who!" exclaimed Jusy.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you cruel boy!" cried Rea. "You don't think of anything but killing
+linnets, and such cruel things; I think you are real wicked. Don't you
+know those poor old Indians we saw yesterday?&mdash;the ones that are going
+to be turned out of their house, down in San Gabriel by the church. I
+have been thinking about them ever since; and I dreamed last night that
+Uncle George built them a house. I'm going to ask him to."</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p>
+<p>"I bet you anything he won't, then," said Jusy. "The horrid old beggars!
+He wouldn't have such looking things round!"</p>
+
+<p>Rea was wide awake now. She fixed her lovely blue eyes on Jusy's face
+with a look which made him ashamed. "Jusy," she said, "I can't help it
+if you are older than I am; I must say, I think you are cruel. You like
+to kill linnets; and now you won't be sorry for these poor old Indians,
+just because they are dirty and horrid-looking. You'd look just as bad
+yourself, if your skin was black, and you were a hundred years old, and
+hadn't got a penny in the world. You are real hard-hearted, Jusy, I do
+think you <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>are!" and the tears came into Rea's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"What is all this?" said Uncle George, coming up the steps. "Not
+quarrelling, my little people!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no! no!" cried both the children eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"I never quarrel with Rea," added Jusy proudly. "I hope I am old enough
+to know better than that."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm only two years the youngest," said Rea, in a mortified tone. "I
+think I am old enough to be quarrelled with; and I do think you're
+cruel, Jusy."</p>
+
+<p>This made Uncle George smile. "Look out!" he said. "You will be in a
+quarrel yet, if you are not careful. What is it, Rea?"</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span></p>
+<p>While Rea was collecting her thoughts to reply, Jusy took the words out
+of her mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"She thinks I am cruel, because I said I didn't believe you would build
+a house for Indians up in your caņon."</p>
+
+<p>"It was not that!" cried Rea. "You are real mean, Jusy!"</p>
+
+<p>And so I think, myself, he was. He had done just the thing which is so
+often done in this world,&mdash;one of the unfairest and most provoking of
+things; he had told the truth in such a way as to give a wrong
+impression, which is not so very far different, in my opinion, from
+telling a lie.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p>
+<p>"A home for Indians up in the caņon!" exclaimed Uncle George, drawing
+Rea to him, and seating her on his knee. "Did my little tender-hearted
+Rea want me to do that? It would take a very big house, girlie, for all
+the poor Indians around here;" and Uncle George looked lovingly at Rea,
+and kissed her hair, as she nestled her head into his neck. "Just like
+her mother," he thought. "She would have turned every house into an
+asylum if she could."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, not for all the Indians, Uncle George," said Rea, encouraged by his
+kind smile,&mdash;"I am not such a fool as Jusy thinks,&mdash;only for those two
+old ones that are going to be turned out of their home they've always
+lived in. You know the ones I mean."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes,&mdash;old Ysidro and his wife. Well, Rea, I had already thought of
+that myself. So you were not so much ahead of me."</p>
+
+<p>"There!" exclaimed Rea triumphantly, turning to Jusy. "What do you say
+now?"</p>
+
+<p>Jusy did not know exactly what to say, he was so astonished; and as he
+saw Jim and the cats coming up the road at that minute, he gladly took
+the opportunity to spring down from the veranda and run to meet them.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/i011.png" width="300" height="76" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The story of old Ysidro was indeed a sad one; and I think, with Rea,
+that any one must be hard-hearted, who did not pity him. He was a very
+old Indian; nobody knew how old; but he looked as if he must be a
+hundred at least. Ever since he could remember, he had lived in a little
+house in San Gabriel. The missionaries who first settled San Gabriel had
+given a small piece of land to his father, and on it his father had
+built this little house of rough bricks made of mud.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> Here Ysidro was
+born, and here he had always lived. His father and mother had been dead
+a long time. His brothers and sisters had all died or gone away to live
+in some other place.</p>
+
+<p>When he was a young man, he had married a girl named Carmena. She was
+still living, almost as old as he; all their children had either died,
+or married and gone away, and the two old people lived alone together in
+the little mud house.</p>
+
+<p>They were very poor; but they managed to earn just enough to keep from
+starving. There was a little land around the house,&mdash;not more than an
+acre; but it was as much as the old man <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>could cultivate. He raised a few
+vegetables, chiefly beans, and kept some hens.</p>
+
+<p>Carmena had done fine washing for the San Gabriel people as long as her
+strength held out; but she had not been able for some years to do that.
+All she could do now was to embroider and make lace. She had to stay in
+bed most of the time, for she had the rheumatism in her legs and feet so
+she could but just hobble about; but there she sat day after day,
+propped up in her bed, sewing. It was lucky that the rheumatism had not
+gone into her hands, for the money she earned by making lace was the
+chief part of their living.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p>
+<p>Sometimes Ysidro earned a little by days' works in the fields or
+gardens; but he was so old, people did not want him if they could get
+anybody else, and nobody would pay him more than half wages.</p>
+
+<p>When he could not get anything else to do, he made mats to sell. He made
+them out of the stems of a plant called yucca; but he had to go a long
+way to get these plants. It was slow, tedious work making the mats, and
+the store-keepers gave him only seventy-five cents apiece for them; so
+it was very little he could earn in that way.</p>
+
+<p>Was not this a wretched life? Yet they seemed always cheerful, and they
+were as much attached to this poor little mud hovel as any of you can
+be to your own beautiful homes.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Would you think any one could have the heart to turn those two poor old
+people out of their home? It would not seem as if a human being could be
+found who would do such a thing. But there was. He was a lawyer; I could
+tell you his true name, but I will not. He had a great deal to do with
+all sorts of records and law papers, about land and titles and all such
+things.</p>
+
+<p>There has always been trouble about the ownership of land in California,
+because first it belonged to Spain, and then it belonged to Mexico; and
+then we fought with Mexico, and Mexico gave it to us. So you can easily
+see that where lands are passed along in that way, th<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>rough so many
+hands, it might often be hard to tell to whom they justly belonged.</p>
+
+<p>Of course this poor old Ysidro did not know anything about papers. He
+could not read or write. The missionaries gave the land to his father
+more than a hundred years ago, and his father gave it to him, and that
+was all Ysidro knew about it.</p>
+
+<p>Well, this lawyer was rummaging among papers and titles and maps of
+estates in San Gabriel, and he found out that there was this little bit
+of land near the church, which had been overlooked by everybody, and to
+which nobody had any written title. He went over and looked at it, and
+found Ysidro's house on it; and Ysidro told him he had alwa<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>ys lived
+there; but the lawyer did not care for that.</p>
+
+<p>Land is worth a great deal of money now in San Gabriel. This little
+place of Ysidro's was worth a good many hundred dollars; and this lawyer
+was determined to have it. So he went to work in ways I cannot explain
+to you, for I do not understand them myself; and you could not
+understand them even if I could write them out exactly: but it was all
+done according to law; and the lawyer got it decided by the courts and
+the judges in San Francisco that this bit of land was his.</p>
+
+<p>When this was all done, he had not quite boldness enough to come forward
+himself, and turn the poor old Indians out. Even he had some sense of
+shame; s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>o he slyly sold the land to a man who did not know anything
+about the Indians being there.</p>
+
+<p>You see how cunning this was of him! When it came to the Indians being
+turned out, and the land taken by the new owner, this lawyer's name
+would not need to come out in the matter at all. But it did come out; so
+that a few people knew what a mean, cruel thing he had done. Just for
+the sake of the price of an acre of land, to turn two aged helpless
+people out of house and home to starve! Do you think those dollars will
+ever do that man any good as long as he lives? No, not if they had been
+a million.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p>
+<p>Well, Mr. Connor was one of the persons who had found out about this;
+and he had at first thought he would help Ysidro fight, in the courts,
+to keep his place; but he found there would be no use in that. The
+lawyer had been cunning enough to make sure he was safe, before he went
+on to steal the old Indian's farm. The law was on his side. Ysidro did
+not really own the land, according to law, though he had lived on it all
+his life, and it had been given to his father by the missionaries,
+almost a hundred years ago.</p>
+
+<p>Does it not seem strange that the law could do such a thing as that?
+When the boys who read this story grow up to be men, I hope they will
+do away with these bad laws, and make better on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>es.</p>
+
+<p>The way Rea had found out about old Ysidro was this: when Jim went to
+the post-office for the mail, in the mornings, he used generally to take
+Anita and Rea in the wagon with him, and leave them at Anita's mother's
+while he drove on to the post-office, which was a mile farther.</p>
+
+<p>Rea liked this very much. Anita's mother had a big blue and green
+parrot, that could talk in both Spanish and English; and Rea was never
+tired of listening to her. She always carried her sugar; and she used to
+cock her head on one side, and call out, "Seņorita! seņorita! Polly
+likes sugar! sugar! sugar!" as soon as she saw Rea coming in at the
+door. It was the only parrot Rea ha<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>d ever seen, and it seemed to her the
+most wonderful creature in the world.</p>
+
+<p>Ysidro's house was next to Anita's mother's; and Rea often saw the old
+man at work in his garden, or sitting on his door-step knitting lace,
+with needles as fine as pins.</p>
+
+<p>One day Anita took her into the house to see Carmena, who was sitting in
+bed at work on her embroidery. When Carmena heard that Rea was Mr.
+Connor's niece, she insisted upon giving her a beautiful piece of lace
+which she had made. Anita did not wish to take it, but old Carmena
+said,&mdash;</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p>
+<p>"You must take it. Mr. Connor has given us much money, and there was
+never anything I could do for him. Now if his little seņorita will take
+this, it will be a pleasure."</p>
+
+<p>So Rea carried the lace home, and showed it to her Uncle George, and he
+said she might keep it; and it was only a few weeks after this that when
+Anita and Rea went down to San Gabriel, one day, they found the old
+couple in great distress, the news having come that they were going to
+be turned out of their house.</p>
+
+<p>And it was the night after this visit that Rea dreamed about the poor
+old creatures all night, and the very next morning that she asked her
+Uncle George if he would not build them a house in his <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>caņon.</p>
+
+<p>After lunch, Mr. Connor said to Rea,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I am going to drive this afternoon, Rea. Would you like to come with
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>His eyes twinkled as he said it, and Rea cried out,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! oh! It is to see Ysidro and Carmena, I am sure!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said her uncle; "I am going down to tell them you are going to
+build them a house."</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle George, will you really, truly, do it?" said Rea. "I think you
+are the kindest man in all the world!" and she ran for her hat, and was
+down on the veranda waiting, long before the horses were ready.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p>
+<p>They found old Ysidro sitting on the ground, leaning against the wall of
+his house. He had his face covered up with both hands, his elbows
+leaning on his knees.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, look at him! He is crying, Uncle George," said Rea.</p>
+
+<p>"No, dear," replied Mr. Connor. "He is not crying. Indian men very
+rarely cry. He is feeling all the worse that he will not let himself
+cry, but shuts the tears all back."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that is lots worse," said Rea.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know, pet?" laughingly said her uncle. "Did you ever try
+it?"</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p>
+<p>"I've tried to try it," said Rea, "and it felt so much worse, I
+couldn't."</p>
+
+<p>It was not easy at first to make old Ysidro understand what Mr. Connor
+meant. He could not believe that anybody would give him a house and home
+for nothing. He thought Mr. Connor wanted to get him to come and work;
+and, being an honest old fellow, he was afraid Mr. Connor did not know
+how little strength he had; so he said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Seņor Connor, I am very old; I am sick too. I am not worth hiring to
+work."</p>
+
+<p>"Bless you!" said Mr. Connor. "I don't want you to work any more than
+you do now. I am only offering you a place to live in. If you are
+strong enough to do a day's work, now and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>then, I shall pay you for it,
+just as I would pay anybody else."</p>
+
+<p>Ysidro gazed earnestly in Mr. Connor's face, while he said this; he
+gazed as if he were trying to read his very thoughts. Then he looked up
+to the sky, and he said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Seņor, Ysidro has no words. He cannot speak. Will you come into the
+house and tell Carmena? She will not believe if I tell it."</p>
+
+<p>So Mr. Connor and Rea went into the house, and there sat Carmena in bed,
+trying to sew; but the tears were running out of her eyes. When she saw
+Mr. Connor and Rea coming in at the door, she threw up her hands and
+burst out into loud crying.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"O seņor! seņor!" she said. "They drive us out of our house. Can you
+help us? Can you speak for us to the wicked man?"</p>
+
+<p>Ysidro went up to the bed and took hold of her hand, and, pointing with
+his other hand to Mr. Connor, said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"He comes from God,&mdash;the seņor. He will help us!"</p>
+
+<p>"Can we stay?" cried Carmena.</p>
+
+<p>Here Rea began to cry.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't cry, Rea," said Mr. Connor. "That will make her feel worse."</p>
+
+<p>Rea gulped down her sobs, enough to say,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"But she doesn't want to come into the caņon! All she wants is to stay
+here! She won't be glad of the new hou<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>se."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, she will, by and by," whispered Mr. Connor. "Stop crying, that's
+my good Rea."</p>
+
+<p>But Rea could not. She stood close to the bed, looking into old
+Carmena's distressed face; and the tears would come, spite of all her
+efforts.</p>
+
+<p>When Carmena finally understood that not even Mr. Connor, with all his
+good will and all his money, could save them from leaving their home,
+she cried again as hard as at first; and Ysidro felt ashamed of her, for
+he was afraid Mr. Connor would think her ungrateful. But Mr. Connor
+understood it very well.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p>
+<p>"I have lived only two years in my house," he said to Rea, "and I would
+not change it for one twice as good that anybody could offer me. Think
+how any one must feel about a house he has lived in all his life."</p>
+
+<p>"But it is a horrible little house, Uncle George," said Rea,&mdash;"the
+dirtiest hovel I ever saw. It is worse than they are in Italy."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not believe that makes much difference, dear," said Uncle George.
