Sally in her fur coat was racing through the garden and flying through the Wild Wood, as if an enemy were in hot pursuit. She was a very young kitten and small of her age. Her pursuer was not an enemy, but her twin brother, Oxford Gray, Junior. But although they were born on the same day, Oxford Gray, Junior, was much fatter than Sally, and he had shorter legs, so he could never catch up with his little sister. After a time, he grew tired of the chase, but, being Sally’s brother and protector, he did not like to own it, so he said:
‘Sally, I am sure all this running about must be bad for you. Come and lie down under that giant hemlock and we’ll have a good rest.’
‘I am not in the least tired,’ said Sally, and off she scampered again.
By this time Oxford Gray, Junior, was fairly panting.
‘I am sure this mad dash will use you up,’ he said, for he did not like to own that he was tired.
It finally dawned on Sally that this might be the case, but, being wise beyond her weeks, she did not speak of this, but came over and joined her brother under the shade of the giant hemlock in the Wild Wood. There were many of these hemlocks as well as oak trees. They were all about as high as a man’s shoulders, but they seemed immense to the kittens. They were sometimes spoken of by people as underbrush, but people are often stupid about many matters, as every cat knows. Of course all this conversation was carried on in kitten language, not in actual words.
The two kittens curled up under the shade of the giant hemlock in the Wild Wood, and put their paws about each other’s necks. They were tiger kittens and looked so much alike that when they were apart, it was hard to tell which was Sally and which was Oxford Gray, Junior. When they were together, one saw that Oxford Gray, Junior, was larger, and that he had more of a white shirt-front than his sister, and he had a pink nose which she envied, for hers was just a tiger nose. One also noticed a great difference in their expressions, for Sally had a sad little face, while Oxford Gray, Junior, looked prosperous and thoroughly contented with himself. At times it almost seemed as if he smiled.
‘We are two very unfortunate kittens,’ said Sally; ‘it is sad to be orphans.’
‘We’ve got to make the best of it,’ said Oxford Gray, Junior. ‘Other kittens have been orphans before us and others will be orphans after us. Sally, you must brace up.’
‘When I think of my brave father and of my darling mother, so cozy and so kind, and of how they mysteriously disappeared, I can’t brace up,’ said Sally. ‘I am sure we are going to starve.’
‘Not while I have my good right paw,’ said Oxford Gray, Junior. ‘I will get food for you.’
‘You? How? What will you get?’
‘I will catch a mouse,’ said Oxford Gray, Junior, magnificently. ‘Our father was a mighty hunter.’
‘But you are hardly larger than a mouse yourself,’ said Sally. ‘Father said so.’
‘That was a very long time ago,’ said her brother. ‘I have grown since then, and there must be many baby mice just as there are small kittens. I will be on the lookout for a very young mouse, Sally.’
‘I am sure we shall starve before you can catch a mouse,’ said Sally, ‘for there don’t seem to be any around. We can’t live on flies, and they are very hard to catch.’
If Sally had been a little girl, she would have cried bitterly, but, being a kitten, she was more self-controlled.
‘Where are we going to get our next meal?’ she persisted.
‘It will somehow come,’ said Oxford Gray, Junior, who was an optimist.
He sometimes provoked Sally very much, for she was sure she saw things as they really were.
‘We got some milk other days at that little house,’ he said.
‘Yes, but it is closed to-day,’ she reminded him.
‘Other houses will be open,’ said Oxford Gray, Junior. He glanced up as he spoke and looked first at one of the two houses that were near the Wild Wood and then at the other. One house was very attractive, lying low in the valley with a pretty garden and a giant rhododendron tree on either side of the front door. The buds were swelling and beginning to show a hint of crimson. ‘We’ll try to get food at that house,’ said Oxford Gray, Junior.
‘Don’t you remember what father told us about that house?’ said Sally. ‘He said it had the secret mark that is only known to cats, that says, “No cats need apply here for food. This is a no-good house.”’
‘Yes, I remember now,’ said her brother, ‘but father said the other house was all right. That has a secret mark that says, “Welcome, Cats.”’
‘We are not cats,’ said Sally. ‘We are such small kittens I am afraid no one will see us; father called us “kittenettes,”’ and at the memory of her father, Sally once more looked very sad.
‘What’s the use of worrying?’ said Oxford Gray, Junior. ‘Something always has turned up and something always will.’
‘That is rather an ugly house, I think,’ said Sally, as she looked at the gray house on the hill that said, in its secret language, ‘Welcome, Cats.’ ‘It seems all pointed roofs and it hasn’t such a pretty garden as the other house.’
‘I don’t care about its looks,’ said her brother. ‘Don’t you remember how mother once said, “Handsome is that handsome does,” when you wished you were an Angora with long yellow fur?’
‘Yes, I remember,’ said Sally, ‘but I wish I were a yellow Angora just the same. I’d like to be a handsome kitten.’
‘I don’t care at all how I look,’ said Oxford Gray, Junior. ‘I’d rather be myself. If you were a yellow Angora with long fur, you would not have me for your twin. How would you like to lose me, Sally?’
At this terrible suggestion, Sally put her paws all the more firmly around her brother’s neck.
‘You are the whole world to me, Oxford Gray, Junior,’ she said; ‘grandmother, and father and mother and brother, too. The others have all disappeared, and you are all I have left. It is sad to be orphans,’ she wailed again, in her thought-transference language; ‘but if one has to be an orphan, it is better to be twins.’
Now Sally and Oxford Gray, Junior, had been so busy about their own concerns that they had not noticed that a lady came to the bow window of the house that said ‘Welcome, Cats,’ in its secret language, and that her eyes rested on the brother and sister in their fur coats, and so it was a great surprise when they saw her come down the piazza steps. They were frightened and scampered off as fast as they could go. The lady put a large blue-and-white dinner plate down on the grass and, looking around her as if searching for the kittens, she went back into the house.
‘Poor darlings,’ she said, and there were tears in her eyes; ‘poor kittens to have lost their mother when they were so young!’
A faint odor of fish greeted the kittens.
‘I do believe there is fish on that plate,’ said Oxford Gray, Junior. ‘Let us go and see.’
When they reached the plate, they saw it had on it a large piece of mackerel cut in mouthfuls that would just suit them and some potato and green vegetable about the color of grass. Perhaps it was cooked grass. They had never seen it before. It had a most satisfying smell. Then the hungry kittens leaned over the blue-and-white plate, one on one side and one on the other, and they hungrily ate the delicious fish. Sally ate daintily and slowly, but Oxford Gray, Junior, gobbled his portion down very fast and then ate what was left of Sally’s share.
Sally hit him with her paw. There were things that even the gentle Sally could not stand.
‘That isn’t fair,’ she said.
‘I need more to keep me alive than you do,’ said Oxford Gray, Junior. ‘If I am going to hunt for food for the pair of us, I have to be well fed.’
‘Do you think you could catch fish?’ Sally asked. ‘I like fish even better than mouse.’
‘Father was a mighty hunter, but I never heard that he was a fisherman,’ said her brother. ‘I am afraid I shall have to stick to hunting. But we are all right for to-day, Sally. Always trust to me. Did not I tell you something would turn up?’