+"It is their home, all the same, as if it were large and nice. It is
+that one loves."</p>
+
+<p>Just as Mr. Connor and Rea came out of the house, who should come riding
+by, but the very man that had caused all this unhappiness,&mdash;the lawyer
+who had taken Ysidro's land! He was with the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>man to whom he had sold it.
+They were riding up and down in the valley, looking over all their
+possessions, and planning what big vineyards and orchards they would
+plant and how much money they would make.</p>
+
+<p>When this man saw Mr. Connor, he turned as red as a turkey-cock's
+throat. He knew very well what Mr. Connor thought of him; but he bowed
+very low.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Connor returned his bow, but with such a stern and scornful look on
+his face, that Rea exclaimed,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter, Uncle George? What makes you look so?"</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p>
+<p>"That man is a bad man, dear," he replied; "and has the kind of badness
+I most despise." But he did not tell her that he was the man who was
+responsible for the Indians being driven out of their home. He thought
+it better for Rea not to know it.</p>
+
+<p>"Are there different sorts of badness,&mdash;some badnesses worse than
+others?" asked Rea.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know whether one kind is really any worse than another," said
+Mr. Connor. "But there are some kinds which seem to me twice as bad as
+others; and meanness and cruelty to helpless creatures seem to me the
+very worst of all."</p>
+
+<p>"To me too!" said Rea. "Like turning out poor Ysidro."</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Yes," said Mr. Connor. "That is just one of the sort I mean."</p>
+
+<p>Just before they reached the beginning of the lands of Connorloa, they
+crossed the grounds of a Mr. Finch, who had a pretty house and large
+orange orchards. Mr. Finch had one son, Harry, about Jusy's age, and the
+two boys were great cronies.</p>
+
+<p>As Mr. Connor turned the horses' heads into these grounds, he saw Jusy
+and Harry under the trees in the distance.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, there is Jusy," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Rea. "Harry came for him before lunch. He said he had
+something to show him."</p>
+
+<p>As soon as Jusy caught sight of the carriage, he came running towards
+it, crying,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Uncle George, stop! Rea! come! I've found Snowball! Come, see him!"</p>
+
+<p>Snowball had been missing for nearly a month, and nobody could imagine
+what had become of him. They finally came to the conclusion that he must
+have got killed in some way.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Connor stopped the horses; and Rea jumped out and ran after Jusy,
+and Mr. Connor followed. They found the boys watching excitedly, one at
+each end of a little bridge over the ditch, through which the water was
+brought down for irrigating Mr. Finch's orchards. Harry's dogs were
+there too, one at each end of the bridge, barking, yelping, watching as
+excitedly as the boys. But no Snowball.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Where is he?" cried Rea.</p>
+
+<p>"In under there," exclaimed Jusy. "He's got a rabbit in there; he'll be
+out presently."</p>
+
+<p>Sure enough, there he was, plainly to be heard, scuffling and spitting
+under the bridge.</p>
+
+<p>The poor little rabbit ran first to one end of the bridge, then to the
+other, trying to get out; but at each end he found a dog, barking to
+drive him back.</p>
+
+<p>Presently Snowball appeared with the dead rabbit in his teeth. Dropping
+it on the ground, he looked up at the dogs, as much as to say, "There!
+Can't I hunt rabbits as well as you do?" Then they all three, the two
+dogs an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>d he, fell to eating the rabbit in the friendliest manner.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think!" cried Jusy. "He's been hunting this way, with these
+dogs, all this time. You see they are so big they can't get in under the
+bridge, and he can; so they drive the rabbits in under there, and he
+goes in and gets them. Isn't he smart? Harry first saw him doing it two
+weeks ago, he says. He didn't know it was our cat, and he wondered whose
+it could be. But Snowball and the dogs are great friends. They go
+together all the time; and wherever he is, if he hears them bark, he
+knows they've started up something, and he comes flying! I think <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>it is
+just splendid!"</p>
+
+<p>"Poor little thing!" said Rea, looking at the fast-disappearing rabbit.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you eat them yourself!" shouted Jusy. "You said it was as good as
+chicken, the other day. It isn't any worse for cats and dogs to eat
+them, than it is for us; is it, Uncle George?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think Jusy has the best of the argument this time, pet," said Uncle
+George, looking fondly at Jusy.</p>
+
+<p>"Girls are always that way," said Harry politely. "My sisters are just
+so. They can't bear to see anything killed."</p>
+
+<p>After this day, Rea spent most of her time in the caņon, watching the
+men at work on Ysidro's house.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The caņon was a wild place; it was a sort of split in the rocky sides of
+the mountain; at the top it was not much more than two precipices joined
+together, with just room enough for a brook to come down. You can see in
+the picture where it was, though it looks there like little more than a
+groove in the rocks. But it was really so big in some places that huge
+sycamore trees grew in it, and there were little spaces of good earth,
+where Mr. Connor had planted orchards.</p>
+
+<p>It was near these, at the mouth of the caņon, that he put Ysidro's
+house. It was built out of mud bricks, called adobe, as near as
+possible like Ysidro's old house,&mdash;two small rooms, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> a thatched roof
+made of reeds, which grew in a swamp.</p>
+
+<p>But Mr. Connor did not call it Ysidro's house. He called it Rea's house;
+and the men called it "the seņorita's house." It was to be her own, Mr.
+Connor said,&mdash;her own to give as a present to Ysidro and Carmena.</p>
+
+<p>When the day came for them to move in, Jim went down with the big wagon,
+and a bed in the bottom, to bring old Carmena up. There was plenty of
+room in the wagon, besides, for the few little bits of furniture they
+had.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Connor and Jusy and Rea were at the house waiting, when they came.
+The cook had made a good supper of meat and potato, and Rea had put it
+on <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>the table, all ready for them.</p>
+
+<p>When they lifted Carmena out of the wagon, she held, tight clutched in
+her hand, a small basket filled with earth; she seemed hardly willing to
+let go of it for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"What is that?" said Jusy.</p>
+
+<p>"A few handfuls of the earth that was ours," replied Ysidro. "We have
+brought it with us, to keep it always. The man who has our home will not
+miss it."</p>
+
+<p>The tears came into Mr. Connor's eyes, and he turned away.</p>
+
+<p>Rea did not understand. She looked puzzled; so did Jusy.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p>
+<p>Jim explained. "The Indian women often do that," he said. "When they
+have to move away from a home they love they carry a little of the earth
+with them; sometimes they put it in a little bag, and wear it hanging on
+their necks; sometimes they put it under their heads at night."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Carmena, who had listened to what Jim said. "One can sleep
+better on the earth that one loves."</p>
+
+<p>"I say, Rea!" cried Jusy. "It is a shame they had to come away!"</p>
+
+<p>"I told you so, Jusy," said Rea gently. "But you didn't seem to care
+then."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I do now!" he cried. "I didn't think how bad they'd feel. Now if
+it were in Italy, I'd go and tell the King all about it. Who is there
+to tell here?" he continued, turning to his Uncle Ge<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>orge. "Who is there
+here, to tell about such things? There must be somebody."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Connor smiled sadly. "The trouble is, there are too many," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is above all the rest?" persisted Jusy. "Isn't there somebody at
+the top, as our King is in Italy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, there is one above all the rest," replied Mr. Connor. "We call him
+the President."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, why don't you write and tell him about Ysidro?" said Jusy. "I
+wish I could see him, I'd tell him. It's a shame!"</p>
+
+<p>"Even the President could not help this, Jusy," said Mr. Connor. "The
+law was against poor Ysidro; there was n<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>o help; and there are thousands
+and thousands of Indians in just the same condition he is."</p>
+
+<p>"Doesn't the President make the laws?" said Jusy.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Mr. Connor. "Congress makes the laws."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," said Jusy, "like our Parliament."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Mr. Connor.</p>
+
+<p>Jusy said no more; but he thought of little else all the afternoon; and
+at bedtime he said to Rea,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Rea, I am real sorry I didn't care about those old Indians at first,
+when you did. But I'm going to be good to them now, and help them all I
+can; and I have made up my mind that when I am a man I shall not go to
+Italy, a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>s I said I would, to be an officer for the King. I shall stay
+here, and be an officer for the American President, instead; and I shall
+tell him about Ysidro, and about all the rest of the Indians."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>There is nothing more to be told about the Hunter Cats. By degrees they
+disappeared: some of them went to live at other houses in the San
+Gabriel Valley; some of them ran off and lived a wild life in the
+caņons; and some of them, I am afraid, must have died for want of food.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p>
+<p>Rea was glad when they were all gone; but Jusy missed the fun of seeing
+them hunt gophers and linnets.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps, some day, I shall write another story, and tell you more about
+Jusy and Rea, and how they tried to help the Indians.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/i012.png" width="400" height="170" alt="Mats made by Ysidro.&mdash;Page 126." title="Mats made by Ysidro.&mdash;Page 126." />
+<span class="caption">Mats made by Ysidro.&mdash;Page 126.</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="trans-note">
+        Transcriber's Note: Only 'The Hunter Cats of Connorloa', is transcribed in this e-text.
+    </div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Hunter Cats of Connorloa, by Helen Jackson
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+</pre>
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+</body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,2364 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Hunter Cats of Connorloa, by Helen Jackson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Hunter Cats of Connorloa
+
+Author: Helen Jackson
+
+Release Date: March 22, 2009 [EBook #28385]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HUNTER CATS OF CONNORLOA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Woodie4 and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
++-------------------------------------------------------------------+
+|Transcribers note.                                                 |
+|                                                                   |
+|To assist readers, some illustration tags have had descriptions    |
+|added. These have been marked with an asterisk.                    |
+|                                                                   |
+|Only 'The Hunter Cats of Connorloa', is transcribed in this e-text.|
++-------------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+CAT STORIES.
+
+BY
+
+HELEN JACKSON (H. H.),
+
+AUTHOR OF "RAMONA," "NELLY'S SILVER MINE," "BITS OF TALK," ETC.
+
+
+LETTERS FROM A CAT.
+
+MAMMY TITTLEBACK AND HER FAMILY.
+
+THE HUNTER CATS OF CONNORLOA.
+
+
+WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+BOSTON:
+
+ROBERTS BROTHERS.
+
+1886.
+
+
+THE HUNTER CATS
+
+OF
+
+CONNORLOA.
+
+[Illustration: CONNORLOA.]
+
+
+THE
+
+HUNTER CATS
+
+OF
+
+CONNORLOA.
+
+BY HELEN JACKSON
+
+(_H. H._),
+
+AUTHOR OF "LETTERS FROM A CAT," "MAMMY TITTLEBACK AND HER
+FAMILY," ETC.
+
+WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+BOSTON:
+
+ROBERTS BROTHERS.
+
+1886.
+
+_Copyright_, 1884,
+BY ROBERTS BROTHERS.
+
+[Illustration: Decorative panel]*
+
+
+
+
+THE HUNTER CATS
+
+OF
+
+CONNORLOA.
+
+I.
+
+
+Once on a time, there lived in California a gentleman whose name was
+Connor,--Mr. George Connor. He was an orphan, and had no brothers and
+only one sister. This sister was married to an Italian gentleman, one of
+the chamberlains to the King of Italy. She might almost as well have
+been dead, so far as her brother George's seeing her was concerned; for
+he, poor gentleman, was much too ill to cross the ocean to visit her;
+and her husband could not be spared from his duties as chamberlain to
+the King, to come with her to America, and she would not leave him and
+come alone. So at the time my story begins, it had been many years since
+the brother and sister had met, and Mr. Connor had quite made up his
+mind that he should never see her again in this world. He had had a
+sorry time of it for a good many years. He had wandered all over the
+world, trying to find a climate which would make him well. He had lived
+in Egypt, in Ceylon, in Italy, in Japan, in the Sandwich Islands, in the
+West India Islands. Every place that had ever been heard of as being
+good for sick people, he had tried; for he had plenty of money, and
+there was nothing to prevent his journeying wherever he liked. He had a
+faithful black servant Jim, who went with him everywhere, and took the
+best of care of him; but neither the money, nor the good nursing, nor
+the sea air, nor the mountain air, nor the north, south, east or west
+air, did him any good. He only tired himself out for nothing, roaming
+from place to place; and was all the time lonely, and sad too, not
+having any home. So at last he made up his mind that he would roam no
+longer; that he would settle down, build himself a house, and if he
+could not be well and strong and do all the things he liked to, he
+would at least have a home, and have his books about him, and have a
+good bed to sleep in, and good food to eat, and be comfortable in all
+those ways in which no human being ever can be comfortable outside of
+his own house.
+
+He happened to be in California when he took this resolution. He had
+been there for a winter; and on the whole had felt better there than he
+had felt anywhere else. The California sunshine did him more good than
+medicine: it is wonderful how the sun shines there! Then it was never
+either very hot or very cold in the part of California where he was; and
+that was a great advantage. He was in the southern part of the State,
+only thirty miles from the sea-shore, in San Gabriel. You can find this
+name "San Gabriel" on your atlas, if you look very carefully. It is in
+small print, and on the Atlas it is not more than the width of a pin
+from the water's edge; but it really is thirty miles,--a good day's
+ride, and a beautiful day's ride too, from the sea. San Gabriel is a
+little village, only a dozen or two houses in it, and an old,
+half-ruined church,--a Catholic church, that was built there a hundred
+years ago, when the country was first settled by the Spaniards. They
+named all the places they settled, after saints; and the first thing
+they did in every place was to build a church, and get the Indians to
+come and be baptized, and learn to pray. They did not call their
+settlements towns at first, only Missions; and they had at one time
+twenty-one of these Missions on the California coast, all the way up
+from San Diego to Monterey; and there were more than thirty thousand
+Indians in them, all being taught to pray and to work, and some of them
+to read and write. They were very good men, those first Spanish
+missionaries in California. There are still alive some Indians who
+recollect these times. They are very old, over a hundred years old; but
+they remember well about these things.
+
+Most of the principal California towns of which you have read in your
+geographies were begun in this way. San Diego, Santa Barbara, San Luis
+Obispo, San Rafael, San Francisco, Monterey, Los Angeles,--all of these
+were first settled by the missionaries, and by the soldiers and officers
+of the army who came to protect the missionaries against the savages.
+Los Angeles was named by them after the Virgin Mary. The Spanish name
+was very long, "Nuestra Senora Reina de Los Angeles,"--that means, "Our
+Lady the Queen of the Angels." Of course this was quite too long to use
+every day; so it soon got cut down to simply "Los Angeles," or "The
+Angels,"--a name which often amuses travellers in Los Angeles to-day,
+because the people who live there are not a bit more like angels than
+other people; and that, as we all know, is very unlike indeed. Near Los
+Angeles is San Gabriel, only about fifteen miles away. In the olden
+time, fifteen miles was not thought any distance at all; people were
+neighbors who lived only fifteen miles apart.
+
+There are a great many interesting stories about the first settlement of
+San Gabriel, and the habits and customs of the Indians there. They were
+a very polite people to each other, and used to train their children in
+some respects very carefully. If a child were sent to bring water to an
+older person, and he tasted it on the way, he was made to throw the
+water out and go and bring fresh water; when two grown-up persons were
+talking together, if a child ran between them he was told that he had
+done an uncivil thing, and would be punished if he did it again. These
+are only specimens of their rules for polite behavior. They seem to me
+as good as ours. These Indians were very fond of flowers, of which the
+whole country is in the spring so full, it looks in places like a garden
+bed; of these flowers they used to make long garlands and wreaths, not
+only to wear on their heads, but to reach way down to their feet. These
+they wore at festivals and celebrations; and sometimes at these
+festivals they used to have what they called "song contests." Two of the
+best singers, or poets, would be matched together, to see which could
+sing the better, or make the better verses. That seems to me a more
+interesting kind of match than the spelling matches we have in our
+villages. But there is nothing of this sort to be seen in San Gabriel
+now, or indeed anywhere in California. The Indians, most of them, have
+been driven away by the white people who wanted their lands; year by
+year more and more white people have come, and the Indians have been
+robbed of more and more of their lands, and have died off by hundreds,
+until there are not many left.
+
+[Illustration: INDIAN MAKING BOWLS.--Page 19.]
+
+Mr. Connor was much interested in learning all he could about them, and
+collecting all he could of the curious stone bowls and pestles they used
+to make, and of their baskets and lace work. He spent much of his
+time riding about the country; and whenever he came to an Indian hut he
+would stop and talk with them, and ask if they had any stone bowls or
+baskets they would like to sell. The bowls especially were a great
+curiosity. Nobody knew how long ago they had been made. When the
+missionaries first came to the country, they found the Indians using
+them; they had them of all sizes, from those so large that they are
+almost more than a man can lift, down to tiny ones no bigger than a
+tea-cup. But big and little, they were all made in the same way out of
+solid stone, scooped out in the middle, by rubbing another stone round
+and round on them. You would think it would have taken a lifetime to
+make one; but they seem to have been plenty in the olden time. Even yet,
+people who are searching for such curiosities sometimes find big
+grave-mounds in which dozens of them are buried,--buried side by side
+with the people who used to eat out of them. There is nothing left of
+the people but their skulls and a few bones; but the bowls will last as
+long as the world stands.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now I suppose you are beginning to wonder when I am coming to the Hunter
+Cats! I am coming to them just the way Mr. Connor did,--by degrees. I
+want you to know about the place he lived in, and how he used to amuse
+himself, before he decided to build his house; and then I must tell you
+about the house, and then about the children that came to live with him
+in it, and then about the Chinamen that came to do his work, and about
+his orange-trees, and the gophers that gnawed the bark off them, and the
+rabbits that burrowed under his vines. Oh! it will be a good many pages
+yet before I can possibly get to the time when the Hunter Cats come in.
+But I will tell it as fast as I can, for I dislike long stories myself.
+
+The village of San Gabriel is in a beautiful broad valley, running east
+and west. The north wall of the valley is made by a range of mountains,
+called the Sierra Madre; that is Spanish and means "Mother Mountains."
+They are grand mountains; their tops are almost solid stone, all sharp
+and jagged, with more peaks and ridges, crowded in together, than you
+could possibly count. At the bottom, they reach out into the valley by
+long slopes, which in the olden time were covered thick with trees and
+shrubs; but now, the greater part of these have been cut down and
+cleared off, and the ground planted full of orange-trees and grapevines.
+If you want to see how it looks to have solid miles upon miles of orange
+orchards and vineyards together, you must go to this San Gabriel Valley.
+There is no other such place in the world.
+
+As Mr. Connor rode about, day after day, and looked at these orchards
+and vineyards, he began to think he should like to have some too. So he
+went up and down along the base of the mountains, looking for a good
+place. At last he found one. It was strange nobody had picked it out
+before. One reason was that it was so wild, and lay so high up, that it
+would be a world of trouble, and cost a deal of money, to make a road up
+to it and to clear the ground. But Mr. Connor did not care for that. It
+was a sort of ridge of the mountains, and it was all grown over thick
+with what is called in California "chapparal." That is not the name of
+any one particular shrub or tree; it means a mixture of every sort and
+kind. You all know what mixed candy is! Well, "chapparal" is mixed
+bushes and shrubs; mixed thick too! From a little way off, it looks as
+smooth as moss; it is so tangled, and the bushes have such strong and
+tough stems, you can't possibly get through it, unless you cut a path
+before you with a hatchet; it is a solid thicket all the way.
+
+As Mr. Connor rode to and fro, in front of this green ridge, he thought
+how well a house would look up there, with the splendid mountain wall
+rising straight up behind it. And from the windows of such a house, one
+could look off, not only over the whole valley, but past the hills of
+its southern wall, clear and straight thirty miles to the sea. In a
+clear day, the line of the water flashed and shone there like a silver
+thread.
+
+Mr. Connor used to sit on his horse by the half hour at a time gazing at
+this hillside, and picturing the home he would like to make there,--a
+big square house with plenty of room in it, wide verandas on all sides,
+and the slope in front of it one solid green orange orchard. The longer
+he looked the surer he felt that this was the thing he wanted to do.
+
+The very day he decided, he bought the land; and in two days more he had
+a big force of men hacking away at the chapparal, burning it, digging up
+the tough, tangled roots; oh, what slow work it was! Just as soon as a
+big enough place was cleared, he built a little house of rough
+boards,--only two rooms in it; and there he went to live, with Jim.
+
+Now that he had once begun the making of his house, he could hardly wait
+for it to be done; and he was never happy except when he was overseeing
+the men, hurrying them and working himself. Many a tough old bush he
+chopped down with his own hands, and tugged the root up; and he grew
+stronger every day. This was a kind of medicine he had not tried before.
+
+A great part of the bushes were "manzanita." The roots and lower stems
+of this shrub are bright red, and twisted almost into knots. They make
+capital firewood; so Mr. Connor had them all piled up in a pile to keep
+to burn in his big fireplaces; and you would have laughed to see such a
+woodpile. It was almost as high as the house; and no two sticks
+alike,--all prongs and horns, and crooks and twists; they looked like
+monster's back teeth.
+
+At last the house was done. It was a big, old-fashioned, square house,
+with a wide hall running through the middle; on the east side were the
+library and dining-room; on the west, the parlor and a big
+billiard-room; upstairs were four large bedrooms; at the back of the
+house, a kitchen. No servants were to sleep in the house. Mr. Connor
+would have only Chinamen for servants; and they would sleep, with the
+rest of his Chinamen laborers, in what he called the Chinese quarter,--a
+long, low wooden building still farther up on the hill. Only Jim was to
+sleep in the house with Mr. Connor.
+
+The Chinese quarter was a very comfortable house; and was presided over
+by a fat old Chinaman, who had such a long queue that Jim called him
+"Long Tail." His name was See Whong Choo, which, Jim said, was entirely
+too long to pronounce. There were twenty Chinamen on the place; and a
+funny sight it was to see them all file out of a morning to their work,
+every one with what looked like a great dinner-plate upside down on his
+head for a hat, and his long, black hair braided in a queue, not much
+bigger than a rat tail, hanging down his back.
+
+People in California are so used to seeing Chinamen, that they do not
+realize how droll they look to persons not accustomed to the sight.
+
+Their yellow skins, their funny little black eyes, set so slanting in
+their heads that you can't tell half the time whether they are looking
+straight at you or not, their shiny shaved heads and pig-tails, are all
+very queer. And when you first hear them talking together in their own
+tongue, you think it must be cats trying to learn English; it is a
+mixture of caterwaul and parrot, more disagreeable in sound than any
+language I ever heard.
+
+About a year after Mr. Connor had moved into his new house, he got a
+letter, one night, which made him very unhappy. It told him that his
+sister and her husband were dead; they had died, both of them in one
+week, of a dreadful fever. Their two children had had the fever at the
+same time, but they were getting well; and now, as there was nobody in
+Italy to take care of them, the letter asked what should be done with
+them. Would Mr. Connor come out himself, or would he send some one? The
+Count and his wife had been only a few days ill, and the fever had made
+them delirious from the first, so that no directions had been given to
+any one about the children; and there the two poor little things
+were, all alone with their nurse in their apartment in the King's
+palace. They had had to live in the palace always, so that the Count
+could be ready to attend on the King whenever he was wanted.
+
+[Illustration: THE KING'S PALACE.--Page 31.]
+
+Giuseppe and Maria (those were their names) never liked living there.
+The palace was much too grand, with its marble staircases, and marble
+floored rooms, so huge and cold; and armed soldiers for sentinels,
+standing at the corners and doors, to keep people from going into rooms
+without permission, and to keep watch also, lest somebody should get in
+and kill the King. The King was always afraid of being killed; there
+were so many unhappy and discontented persons in Italy, who did not
+want him to be King. Just think how frightful it must be to know every
+day,--morning, noon, and night,--that there was danger of somebody's
+coming stealthily into your room to kill you! Who would be a king? It
+used to make the children afraid whenever they passed these tall
+soldiers in armor, in the halls. They would hold tight to each other's
+hands, and run as fast as they could, past them; and when they got out
+in the open air, they were glad; most of all when their nurse took them
+into the country, where they could run on the grass and pick flowers.
+There they used often to see poor little hovels of houses, with gardens,
+and a donkey and chickens in the yard, and children playing; and they
+used to say they wished their father and mother were poor, and lived in
+a house like that, and kept a donkey. And then the nurse would tell them
+they were silly children; that it was a fine thing to live in a palace,
+and have their father one of the King's officers, and their mother one
+of the most beautiful of the Queen's ladies; but you couldn't have made
+the children believe it. They hated the palace, and everything about it,
+more and more every day of their lives.
+
+Giuseppe was ten, and Maria was seven. They were never called by their
+real names: Giuseppe was called Jusy, and Maria was called Rea; Jusy and
+Rea, nobody would ever have guessed from that, what their real names
+were. Maria is pronounced _Mahrea_ in Italy; so that was the way she
+came to be called Rea for shortness. Jusy gave himself his nickname when
+he was a baby, and it had always stuck to him ever since.
+
+It was enough to make anybody's heart ache to see these two poor little
+things, when they first got strong enough to totter about after this
+fever; so weak they felt, they could hardly stand; and they cried more
+than half the time, thinking about their papa and mamma, dead and buried
+without their even being able to kiss them once for good-by. The King
+himself felt so sorry for the little orphans, he came to speak to them;
+and the kind Queen came almost every day, and sent them beautiful toys,
+and good things to eat; but nothing comforted the children.
+
+"What do you suppose will become of us, Jusy?" Rea often said; and Jusy
+would reply,--
+
+"I don't know, Rea. As soon as I'm a man, I can take care of you and
+myself too, easy enough; and that won't be a great while. I shall ask
+the King to let me be one of his officers like papa."
+
+"Oh, no! no! Jusy," Rea would reply. "Don't! Don't let's live in this
+horrid palace. Ask him to give you a little house in the country, with a
+donkey; and I will cook the dinner. Caterina will teach me how."
+
+Caterina was their nurse.
+
+"But there wouldn't be any money to pay Caterina," Jusy would say.
+
+"The King might give us enough for that, Jusy. He is so kind. I'm sure
+he would, don't you think so?" was Rea's answer to this difficulty.
+
+"No," said Jusy, "I don't think he would, unless I earned it. Papa had
+to work for all the money he had."
+
+It was a glad day for the children when the news came that their uncle
+in America was going to send for them to come and live with him; and
+that in three weeks the man who was to take them there would arrive.
+This news came over by telegraph, on that wonderful telegraph wire,
+down at the bottom of the ocean. Their kind Uncle George thought he
+would not leave the children uncheered in their suspense and loneliness
+one minute longer than he could help; so he sent the message by
+telegraph; and the very day after this telegraphic message went, Jim set
+out for Italy.
+
+Jim had travelled so much with Mr. Connor that he was just the best
+possible person to take charge of the children on their long journey. He
+knew how to manage everything; and he could speak Italian and French and
+German well enough to say all that was necessary in places where no
+English was spoken. Moreover, Jim had been a servant in Mr. Connor's
+father's house all his life; had taken care of Mr. Connor and his sister
+when they were a little boy and girl together, just as Jusy and Rea were
+now. He always called Mr. Connor "Mr. George," and his sister "Miss
+Julia;" and when he set out to go for the children he felt almost as if
+he were going to the help and rescue of his own grandchildren.
+
+Jusy and Rea did not feel that they were going to a stranger; for they
+had heard about their Uncle George ever since they could remember; and
+all about "Jim" too. Almost every year Mr. Connor used to send his
+sister a new picture of himself; so the children knew very well how he
+looked.
+
+When the news came that they were to go to America and live with him,
+they got out all of these pictures they could find, and ranged them in a
+line on the mantelpiece in their parlor. There was a picture of Jim too,
+as black as charcoal. At first, Rea had been afraid of this; but Jusy
+thought it was splendid. Every morning the lonely little creatures used
+to stand in front of this line of pictures and say, "Good-morning, Uncle
+George! Good-morning to you, Mr. Black Man! How soon will you get here?
+We shall be very glad to see you."
+
+It was over a month before he arrived. The children had been told that
+he might be there in three weeks from the day the despatch came; and as
+soon as the three weeks were ended, they began almost to hold their
+breaths listening for him; they were hardly willing to stir out of the
+palace for a walk, for fear he might come while they were away. Rea
+watched at the windows, and Jusy watched at the doorway which led into
+the corridor.
+
+"He might be afraid of the sentinel at the corner there," he said.
+"Caterina says there are no palaces in America."
+
+"Goody!" interrupted Rea, "I'm so glad."
+
+"And so perhaps he has never seen a man in armor like that; and I'd
+better be at the door to run and meet him."
+
+All their clothes were packed ready for the journey; and all the things
+which had belonged to their mamma were packed up too, to go with them.
+The huge rooms looked drearier than ever. The new chamberlain's wife was
+impatient to get settled in the apartment herself, and kept coming to
+look at it, and discussing, in the children's presence, where she would
+put this or that piece of furniture, and how she would have her pictures
+hung.
+
+"I think she is a very rude lady," said Jusy. "The Queen said these were
+our rooms so long as we stayed, just the same as if mamma were here with
+us; and I think I see her coming in here that way if mamma was here!"
+
+[Illustration: decorative panel]*
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+
+After all their precautions, Jusy and Rea were out when Jim arrived.
+They had been to take a walk with Caterina; and when they came back, as
+they passed the big sentinel at the outside gate, he nodded to them
+pleasantly, and said,--
+
+"He has come!--the black signor from America." ("Signor" is Italian for
+"Mr.")
+
+[Illustration: JUSY AND REA. "He has come!--the black signor from
+America."--Page 42.]
+
+You see everybody in the palace, from the King down to the scullions in
+the kitchen, was interested in the two fatherless and motherless
+children, and glad to hear that Jim had arrived.
+
+The very next day they set off. Jim was impatient to be back in
+California again; there was nothing to wait for. Caterina was greatly
+relieved to find that he did not wish her to go with him. The Queen had
+said she must go, if the black signor wished it; and Caterina was
+wretched with fright at the thought of the journey, and of the country
+full of wild beasts and savages. "Worse than Africa, a hundred times,"
+she said, "from all I can hear. But her Majesty says I must go, if I am
+needed. I'd rather die, but I see no way out of it."
+
+When it came to bidding Rea good-by, however, she was almost ready to
+beg to be allowed to go. The child cried and clung to her neck; and
+Caterina cried and sobbed too.
+
+But the wise Jim had provided himself with a powerful helper. He had
+bought a little white spaniel, the tiniest creature that ever ran on
+four legs; she was no more than a doll, in Rea's arms; her hair was like
+white silk floss. She had a blue satin collar with a gilt clasp and
+padlock; and on the padlock, in raised letters, was the name "Fairy."
+Jim had thought of this in New York, and bought the collar and padlock
+there; and the dog he had bought only one hour before they were to set
+out on their journey. She was in a beautiful little flannel-lined
+basket; and when Rea clung to Caterina's neck crying and sobbing, Jim
+stepped up to her and said,--
+
+"Don't cry, missy; here's your little dog to take care of; she'll be
+scared if she sees you cry."
+
+"Mine! Mine! That sweet doggie!" cried Rea. She could not believe her
+eyes. She stopped crying; and she hardly noticed when the Queen herself
+kissed her in farewell, so absorbed was she in "Fairy" and the blue
+satin collar. "Oh, you are a very good black man, Signor Jim," she
+cried. "I never saw such a sweet doggie; I shall carry her in my own
+arms all the way there."
+
+It was a hard journey; but the children enjoyed every minute of it. The
+account of all they did and saw, and the good times they had with the
+kind Jim, would make a long story by itself; but if I told it, we should
+never get to the Hunter Cats; so I will not tell you anything about the
+journey at all except that it took about six weeks, and that they
+reached San Gabriel in the month of March, when everything was green and
+beautiful, and the country as full of wild flowers as the children had
+ever seen the country about Florence in Italy.
+
+Mr. Connor had not been idle while Jim was away. After walking up and
+down his house, with his thinking-cap on, for a few days, looking into
+the rooms, and trying to contrive how it should be rearranged to
+accommodate his new and unexpected family, he suddenly decided to build
+on a small wing to the house. He might as well arrange it in the outset
+as it would be pleasantest to have it when Jusy and Rea were a young
+gentleman and a young lady, he thought. What might do for them very well
+now, while they were little children, would not do at all when they were
+grown up.
+
+So, as I told you, Mr. Connor being a gentleman who never lost any time
+in doing a thing he had once made up his mind to, set carpenters at work
+immediately tearing out half of one side of his new house; and in little
+over a month, there was almost another little house joined on to it.
+There was a good big room for Rea's bedroom, and a small room opening
+out of it, for her sitting-room; beyond this another room in which her
+nurse could sleep, while she needed one, and after she grew older, the
+governess who must come to teach her; and after she did not need any
+governess, the room would be a pleasant thing to have for her young
+friends who came to visit her. This kind uncle was planning for a good
+many years ahead, in this wing to his house.
+
+These rooms for Rea were in the second story. Beneath them were two
+large rooms, one for Jusy, and one for Jim. A pretty stairway, with a
+lattice-work wall, went up outside to Rea's room, and at the door of
+her room spread out into a sort of loggia, or upstairs piazza, such as
+Mr. Connor knew she had been used to in Italy. In another year this
+stairway and loggia would be a bower of all sorts of vines, things grow
+so fast in California.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And now we are really coming to the Cats. They had arrived before the
+children did.
+
+When the children got out of the cars at San Gabriel, there stood their
+Uncle George on the platform waiting for them. Jusy spied him first.
+"There's Uncle George," he shouted, and ran towards him shouting, "Uncle
+George! Uncle George! Here we are."
+
+Rea followed close behind, holding up Fairy. "Look at my doggie that
+Signor black Jim gave me," she cried, holding Fairy up as high as she
+could reach; and in the next minute she herself, doggie and all, was
+caught up in Uncle George's arms.
+
+"What makes you cry, Uncle George?" she exclaimed; "we thought you would
+be very glad to see us!"
+
+"So I am, you dear child," he said. "I am only crying because I am so
+glad."
+
+But Jusy knew better, and as soon as he could get a chance, he whispered
+to Rea, "I should have thought you would have known better than to say
+anything to Uncle George about his having tears in his eyes. It was
+because we reminded him so much of mamma, that he cried. I saw the
+tears come in his eyes, the first minute he saw us, but I wasn't going
+to say a word about it."
+
+Poor little Rea felt badly enough to think she had not understood as
+quickly as Jusy did; but the only thing she could think of to do was to
+spring up in the seat of the wagon, and put her arms around her uncle's
+neck, and kiss him over and over, saying, "We are going to love you,
+like,--oh,--like everything, Jusy and me! I love you better than my
+doggie!"
+
+But when she said this, the tears came into Mr. Connor's eyes again; and
+Rea looked at Jusy in despair.
+
+"Keep quiet, Rea," whispered Jusy. "He doesn't want us to talk just
+yet, I guess;" and Rea sat down again, and tried to comfort herself with
+Fairy. But she could not keep her eyes from watching her uncle's face.
+Her affectionate heart was grieved to see him look so sad, instead of
+full of joy and gladness as she had thought it would be. Finally she
+stole her hand into his and sat very still without speaking, and that
+really did comfort Mr. Connor more than anything she could have done.
+The truth was, Rea looked so much like her mother, that it was almost
+more than Mr. Connor could bear when he first saw her; and her voice
+also was like her mother's.
+
+Jusy did not in the least resemble his mother; he was like his father
+in every way,--hair as black as black could be, and eyes almost as black
+as the hair; a fiery, flashing sort of face Jusy had; and a fiery,
+flashing sort of temper too, I am sorry to say. A good deal like
+thunder-storms, Jusy's fits of anger were; but, if they were swift and
+loud, like the thunder, they also were short-lived,--cleared off
+quickly,--like thunder-storms, and showed blue sky afterward, and a
+beautiful rainbow of sorrow for the hasty words or deeds.
+
+Rea was fair, with blue eyes and yellow hair, and a temper sunny as her
+face. In Italy there are so few people with blue eyes and fair hair,
+that whenever Rea was seen in the street, everybody turned to look at
+her, and asked who she was, and remembered her; and when she came again,
+they said, "Ecco! Ecco! (That is Italian for Look! Look!) There is the
+little blue-eyed, golden-haired angel." Rea did not know that the people
+said this, which was well, for it might have made her vain.
+
+It was six miles from the railway station to Mr. Connor's house. But the
+house was in sight all the way; it was so high up on the mountain-side
+that it showed plainly, and as it was painted white, you could see it in
+all directions like a lighthouse. Mr. Connor liked to be able to see it
+from all places when he was riding about the valley. He said it looked
+friendly to him; as if it said, all the time, "Here I am, you can come
+home any minute you want to."
+
+After they had driven about half way, Mr. Connor said,--
+
+"Children, do you see that big square house up there on the mountain?
+That is Connorloa."
+
+"Whose house is it, Uncle George?" said Jusy.
+
+"Why, did you not hear?" replied Mr. Connor. "It is Connorloa."
+
+The children looked still more puzzled.
+
+"Oh," laughed their uncle. "Is it possible nobody has told you the name
+of my house? I have called it Connorloa, from my own name, and 'loa,'
+which is the word in the Sandwich Islands for 'hill.' I suppose I might
+have called it Connor Hill, but I thought 'loa' was prettier."
+
+"Oh, so do I," said Jusy. "It is lovely. Connorloa, Connorloa," he
+repeated. "Doesn't it sound like some of the names in Italy, Rea?" he
+said.
+
+"Prettier!" said little Rea. "No word in Italy, so pretty as Connorloa;
+nor so nice as Uncle George."
+
+"You dear, loving little thing!" cried Uncle George, throwing his arms
+around her. "You are for all the world your mother over again."
+
+"That's just what I've been saying to myself all the way home, Mr.
+George," said Jim. "It's seemed to me half the time as if it were Miss
+Julia herself; but the boy is not much like you."
+
+"No," said Jusy proudly, throwing back his handsome head, and his eyes
+flashing. "I am always said to be exactly the portrait of my father; and
+when I am a man, I am going back to Italy to live in the King's palace,
+and wear my father's sword."
+
+"I sha'n't go," said Rea, nestling close to her uncle. "I shall stay in
+Connorloa with Uncle George. I hate palaces. Your house isn't a palace,
+is it, Uncle George? It looks pretty big."
+
+"No, my dear; not by any means," replied Mr. Connor, laughing heartily.
+"But why do you hate palaces, my little Rea? Most people think it would
+be the finest thing possible to live in a palace."
+
+"I don't," said Rea. "I just hate them; the rooms are so big and so
+cold; and the marble floors are so slip-py, I've had my knees all black
+and blue tumbling down on them; and the stairs are worse yet; I used to
+have to creep on them; and there is a soldier at every corner with a gun
+and a sword to kill you, if you break any of the rules. I think a palace
+is just like a prison!"
+
+"Well done, my little Republican!" cried Uncle George.
+
+"What is that?" said Rea.
+
+"I know," said Jusy. "It is a person that does not wish to have any
+king. There were Republicans in Italy; very bad men. Papa said they
+ought to be killed. Why do you call Rea by that name, Uncle George?" and
+Jusy straightened himself up like a soldier, and looked fierce.
+
+Mr. Connor could hardly keep his face straight as he replied to Jusy:
+"My dear boy the word does not mean anything bad in America; we are all
+Republicans here. You know we do not have any king. We do not think that
+is the best way to take care of a country."
+
+"My papa thought it was the best way," haughtily answered Jusy. "I shall
+think always as papa did."
+
+"All right, my man," laughed Uncle George. "Perhaps you will. You can
+think and say what you like while you live in America, and nobody will
+put you in prison for your thoughts or your words, as they might if you
+lived in Italy."
+
+It was near night when they reached the house. As they drove slowly up
+the long hill, the Chinamen were just going, on the same road, to their
+supper. When they heard the sound of the wheels, they stepped off the
+road, and formed themselves into a line to let the carriage pass, and to
+get a peep at the children. They all knew about their coming, and were
+curious to see them.
+
+[Illustration: "The Chinamen were just going to their supper, and they
+formed themselves into a line."--PAGE 60.]
+
+When Rea caught sight of them, she screamed aloud, and shook with
+terror, and hid her face on her uncle's shoulder.
+
+"Are those the savages?" she cried. "Oh, don't let them kill Fairy;" and
+she nearly smothered the little dog, crowding her down out of sight on
+the seat between herself and her uncle.
+
+Jusy did not say a word, but he turned pale; he also thought these must
+be the savages of which they had heard.
+
+Mr. Connor could hardly speak for laughing. "Who ever put such an idea
+as that into your head?" he cried. "Those are men from China; those are
+my workmen; they live at Connorloa all the time. They are very good men;
+they would not hurt anybody. There are not any savages here."
+
+"Caterina said America was all full of savages," sobbed Rea,--"savages
+and wild beasts, such as lions and wolves."
+
+"That girl was a fool," exclaimed Jim. "It was a good thing, Mr. George,
+you told me not to bring her over."
+
+"I should say so," replied Mr. Connor. "The idea of her trying to
+frighten these children in that way. It was abominable."
+
+"She did nothing of the kind," cried Jusy, his face very red. "She was
+talking to her cousin; and she thought we were asleep; and Rea and I
+listened; and I told Rea it was good enough for us to get so frightened
+because we had listened. But I did not believe it so much as Rea did."
+
+The Chinamen were all bowing and bending, and smiling in the gladness
+of their hearts. Mr. Connor was a good master to them; and they knew it
+would be to him great pleasure to have these little children in the
+house.
+
+While driving by he spoke to several of them by name, and they replied.
+Jusy and Rea listened and looked.
+
+"What are their heads made of, Uncle George?" whispered Rea. "Will they
+break if they hit them?"
+
+At first, Mr. Connor could not understand what she meant; then in a
+moment he shouted with laughter.
+
+Chinamen have their heads shorn of all hair, except one little lock at
+the top; this is braided in a tight braid, like a whiplash, and hangs
+down their backs, sometimes almost to the very ground. The longer this
+queer little braid is, the prouder the Chinaman feels. All the rest of
+his head is bare and shining smooth. They looked to Rea like the heads
+of porcelain baby dolls she had had; and that those would break, she
+knew by sad experience.
+
+How pleased Rea and Jusy were with their beautiful rooms, and with
+everything in their Uncle George's house, there are no words to tell.
+They would have been very unreasonable and ungrateful children, if they
+had not been; for Mr. Connor had not forgotten one thing which could add
+to their comfort or happiness: books, toys, everything he could think
+of, or anybody could suggest to him, he had bought. And when he led
+little Rea into her bedroom, there stood a sweet-faced young Mexican
+girl, to be her nurse.
+
+"Anita," he said, "here is your young lady."
+
+"I am very glad to see you, senorita," said the girl, coming forward to
+take off Rea's hat; on which Rea exclaimed,--
+
+"Why, she is Italian! That is what Caterina called me. And Caterina had
+a sister whose name was Anita. How did you get over here?"
+
+"I was born here, senorita," replied the girl.
+
+"It is not quite the same word, Rea," said Mr. Connor, "though it sounds
+so much like it. It was 'signorita' you were called in Italy; and it is
+'senorita' that Anita here calls you. That is Spanish; and Anita speaks
+much more Spanish than English. That is one reason I took her. I want
+you to learn to speak in Spanish."
+
+"Then we shall speak four languages," said Jusy proudly,--"Italian,
+French, and English and Spanish. Our papa spoke eleven. That was one
+reason he was so useful to the King. Nobody could come from any foreign
+country that papa could not talk to. My papa said the more languages a
+man spoke, the more he could do in the world. I shall learn all the
+American languages before I go back to Italy. Are there as many as nine,
+Uncle George?"
+
+"Yes, a good many more," replied Uncle George. "Pretty nearly a language
+for every State, I should say. But the fewer you learn of them the
+better. If you will speak good English and Spanish, that is all you will
+need here."
+
+"Shall we not learn the language of the signors from China?" asked Rea.
+
+At which Jim, who had followed, and was standing in the background,
+looking on with delight, almost went into convulsions of laughter, and
+went out and told the Chinamen in the kitchen that Miss Rea wished to
+learn to speak Chinese at once. So they thought she must be a very nice
+little girl, and were all ready to be her warm friends.
+
+The next morning, as Rea was dressing, she heard a great caterwauling
+and miaowing. Fairy, who was asleep on the foot of her bed, sprang up
+and began to bark furiously; all the while, however, looking as if she
+were frightened half to death. Never before had Fairy heard so many
+cats' voices at once.
+
+Rea ran to the open window; before she reached it, she heard Jusy
+calling to her from below,--
+
+"Rea! Rea! Are you up? Come out and see the cats."
+
+Jusy had been up ever since light, roaming over the whole place: the
+stables, the Chinamen's quarters, the tool-house, the kitchen, the
+woodpile; there was nothing he had not seen; and he was in a state of
+such delight he could not walk straight or steadily; he went on the run
+and with a hop, skip, and jump from each thing to the next.
+
+"Hurry, Rea!" he screamed. "Do hurry. Never mind your hair. Come down.
+They'll be done!"
+
+Still the miaowing and caterwauling continued.
+
+"Oh, hurry, hurry, Anita," said Rea. "Please let me go down; I'll come
+up to have my hair done afterwards. What is it, Anita? Is it really
+cats? Are there a thousand?"
+
+Anita laughed. "No, senorita," she said. "Only seventeen! And you will
+see them every morning just the same. They always make this noise. They
+are being fed; and there is only a very little meat for so many. Jim
+keeps them hungry all the time, so they will hunt better."
+
+"Hunt!" cried Rea.
+
+"Yes," said Anita. "That is what we keep them for, to hunt the gophers
+and rabbits and moles. They are clearing them out fast. Jim says by
+another spring there won't be a gopher on the place."
+
+[Illustration: THE CHINAMAN, AH FOO, FEEDING THE CATS--Page 70.]
+
+Before she had finished speaking, Rea was downstairs and out on the east
+veranda. At the kitchen door stood a Chinaman, throwing bits of meat to
+the scrambling seventeen cats,--black, white, tortoise-shell, gray,
+maltese, yellow, every color, size, shape of cat that was ever seen.
+And they were plunging and leaping and racing about so, that it looked
+like twice as many cats as there really were, and as if every cat had a
+dozen tails. "Sfz! Sfz! Sputter! Scratch, spp, spt! Growl, growl, miaow,
+miaow," they went, till, between the noise and the flying around, it was
+a bedlam.
+
+Jusy had laughed till the tears ran out of his eyes; and Ah Foo (that
+was the Chinaman's name) was laughing almost as hard, just to see Jusy
+laugh. The cats were an old story to Ah Foo; he had got over laughing at
+them long ago.
+
+Ah Foo was the cook's brother. While Jim had been away, Ah Foo had
+waited at table, and done all the housework except the cooking. The
+cook's name was Wang Hi. He was old; but Ah Foo was young, not more than
+twenty. He did not like to work in the house, and he was glad Jim had
+got home, so he could go to working out of doors again. He was very
+glad, too, to see the children; and he had spoken so pleasantly to Jusy,
+that in one minute Jusy had lost all his fear of Chinamen.
+
+When Rea saw Ah Foo, she hung back, and was afraid to go nearer.
+
+"Oh, come on! come on!" shouted Jusy. "Don't be afraid! He is just like
+Jim, only a different color. They have men of all kinds of colors here
+in America. They are just like other people, all but the color. Come
+on, Rea. Don't be silly. You can't half see from there!"
+
+But Rea was afraid. She would not come farther than the last pillar of
+the veranda. "I can see very well here," she said; and there she stood
+clinging to the pillar. She was half afraid of the cats, too, besides
+being very much afraid of the Chinaman.
+
+The cats' breakfast was nearly over. In fact, they had had their usual
+allowance before Rea came down; but Ah Foo had gone on throwing out meat
+for Rea to see the scrambling. Presently he threw the last piece, and
+set the empty plate up on a shelf by the kitchen door. The cats knew
+very well by this sign that breakfast was over; after the plate was set
+on that shelf, they never had a mouthful more of meat; and it was droll
+to see the change that came over all of them as soon as they saw this
+done. In less than a second, they changed from fierce, fighting,
+clawing, scratching, snatching, miaowing, spitting, growling cats, into
+quiet, peaceful cats, some sitting down licking their paws, or washing
+their faces, and some lying out full-length on the ground and rolling;
+some walking off in a leisurely and dignified manner, as if they had had
+all they wanted, and wouldn't thank anybody for another bit of meat, if
+they could have it as well as not. This was almost as funny as the first
+part of it.
+
+After Ah Foo had set the plate in its place on the shelf, he turned to
+go into the kitchen to help about the breakfast; but just as he had put
+his hand on the door-handle, there came a terrible shriek from Rea, a
+fierce sputter from one of the cats, and a faint bark of a dog, all at
+once; and Ah Foo, looking around, sprang just in time to rescue Fairy
+from the jaws of Skipper, one of the biggest and fiercest of the cats.
+
+Poor little Fairy, missing her mistress, had trotted downstairs; and
+smelling on the floor wherever Rea had set her feet, had followed her
+tracks, and had reached the veranda just in time to be spied by Skipper,
+who arched his back, set his tail up straight and stiff as a poker, and,
+making one bound from the ground to the middle of the veranda floor,
+clutched Fairy with teeth and claws, and would have made an end of her
+in less than one minute if Ah Foo had not been there. But Ah Foo could
+move almost as quickly as a cat; and it was not a quarter of a second
+after Fairy gave her piteous cry, when she was safe and sound in her
+mistress's arms, and Ah Foo had Skipper by the scruff of his neck, and
+was holding him high up, boxing his ears, right and left, with blows so
+hard they rang.
+
+"Cat heap wicked," he said. "You killee missy's dog, I killee you!" and
+he flung Skipper with all his might and main through the air.
+
+Rea screamed, "Oh, don't!" She did not want to see the cat killed, even
+if he had flown at Fairy. "It will kill him," she cried.
+
+Ah Foo laughed. "Heap hard killee cat," he said. "Cat get nine time life
+good;" and as he spoke, Skipper, after whirling through the air in
+several somersaults, came down on his feet all right, and slunk off into
+the woodpile.
+
+"I tellee you," said Ah Foo, chuckling.
+
+"Thatee isee heapee goodee manee," cried Jusy. "I havee learnee talkee
+oneee language already!"
+
+A roar of laughter came from the dining-room window. There stood Uncle
+George, holding his sides.
+
+"Bravo, Jusy!" he exclaimed. "You have begun on pigeon English, have
+you, for the first of your nine languages?"
+
+"Isn't that Chinese?" said Jusy, much crestfallen.
+
+"Oh, no!" said Uncle George, "not by any manner of means. It is only the
+Chinese way of talking English. It is called pigeon English. But come in
+to breakfast now, and I will tell you all about my cats,--my hunting
+cats, I call them. They are just as good as a pack of hunting dogs; and
+better, for they do not need anybody to go with them."
+
+How pleasant the breakfast-table looked!--a large square table set with
+gay china, pretty flowers in the middle, nice broiled chicken and fried
+potatoes, and baked apples and cream; and Jusy's and Rea's bright faces,
+one on Mr. Connor's left hand, the other on his right.
+
+As Jim moved about the table and waited on them, he thought to himself,
+"Now, if this doesn't make Mr. George well, it will be because he can't
+be cured."
+
+Jim had found the big house so lonely, with nobody in it except Mr.
+Connor and the two Chinese servants, he would have been glad to see
+almost anything in the shape of a human being,--man, woman, or
+child,--come there to live. How much more, then, these two beautiful and
+merry children!
+
+Jusy and Rea thought they had never in all their lives tasted anything
+so good as the broiled chicken and the baked apples.
+
+"Heapee goodee cookee, Uncle George!" said Jusy. He was so tickled with
+the Chinaman's way of talking, he wanted to keep doing it.
+
+"Tooee muchee putee onee letter e, Master Jusy," said Uncle George.
+"After you have listened to their talk a little longer, you will see
+that they do not add the 'ee' to every word. It is hard to imitate them
+exactly."
+
+Jusy was crestfallen. He thought he had learned a new language in half
+an hour, and he was proud of it. But no new language was ever learned
+without more trouble and hard work than that; not even pigeon English!
+
+[Illustration: decorative panel]*
+
+[Illustration: decorative panel]*
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+
+It had come about by chance, Mr. Connor's keeping this pack of hunting
+cats. He had been greatly troubled by gophers and rabbits: the gophers
+killed his trees by gnawing their roots; the rabbits burrowed under his
+vines, ate the tender young leaves, and gnawed the stems.
+
+Jim had tried every device,--traps of all kinds and all the poisons he
+could hear of. He had also tried drowning the poor little gophers out
+by pouring water down their holes. But, spite of all he could do, the
+whole hill was alive with them. It had been wild ground so long, and
+covered so thick with bushes, that it had been like a nice house built
+on purpose for all small wild animals to live in.
+
+I suppose there must have been miles of gophers' underground tunnels,
+leading from hole to hole. They popped their heads up, and you saw them
+scampering away wherever you went; and in the early morning it was very
+funny to see the rabbits jumping and leaping to get off out of sight
+when they heard people stirring. They were of a beautiful gray color,
+with a short bushy tail, white at the end. On account of this white tip
+to their tails, they are called "cotton-tails."
+
+When Mr. Connor first moved up on the hill, Jim used to shoot a
+cottontail almost every day, and some days he shot two. The rabbits,
+however, are shyer than the gophers; when they find out that they get
+shot as soon as they are seen, and that these men who shoot them have
+built houses and mean to stay, they will gradually desert their burrows
+and move away to new homes.
+
+But the gopher is not so afraid. He lives down in the ground, and can
+work in the dark as well as in the light; and he likes roots just as
+well as he likes the stems above ground; so as long as he stays in his
+cellar houses, he is hard to reach.
+
+The gopher is a pretty little creature, with a striped back,--almost as
+pretty as a chipmonk. It seems a great pity to have to kill them all
+off; but there is no help for it; fruit-trees and gophers cannot live in
+the same place.
+
+Soon after Mr. Connor moved into his new house, he had a present of a
+big cat from the Mexican woman who sold him milk.
+
+She said to Jim one day, "Have you got a cat in your house yet?"
+
+"No," said Jim. "Mr. George does not like cats."
+
+"No matter," said she, "you have got to have one. The gophers and
+squirrels in this country are a great deal worse than rats and mice.
+They'll come right into your kitchen and cellar, if your back is turned
+a minute, and eat you out of house and home. I'll give you a splendid
+cat. She's a good hunter. I've got more cats than I know what to do
+with."
+
+So she presented Jim with a fine, big black and white cat; and Jim named
+the cat "Mexican," because a Mexican woman gave her to him.
+
+The first thing Mexican did, after getting herself established in her
+new home in the woodpile, was to have a litter of kittens, six of them.
+The next thing she did, as soon as they got big enough to eat meat, was
+to go out hunting for food for them; and one day, as Mr. Connor was
+riding up the hill, he saw her running into the woodpile, with a big fat
+gopher in her mouth.
+
+"Ha!" thought Mr. Connor to himself. "There's an idea! If one cat will
+kill one gopher in a day, twenty cats would kill twenty gophers in a
+day! I'll get twenty cats, and keep them just to hunt gophers. They'll
+clear the place out quicker than poison, or traps, or drowning."
+
+"Jim," he called, as soon as he entered the house,--"Jim, I've got an
+idea. I saw Mexican just now carrying a dead gopher to her kittens. Does
+she kill many?"
+
+"Oh, yes, sir," replied Jim. "Before she got her kittens I used to see
+her with them every day. But she does not go out so often now."
+
+"Good mother!" said Mr. Connor. "Stays at home with her family, does
+she?"
+
+"Yes, sir," laughed Jim; "except when she needs to go out to get food
+for them."
+
+"You may set about making a collection of cats, Jim, at once," said Mr.
+Connor. "I'd like twenty."
+
+Jim stared. "I thought you didn't like cats, Mr. George," he exclaimed.
+"I was afraid to bring Mexican home, for fear you wouldn't like having
+her about."
+
+"No more do I," replied Mr. Connor. "But I do not dislike them so much
+as I dislike gophers. And don't you see, if we have twenty, and they
+all hunt gophers as well as she does, we'll soon have the place
+cleared?"
+
+"We'd have to feed them, sir," said Jim. "So many's that, they'd never
+make all their living off gophers."
+
+"Well, we'll feed them once a day, just a little, so as not to let them
+starve. But we must keep them hungry, or else they won't hunt."
+
+"Very well, sir," said Jim. "I will set about it at once."
+
+"Beg or buy them," laughed Mr. Connor. "I'll pay for them, if I can't
+get them any other way. There is room in the woodpile for fifty to
+live."
+
+Jim did not much like the idea of having such an army of cats about; but
+he went faithfully to work; and in a few weeks he had seventeen. One
+morning, when they were all gathered together to be fed, he called Mr.
+Connor to look at them.
+
+"Do you think there are enough, sir?" he said.
+
+"Goodness! Jim," cried Mr. Connor, "what did you get so many for? We
+shall be overrun."
+
+Jim laughed. "I'm three short yet, sir, of the number you ordered," he
+said. "There are only seventeen in that batch."
+
+"Only seventeen! You are joking, Jim," cried Mr. Connor; and he tried
+to count; but the cats were in such a scrambling mass, he could not
+count them.
+
+"I give it up, Jim," he said at last. "But are there really only
+seventeen?"
+
+"That's all, sir, and it takes quite a lot of meat to give them all a
+bite of a morning. I think here are enough to begin with, unless you
+have set your heart, sir, on having twenty. Mexican has got six kittens,
+you know, and they will be big enough to hunt before long. That will
+make twenty-three."
+
+"Plenty! plenty!" said Mr. Connor. "Don't get another one. And, Jim," he
+added, "wouldn't it be better to feed them at night? Then they will be
+hungry the next morning."
+
+"I tried that, sir," said Jim, "but they didn't seem so lively. I don't
+give them any more than just enough to whet their appetites. At first
+they sat round the door begging for more, half the morning, and I had to
+stone them away; now they understand it. In a few minutes, they'll all
+be off; and you won't see much of any of them till to-morrow morning.
+They are all on hand then, as regular as the sun rises."
+
+"Where do they sleep?" said Mr. Connor.
+
+"In the woodpile, every blessed cat of them," replied Jim. "And there
+are squirrels living in there too. It is just a kind of cage, that
+woodpile, with its crooks and turns. I saw a squirrel going up, up, in
+it the other day; I thought he'd make his way out to the top; I thought
+the cats would have cleaned them all out before this time, but they
+haven't; I saw one there only yesterday."
+
+Jim had counted too soon on Mexican's kittens. Five of them came to a
+sad end. Their mother carried to them, one day, a gopher which she found
+lying dead in the road. Poor cat-mother! I suppose she thought to
+herself when she saw it lying there, "Oh, how lucky! I sha'n't have to
+sit and wait and watch for a gopher this morning. Here is one all ready,
+dead!" But that gopher had died of poison which had been put down his
+hole; and as soon as the little kittens ate it, they were all taken
+dreadfully ill, and all but one died. Either he hadn't had so much of
+the gopher as the rest had, or else he was stronger; he lingered along
+in misery for a month, as thin, wretched-looking a little beast as ever
+was seen; then he began to pick up his flesh, and finally got to be as
+strong a cat as there was in the whole pack.
+
+He was most curiously marked: in addition to the black and white of his
+mother's skin, he had gray and yellow mottled in all over him. Jim
+thought it looked as if his skin had been painted, so he named him
+Fresco.
+
+Jim had names for all the best cats; there were ten that were named.
+The other seven, Jim called "the rabble;" but of the ten he had named,
+Jim grew to be very proud. He thought they were remarkable cats.
+
+First there was Mexican, the original first-comer in the colony. Then
+there was Big Tom, and another Tom called China Tom, because he would
+stay all the time he could with the Chinamen. He was dark-gray, with
+black stripes on him.
+
+Next in size and beauty was a huge black cat, called Snowball. He was
+given to Mr. Connor by a miner's wife, who lived in a cabin high up on
+the mountain. She said she would let him have the cat on the condition
+that he would continue to call him Snowball, as she had done. She named
+him Snowball, she said, to make herself laugh every time she called him,
+he being black as coal; and there was so little to laugh at where she
+lived, she liked a joke whenever she could contrive one.
+
+Then there was Skipper, the one who nearly ate up Fairy that first
+morning; he also was as black as coal, and fierce as a wolf; all the
+cats were more or less afraid of him. Jim named him Skipper, because he
+used to race about in trees like a squirrel. Way up to the very top of
+the biggest sycamore trees in the canon back of the house, Skipper would
+go, and leap from one bough to another. He was especially fond of birds,
+and in this way he caught many. He thought birds were much better
+eating than gophers.
+
+Mexican, Big Tom, China Tom, Snowball, Skipper, and Fresco,--these are
+six of the names; the other four were not remarkable; they did not mean
+anything in especial; only to distinguish their owners from the rest,
+who had no names at all.
+
+Oh, yes; I am forgetting the drollest of all: that was Humbug. Jim gave
+her that name because she was so artful and sly about getting more than
+her share of the meat. She would watch for the biggest pieces, and
+pounce on them right under some other cat's nose, and almost always
+succeed in getting them. So Jim named her Humbug, which was a very good
+name; for she always pretended to be quieter and stiller than the rest,
+as if she were not in any great hurry about her breakfast; and then she
+whisked in, and got the biggest pieces, and twice as much as any other
+cat there.
+
+The other names were Jenny, Capitan, and Growler. That made the ten.
+
+In a very few days after Jusy and Rea arrived, they knew all these cats'
+names as well as Jim did; and they were never tired of watching them at
+their morning meal, or while they were prowling, looking, and waiting
+for gophers and rabbits.
+
+For a long time, Rea carried Fairy tight in her arms whenever there was
+a cat in sight; but after a while, the cats all came to know Fairy so
+well that they took no notice of her, and it was safe to put her on the
+ground and let her run along. But Rea kept close to her, and never
+forgot her for a single minute.
+
+There were many strange things which these cats did, besides hunting the
+gophers. They used also to hunt snakes. In one of the rocky ravines near
+the house there were large snakes of a beautiful golden-brown color. On
+warm days these used to crawl out, and lie sunning themselves on the
+rocks. Woe to any such snake, if one of the cats caught sight of him!
+Big Tom had a special knack at killing them. He would make a bound, and
+come down with his fore claws firm planted in the middle of the snake's
+back; then he would take it in his teeth, and shake it, flapping its
+head against the stones every time, till it was more dead than alive.
+You would not have thought that so big a snake could have been so
+helpless in the claws of a cat.
+
+Another thing the cats did, which gave the men much amusement, was, that
+when they had killed rabbits they carried the bodies into the mules'
+stables. Mules are terribly frightened at the smell of a dead rabbit.
+Whenever this happened, a great braying and crying and stamping would be
+heard in the stables; and on running to see what was the matter, there
+would be found Big Tom or Skipper, sitting down calm and happy by the
+side of a dead rabbit, which he had carried in, and for some reason or
+other best known to himself had deposited in plain sight of the mules.
+Why they chose to carry dead rabbits there, unless it was that they
+enjoyed seeing the mules so frightened, there seemed no explaining. They
+never took dead gophers up there, or snakes; only the rabbits. Once a
+mule was so frightened that he plunged till he broke his halter, got
+free, and ran off down the hill; and the men had a big chase before they
+overtook him.
+
+But the queerest thing of all that happened, was that the cats adopted a
+skunk; or else it was the skunk that adopted the cats; I don't know
+which would be the proper way of stating it; but at any rate the skunk
+joined the family, lived with them in the woodpile, came with them every
+morning to be fed, and went off with them hunting gophers every day. It
+must have been there some time before Jim noticed it, for when he first
+saw it, it was already on the most familiar and friendly terms with all
+the cats. It was a pretty little black and white creature, and looked a
+good deal like one of Mexican's kittens.
+
+Finally it became altogether too friendly: Jim found it in the kitchen
+cellar one day; and a day or two after that, it actually walked into
+the house. Mr. Connor was sitting in his library writing. He heard a
+soft, furry foot patting on the floor, and thought it was Fairy.
+Presently he looked up; and, to his horror, there was the cunning little
+black and white skunk in the doorway, looking around and sniffing
+curiously at everything, like a cat. Mr. Connor held his breath and did
+not dare stir, for fear the creature should take it into its head that
+he was an enemy. Seeing everything so still, the skunk walked in, walked
+around both library and dining-room, taking minute observations of
+everything by means of its nose. Then it softly patted out again, across
+the hall, and out of the front door, down the veranda steps.
+
+It had seemed an age to Mr. Connor; he could hardly help laughing too,
+as he sat there in his chair, to think how helpless he, a grown-up man,
+felt before a creature no bigger than that,--a little thing whose neck
+he could wring with one hand; and yet he no more dared to touch it, or
+try to drive it out, than if it had been a roaring lion. As soon as it
+was fairly out of the way, Mr. Connor went in search of Jim.
+
+"Jim," said he, "that skunk you were telling me about, that the cats had
+adopted, seems to be thinking of adopting me; he spent some time in the
+library with me this morning, looking me over; and I am afraid he liked
+me and the place much too well. I should like to have him killed. Can
+you manage it?"
+
+"Yes, sir," laughed Jim. "I was thinking I'd have to kill him. I caught
+him in the cellar a day or two since, and I thought he was getting to
+feel too much at home. I'll fix him."
+
+So the next morning Jim took a particularly nice and tempting piece of
+meat, covered it with poison, and just as the cats' breakfast was
+finished, and the cats slowly dispersing, he threw this tidbit directly
+at the little skunk. He swallowed it greedily, and before noon he was
+dead.
+
+Jim could not help being sorry when he saw him stretched out stiff near
+his home in the woodpile. "He was a pert little rascal;" said Jim. "I
+did kind o' hate to kill him; but he should have stayed with his own
+folks, if he wanted to be let alone. It's too dangerous having skunks
+round."
+
+In less than a year's time, there was not a rabbit to be seen on Mr.
+Connor's grounds, and only now and then a gopher, the hunter cats had
+done their work so thoroughly.
+
+But there was one other enemy that Mr. Connor would have to be rid of,
+before he could have any great success with his fruit orchards. You will
+be horrified to hear the name of this enemy. It was the linnet. Yes, the
+merry, chirping, confiding little linnets, with their pretty red heads
+and bright eyes, they also were enemies, and must be killed. They were
+too fond of apricots and peaches and pears and raspberries, and all
+other nice fruits.
+
+If birds only had sense enough, when they want a breakfast or dinner of
+fruit, to make it off one, or even two,--eat the peach or the pear or
+whatever it might be all up, as we do,--they might be tolerated in
+orchards; nobody would grudge a bird one peach or cherry. But that isn't
+their way. They like to hop about in the tree, and take a nip out of
+first one, then another, and then another, till half the fruit on the
+tree has been bitten into and spoiled. In this way, they ruin bushels of
+fruit every season.
+
+"I wonder if we could not teach the cats to hunt linnets, Jim," said Mr.
+Connor one morning. It was at the breakfast-table.
+
+"O Uncle George! the dear sweet little linnets!" exclaimed Rea, ready to
+cry.
+
+"Yes, my dear sweet little girl," said Uncle George. "The dear sweet
+little linnets will not leave us a single whole peach or apricot or
+cherry to eat."
+
+"No!" said Jusy, "they're a perfect nuisance. They've pecked at every
+apricot on the trees already."
+
+"I don't care," said Rea. "Why can't they have some? I'd just as soon
+eat after a linnet as not. Their little bills must be all clean and
+sweet. Don't have them killed, Uncle George."
+
+"No danger but that there will be enough left, dear," said Uncle George.
+"However many we shoot, there will be enough left. I believe we might
+kill a thousand to-day and not know the difference."
+
+The cats had already done a good deal at hunting linnets on their own
+account, in a clandestine and irregular manner. They were fond of linnet
+flesh, and were only too glad to have the assistance of an able-bodied
+man with a gun.
+
+When they first comprehended Jim's plan,--that he would go along with
+his gun, and they should scare the linnets out of the trees, wait for
+the shot, watch to see where the birds fell, and then run and pick them
+up,--it was droll to see how clever they became in carrying it out.
+Retriever dogs could not have done better. The trouble was, that Jim
+could shoot birds faster than the cats could eat them; and no cat would
+stir from his bird till it was eaten up, sometimes feathers and all; and
+after he had had three or four, he didn't care about any more that day.
+To tell the truth, after the first few days, they seemed a little tired
+of the linnet diet, and did not work with so much enthusiasm. But at
+first it was droll, indeed, to see their excitement. As soon as Jim
+appeared with his gun, every cat in sight would come scampering; and it
+would not be many minutes before the rest of the band--however they
+might have been scattered,--would somehow or other get wind of what was
+going on, and there would be the whole seventeen in a pack at Jim's
+heels, all keeping a sharp lookout on the trees; then, as soon as a cat
+saw a linnet, he would make for the tree, sometimes crouch under the
+tree, sometimes run up it; in either case the linnet was pretty sure to
+fly out: pop, would go Jim's rifle; down would come the linnet;
+helter-skelter would go the cats to the spot where it fell; and in a
+minute more, there would be nothing to be seen of that linnet, except a
+few feathers and a drop or two of blood on the ground.
+
+[Illustration: JIM AND THE CATS HUNTING LINNETS.--Page 111.]
+
+Jusy liked to go with Jim on these hunting expeditions. But Rea would
+never go. She used to sit sorrowfully at home, and listen for the
+gunshots; and at every shot she heard, she would exclaim to Anita, "Oh,
+dear! Oh, dear! There's another dear little linnet dead. I think Jusy is
+a cruel, cruel boy! I wouldn't see them shot for anything, and I don't
+like the cats any more."
+
+"But," said Anita, "my little senorita did not mind having the gophers
+killed. It does not hurt the linnets half so much to be shot dead in one
+second, as it does the gophers to be caught in the cats' claws, and torn
+to pieces sometimes while they are yet alive. The shot-gun kills in a
+second."
+
+"I don't care," said Rea. "It seems different; the linnets are so
+pretty."
+
+"That is not a reason for pitying them any more," said Anita gravely.
+"You did not find those old Indians you saw yesterday pretty. On the
+contrary, they were frightful to look at; yet you pitied them so much
+that you shed tears."
+
+"Oh, yes!" cried Rea, "I should think I did; and, Anita, I dreamed about
+them all night long. I am going to ask Uncle George to build a little
+house for them up in the canon. There is plenty of room there he does
+not want; and then nobody could drive them out of that place as long as
+they live; and I could carry them their dinner every day. Don't you
+think he will?"
+
+"Bless your kind little heart!" said Anita. "That would be asking a
+great deal of your Uncle George, but he is so kind, perhaps he will. If
+somebody does not take compassion on the poor things, they will starve,
+that is certain."
+
+"I shall ask him the minute he comes in," said Rea. "I am going down on
+the piazza now to watch for him." And taking Fairy in her arms, Rea
+hurried downstairs, went out on the veranda, and, climbing up into the
+hammock, was sound asleep in ten minutes.
+
+She was waked up by feeling herself violently swung from side to side,
+and opening her eyes, saw Jusy standing by her side, his face flushed
+with the heat, his eyes sparkling.
+
+"O Rea!" he said. "We have had a splendid hunt! What do you think! Jim
+has shot twenty linnets in this one morning! and that Skipper, he's
+eaten five of them! He's as good as a regular hunting dog."
+
+"Where's Uncle George?" asked Rea sleepily, rubbing her eyes. "I want
+Uncle George! I don't want you to tell me anything about the cats'
+eating the linnets. I hate them! They're cruel!"
+
+"'Tisn't cruel either!" retorted Jusy. "They've got to be killed. All
+people that have orchards have to kill birds."
+
+"I won't, when I have an orchard," said Rea.
+
+"Then you won't have any orchard. That will be all," said Jusy. "At
+least, you won't have any fruit orchard. You'll have just a tree
+orchard."
+
+"Well, a tree orchard is good enough for anybody," replied Rea half
+crossly. She was not yet quite wide awake. "There is plenty of fruit in
+stores, to buy. We could buy our fruit."
+
+"Are you talking in your sleep, Rea?" cried Jusy, looking hard at her.
+"I do believe you are! What ails you? The men that have the fruit to
+sell, had to kill all the linnets and things, just the same way, or else
+they wouldn't have had any fruit. Can't you see?"
+
+No, Rea could not see; and what was more, she did not want to see; and
+as the proverb says, "There are none so blind as those who won't see."
+
+"Don't talk any more about it, Jusy," she said. "Do you think Uncle
+George would build a little house up the canon for poor old Ysidro?"
+
+"Who!" exclaimed Jusy.
+
+"Oh, you cruel boy!" cried Rea. "You don't think of anything but killing
+linnets, and such cruel things; I think you are real wicked. Don't you
+know those poor old Indians we saw yesterday?--the ones that are going
+to be turned out of their house, down in San Gabriel by the church. I
+have been thinking about them ever since; and I dreamed last night that
+Uncle George built them a house. I'm going to ask him to."
+
+"I bet you anything he won't, then," said Jusy. "The horrid old beggars!
+He wouldn't have such looking things round!"
+
+Rea was wide awake now. She fixed her lovely blue eyes on Jusy's face
+with a look which made him ashamed. "Jusy," she said, "I can't help it
+if you are older than I am; I must say, I think you are cruel. You like
+to kill linnets; and now you won't be sorry for these poor old Indians,
+just because they are dirty and horrid-looking. You'd look just as bad
+yourself, if your skin was black, and you were a hundred years old, and
+hadn't got a penny in the world. You are real hard-hearted, Jusy, I do
+think you are!" and the tears came into Rea's eyes.
+
+"What is all this?" said Uncle George, coming up the steps. "Not
+quarrelling, my little people!"
+
+"Oh, no! no!" cried both the children eagerly.
+
+"I never quarrel with Rea," added Jusy proudly. "I hope I am old enough
+to know better than that."
+
+"I'm only two years the youngest," said Rea, in a mortified tone. "I
+think I am old enough to be quarrelled with; and I do think you're
+cruel, Jusy."
+
+This made Uncle George smile. "Look out!" he said. "You will be in a
+quarrel yet, if you are not careful. What is it, Rea?"
+
+While Rea was collecting her thoughts to reply, Jusy took the words out
+of her mouth.
+
+"She thinks I am cruel, because I said I didn't believe you would build
+a house for Indians up in your canon."
+
+"It was not that!" cried Rea. "You are real mean, Jusy!"
+
+And so I think, myself, he was. He had done just the thing which is so
+often done in this world,--one of the unfairest and most provoking of
+things; he had told the truth in such a way as to give a wrong
+impression, which is not so very far different, in my opinion, from
+telling a lie.
+
+"A home for Indians up in the canon!" exclaimed Uncle George, drawing
+Rea to him, and seating her on his knee. "Did my little tender-hearted
+Rea want me to do that? It would take a very big house, girlie, for all
+the poor Indians around here;" and Uncle George looked lovingly at Rea,
+and kissed her hair, as she nestled her head into his neck. "Just like
+her mother," he thought. "She would have turned every house into an
+asylum if she could."
+
+"Oh, not for all the Indians, Uncle George," said Rea, encouraged by his
+kind smile,--"I am not such a fool as Jusy thinks,--only for those two
+old ones that are going to be turned out of their home they've always
+lived in. You know the ones I mean."
+
+"Ah, yes,--old Ysidro and his wife. Well, Rea, I had already thought of
+that myself. So you were not so much ahead of me."
+
+"There!" exclaimed Rea triumphantly, turning to Jusy. "What do you say
+now?"
+
+Jusy did not know exactly what to say, he was so astonished; and as he
+saw Jim and the cats coming up the road at that minute, he gladly took
+the opportunity to spring down from the veranda and run to meet them.
+
+[Illustration: decorative panel]*
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+The story of old Ysidro was indeed a sad one; and I think, with Rea,
+that any one must be hard-hearted, who did not pity him. He was a very
+old Indian; nobody knew how old; but he looked as if he must be a
+hundred at least. Ever since he could remember, he had lived in a little
+house in San Gabriel. The missionaries who first settled San Gabriel had
+given a small piece of land to his father, and on it his father had
+built this little house of rough bricks made of mud. Here Ysidro was
+born, and here he had always lived. His father and mother had been dead
+a long time. His brothers and sisters had all died or gone away to live
+in some other place.
+
+When he was a young man, he had married a girl named Carmena. She was
+still living, almost as old as he; all their children had either died,
+or married and gone away, and the two old people lived alone together in
+the little mud house.
+
+They were very poor; but they managed to earn just enough to keep from
+starving. There was a little land around the house,--not more than an
+acre; but it was as much as the old man could cultivate. He raised a few
+vegetables, chiefly beans, and kept some hens.
+
+Carmena had done fine washing for the San Gabriel people as long as her
+strength held out; but she had not been able for some years to do that.
+All she could do now was to embroider and make lace. She had to stay in
+bed most of the time, for she had the rheumatism in her legs and feet so
+she could but just hobble about; but there she sat day after day,
+propped up in her bed, sewing. It was lucky that the rheumatism had not
+gone into her hands, for the money she earned by making lace was the
+chief part of their living.
+
+Sometimes Ysidro earned a little by days' works in the fields or
+gardens; but he was so old, people did not want him if they could get
+anybody else, and nobody would pay him more than half wages.
+
+When he could not get anything else to do, he made mats to sell. He made
+them out of the stems of a plant called yucca; but he had to go a long
+way to get these plants. It was slow, tedious work making the mats, and
+the store-keepers gave him only seventy-five cents apiece for them; so
+it was very little he could earn in that way.
+
+Was not this a wretched life? Yet they seemed always cheerful, and they
+were as much attached to this poor little mud hovel as any of you can
+be to your own beautiful homes.
+
+Would you think any one could have the heart to turn those two poor old
+people out of their home? It would not seem as if a human being could be
+found who would do such a thing. But there was. He was a lawyer; I could
+tell you his true name, but I will not. He had a great deal to do with
+all sorts of records and law papers, about land and titles and all such
+things.
+
+There has always been trouble about the ownership of land in California,
+because first it belonged to Spain, and then it belonged to Mexico; and
+then we fought with Mexico, and Mexico gave it to us. So you can easily
+see that where lands are passed along in that way, through so many
+hands, it might often be hard to tell to whom they justly belonged.
+
+Of course this poor old Ysidro did not know anything about papers. He
+could not read or write. The missionaries gave the land to his father
+more than a hundred years ago, and his father gave it to him, and that
+was all Ysidro knew about it.
+
+Well, this lawyer was rummaging among papers and titles and maps of
+estates in San Gabriel, and he found out that there was this little bit
+of land near the church, which had been overlooked by everybody, and to
+which nobody had any written title. He went over and looked at it, and
+found Ysidro's house on it; and Ysidro told him he had always lived
+there; but the lawyer did not care for that.
+
+Land is worth a great deal of money now in San Gabriel. This little
+place of Ysidro's was worth a good many hundred dollars; and this lawyer
+was determined to have it. So he went to work in ways I cannot explain
+to you, for I do not understand them myself; and you could not
+understand them even if I could write them out exactly: but it was all
+done according to law; and the lawyer got it decided by the courts and
+the judges in San Francisco that this bit of land was his.
+
+When this was all done, he had not quite boldness enough to come forward
+himself, and turn the poor old Indians out. Even he had some sense of
+shame; so he slyly sold the land to a man who did not know anything
+about the Indians being there.
+
+You see how cunning this was of him! When it came to the Indians being
+turned out, and the land taken by the new owner, this lawyer's name
+would not need to come out in the matter at all. But it did come out; so
+that a few people knew what a mean, cruel thing he had done. Just for
+the sake of the price of an acre of land, to turn two aged helpless
+people out of house and home to starve! Do you think those dollars will
+ever do that man any good as long as he lives? No, not if they had been
+a million.
+
+Well, Mr. Connor was one of the persons who had found out about this;
+and he had at first thought he would help Ysidro fight, in the courts,
+to keep his place; but he found there would be no use in that. The
+lawyer had been cunning enough to make sure he was safe, before he went
+on to steal the old Indian's farm. The law was on his side. Ysidro did
+not really own the land, according to law, though he had lived on it all
+his life, and it had been given to his father by the missionaries,
+almost a hundred years ago.
+
+Does it not seem strange that the law could do such a thing as that?
+When the boys who read this story grow up to be men, I hope they will
+do away with these bad laws, and make better ones.
+
+The way Rea had found out about old Ysidro was this: when Jim went to
+the post-office for the mail, in the mornings, he used generally to take
+Anita and Rea in the wagon with him, and leave them at Anita's mother's
+while he drove on to the post-office, which was a mile farther.
+
+Rea liked this very much. Anita's mother had a big blue and green
+parrot, that could talk in both Spanish and English; and Rea was never
+tired of listening to her. She always carried her sugar; and she used to
+cock her head on one side, and call out, "Senorita! senorita! Polly
+likes sugar! sugar! sugar!" as soon as she saw Rea coming in at the
+door. It was the only parrot Rea had ever seen, and it seemed to her the
+most wonderful creature in the world.
+
+Ysidro's house was next to Anita's mother's; and Rea often saw the old
+man at work in his garden, or sitting on his door-step knitting lace,
+with needles as fine as pins.
+
+One day Anita took her into the house to see Carmena, who was sitting in
+bed at work on her embroidery. When Carmena heard that Rea was Mr.
+Connor's niece, she insisted upon giving her a beautiful piece of lace
+which she had made. Anita did not wish to take it, but old Carmena
+said,--
+
+"You must take it. Mr. Connor has given us much money, and there was
+never anything I could do for him. Now if his little senorita will take
+this, it will be a pleasure."
+
+So Rea carried the lace home, and showed it to her Uncle George, and he
+said she might keep it; and it was only a few weeks after this that when
+Anita and Rea went down to San Gabriel, one day, they found the old
+couple in great distress, the news having come that they were going to
+be turned out of their house.
+
+And it was the night after this visit that Rea dreamed about the poor
+old creatures all night, and the very next morning that she asked her
+Uncle George if he would not build them a house in his canon.
+
+After lunch, Mr. Connor said to Rea,--
+
+"I am going to drive this afternoon, Rea. Would you like to come with
+me?"
+
+His eyes twinkled as he said it, and Rea cried out,--
+
+"Oh! oh! It is to see Ysidro and Carmena, I am sure!"
+
+"Yes," said her uncle; "I am going down to tell them you are going to
+build them a house."
+
+"Uncle George, will you really, truly, do it?" said Rea. "I think you
+are the kindest man in all the world!" and she ran for her hat, and was
+down on the veranda waiting, long before the horses were ready.
+
+They found old Ysidro sitting on the ground, leaning against the wall of
+his house. He had his face covered up with both hands, his elbows
+leaning on his knees.
+
+"Oh, look at him! He is crying, Uncle George," said Rea.
+
+"No, dear," replied Mr. Connor. "He is not crying. Indian men very
+rarely cry. He is feeling all the worse that he will not let himself
+cry, but shuts the tears all back."
+
+"Yes, that is lots worse," said Rea.
+
+"How do you know, pet?" laughingly said her uncle. "Did you ever try
+it?"
+
+"I've tried to try it," said Rea, "and it felt so much worse, I
+couldn't."
+
+It was not easy at first to make old Ysidro understand what Mr. Connor
+meant. He could not believe that anybody would give him a house and home
+for nothing. He thought Mr. Connor wanted to get him to come and work;
+and, being an honest old fellow, he was afraid Mr. Connor did not know
+how little strength he had; so he said,--
+
+"Senor Connor, I am very old; I am sick too. I am not worth hiring to
+work."
+
+"Bless you!" said Mr. Connor. "I don't want you to work any more than
+you do now. I am only offering you a place to live in. If you are
+strong enough to do a day's work, now and then, I shall pay you for it,
+just as I would pay anybody else."
+
+Ysidro gazed earnestly in Mr. Connor's face, while he said this; he
+gazed as if he were trying to read his very thoughts. Then he looked up
+to the sky, and he said,--
+
+"Senor, Ysidro has no words. He cannot speak. Will you come into the
+house and tell Carmena? She will not believe if I tell it."
+
+So Mr. Connor and Rea went into the house, and there sat Carmena in bed,
+trying to sew; but the tears were running out of her eyes. When she saw
+Mr. Connor and Rea coming in at the door, she threw up her hands and
+burst out into loud crying.
+
+"O senor! senor!" she said. "They drive us out of our house. Can you
+help us? Can you speak for us to the wicked man?"
+
+Ysidro went up to the bed and took hold of her hand, and, pointing with
+his other hand to Mr. Connor, said,--
+
+"He comes from God,--the senor. He will help us!"
+
+"Can we stay?" cried Carmena.
+
+Here Rea began to cry.
+
+"Don't cry, Rea," said Mr. Connor. "That will make her feel worse."
+
+Rea gulped down her sobs, enough to say,--
+
+"But she doesn't want to come into the canon! All she wants is to stay
+here! She won't be glad of the new house."
+
+"Yes, she will, by and by," whispered Mr. Connor. "Stop crying, that's
+my good Rea."
+
+But Rea could not. She stood close to the bed, looking into old
+Carmena's distressed face; and the tears would come, spite of all her
+efforts.
+
+When Carmena finally understood that not even Mr. Connor, with all his
+good will and all his money, could save them from leaving their home,
+she cried again as hard as at first; and Ysidro felt ashamed of her, for
+he was afraid Mr. Connor would think her ungrateful. But Mr. Connor
+understood it very well.
+
+"I have lived only two years in my house," he said to Rea, "and I would
+not change it for one twice as good that anybody could offer me. Think
+how any one must feel about a house he has lived in all his life."
+
+"But it is a horrible little house, Uncle George," said Rea,--"the
+dirtiest hovel I ever saw. It is worse than they are in Italy."
+
+"I do not believe that makes much difference, dear," said Uncle George.
+"It is their home, all the same, as if it were large and nice. It is
+that one loves."
+
+Just as Mr. Connor and Rea came out of the house, who should come riding
+by, but the very man that had caused all this unhappiness,--the lawyer
+who had taken Ysidro's land! He was with the man to whom he had sold it.
+They were riding up and down in the valley, looking over all their
+possessions, and planning what big vineyards and orchards they would
+plant and how much money they would make.
+
+When this man saw Mr. Connor, he turned as red as a turkey-cock's
+throat. He knew very well what Mr. Connor thought of him; but he bowed
+very low.
+
+Mr. Connor returned his bow, but with such a stern and scornful look on
+his face, that Rea exclaimed,--
+
+"What is the matter, Uncle George? What makes you look so?"
+
+"That man is a bad man, dear," he replied; "and has the kind of badness
+I most despise." But he did not tell her that he was the man who was
+responsible for the Indians being driven out of their home. He thought
+it better for Rea not to know it.
+
+"Are there different sorts of badness,--some badnesses worse than
+others?" asked Rea.
+
+"I don't know whether one kind is really any worse than another," said
+Mr. Connor. "But there are some kinds which seem to me twice as bad as
+others; and meanness and cruelty to helpless creatures seem to me the
+very worst of all."
+
+"To me too!" said Rea. "Like turning out poor Ysidro."
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Connor. "That is just one of the sort I mean."
+
+Just before they reached the beginning of the lands of Connorloa, they
+crossed the grounds of a Mr. Finch, who had a pretty house and large
+orange orchards. Mr. Finch had one son, Harry, about Jusy's age, and the
+two boys were great cronies.
+
+As Mr. Connor turned the horses' heads into these grounds, he saw Jusy
+and Harry under the trees in the distance.
+
+"Why, there is Jusy," he said.
+
+"Yes," said Rea. "Harry came for him before lunch. He said he had
+something to show him."
+
+As soon as Jusy caught sight of the carriage, he came running towards
+it, crying,--
+
+"Oh, Uncle George, stop! Rea! come! I've found Snowball! Come, see him!"
+
+Snowball had been missing for nearly a month, and nobody could imagine
+what had become of him. They finally came to the conclusion that he must
+have got killed in some way.
+
+Mr. Connor stopped the horses; and Rea jumped out and ran after Jusy,
+and Mr. Connor followed. They found the boys watching excitedly, one at
+each end of a little bridge over the ditch, through which the water was
+brought down for irrigating Mr. Finch's orchards. Harry's dogs were
+there too, one at each end of the bridge, barking, yelping, watching as
+excitedly as the boys. But no Snowball.
+
+"Where is he?" cried Rea.
+
+"In under there," exclaimed Jusy. "He's got a rabbit in there; he'll be
+out presently."
+
+Sure enough, there he was, plainly to be heard, scuffling and spitting
+under the bridge.
+
+The poor little rabbit ran first to one end of the bridge, then to the
+other, trying to get out; but at each end he found a dog, barking to
+drive him back.
+
+Presently Snowball appeared with the dead rabbit in his teeth. Dropping
+it on the ground, he looked up at the dogs, as much as to say, "There!
+Can't I hunt rabbits as well as you do?" Then they all three, the two
+dogs and he, fell to eating the rabbit in the friendliest manner.
+
+"Don't you think!" cried Jusy. "He's been hunting this way, with these
+dogs, all this time. You see they are so big they can't get in under the
+bridge, and he can; so they drive the rabbits in under there, and he
+goes in and gets them. Isn't he smart? Harry first saw him doing it two
+weeks ago, he says. He didn't know it was our cat, and he wondered whose
+it could be. But Snowball and the dogs are great friends. They go
+together all the time; and wherever he is, if he hears them bark, he
+knows they've started up something, and he comes flying! I think it is
+just splendid!"
+
+"Poor little thing!" said Rea, looking at the fast-disappearing rabbit.
+
+"Why, you eat them yourself!" shouted Jusy. "You said it was as good as
+chicken, the other day. It isn't any worse for cats and dogs to eat
+them, than it is for us; is it, Uncle George?"
+
+"I think Jusy has the best of the argument this time, pet," said Uncle
+George, looking fondly at Jusy.
+
+"Girls are always that way," said Harry politely. "My sisters are just
+so. They can't bear to see anything killed."
+
+After this day, Rea spent most of her time in the canon, watching the
+men at work on Ysidro's house.
+
+The canon was a wild place; it was a sort of split in the rocky sides of
+the mountain; at the top it was not much more than two precipices joined
+together, with just room enough for a brook to come down. You can see in
+the picture where it was, though it looks there like little more than a
+groove in the rocks. But it was really so big in some places that huge
+sycamore trees grew in it, and there were little spaces of good earth,
+where Mr. Connor had planted orchards.
+
+It was near these, at the mouth of the canon, that he put Ysidro's
+house. It was built out of mud bricks, called adobe, as near as
+possible like Ysidro's old house,--two small rooms, and a thatched roof
+made of reeds, which grew in a swamp.
+
+But Mr. Connor did not call it Ysidro's house. He called it Rea's house;
+and the men called it "the senorita's house." It was to be her own, Mr.
+Connor said,--her own to give as a present to Ysidro and Carmena.
+
+When the day came for them to move in, Jim went down with the big wagon,
+and a bed in the bottom, to bring old Carmena up. There was plenty of
+room in the wagon, besides, for the few little bits of furniture they
+had.
+
+Mr. Connor and Jusy and Rea were at the house waiting, when they came.
+The cook had made a good supper of meat and potato, and Rea had put it
+on the table, all ready for them.
+
+When they lifted Carmena out of the wagon, she held, tight clutched in
+her hand, a small basket filled with earth; she seemed hardly willing to
+let go of it for a moment.
+
+"What is that?" said Jusy.
+
+"A few handfuls of the earth that was ours," replied Ysidro. "We have
+brought it with us, to keep it always. The man who has our home will not
+miss it."
+
+The tears came into Mr. Connor's eyes, and he turned away.
+
+Rea did not understand. She looked puzzled; so did Jusy.
+
+Jim explained. "The Indian women often do that," he said. "When they
+have to move away from a home they love they carry a little of the earth
+with them; sometimes they put it in a little bag, and wear it hanging on
+their necks; sometimes they put it under their heads at night."
+
+"Yes," said Carmena, who had listened to what Jim said. "One can sleep
+better on the earth that one loves."
+
+"I say, Rea!" cried Jusy. "It is a shame they had to come away!"
+
+"I told you so, Jusy," said Rea gently. "But you didn't seem to care
+then."
+
+"Well, I do now!" he cried. "I didn't think how bad they'd feel. Now if
+it were in Italy, I'd go and tell the King all about it. Who is there
+to tell here?" he continued, turning to his Uncle George. "Who is there
+here, to tell about such things? There must be somebody."
+
+Mr. Connor smiled sadly. "The trouble is, there are too many," he said.
+
+"Who is above all the rest?" persisted Jusy. "Isn't there somebody at
+the top, as our King is in Italy?"
+
+"Yes, there is one above all the rest," replied Mr. Connor. "We call him
+the President."
+
+"Well, why don't you write and tell him about Ysidro?" said Jusy. "I
+wish I could see him, I'd tell him. It's a shame!"
+
+"Even the President could not help this, Jusy," said Mr. Connor. "The
+law was against poor Ysidro; there was no help; and there are thousands
+and thousands of Indians in just the same condition he is."
+
+"Doesn't the President make the laws?" said Jusy.
+
+"No," said Mr. Connor. "Congress makes the laws."
+
+"Oh," said Jusy, "like our Parliament."
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Connor.
+
+Jusy said no more; but he thought of little else all the afternoon; and
+at bedtime he said to Rea,--
+
+"Rea, I am real sorry I didn't care about those old Indians at first,
+when you did. But I'm going to be good to them now, and help them all I
+can; and I have made up my mind that when I am a man I shall not go to
+Italy, as I said I would, to be an officer for the King. I shall stay
+here, and be an officer for the American President, instead; and I shall
+tell him about Ysidro, and about all the rest of the Indians."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is nothing more to be told about the Hunter Cats. By degrees they
+disappeared: some of them went to live at other houses in the San
+Gabriel Valley; some of them ran off and lived a wild life in the
+canons; and some of them, I am afraid, must have died for want of food.
+
+Rea was glad when they were all gone; but Jusy missed the fun of seeing
+them hunt gophers and linnets.
+
+Perhaps, some day, I shall write another story, and tell you more about
+Jusy and Rea, and how they tried to help the Indians.
+
+[Illustration: MATS MADE BY YSIDRO.--Page 126.]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Hunter Cats of Connorloa, by Helen Jackson
+
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