 | Life and sayings of Mrs. Partington and others
of the family |  |
HOW IKE DROPPED THE CAT.
NOW, Isaac,” said Mrs. Partington,
as she came into the
room with a basket snugly
covered over, “take our
Tabby, and drop her somewhere,
and see that she don't
come back again, for I am
sick and tired of driving her
out of the butter. She is the
thievinest creatur! But don't
hurt her, Isaac; only take care
that she don't come back.”
Ike smiled as he received his charge, and the old lady
felt happy in getting rid of her trouble without resorting
to violence. She would rather have endured the evil of
the cat, great as that evil was, than that the poor quadruped
should be inhumanly dealt with. She saw Ike
depart, in the dusk of the evening, and watched him
until he became lost to view in the shadow of a tree. It
was a full half hour before he returned with his empty
basket, and an unusual glee marked his appearance, — it
sparkled in his eye, it glowed in his cheek, it sported in
his hair, — and Ike looked really handsome, as he stood
before the dame, and proclaimed the success of his
mission.
“Did she drop easy, Isaac?” asked the old lady,
back?”
“She dropt just as easy!” said Ike, letting his basket
fall on the floor, and shying his cap upon the table, somewhat
endangering a glass lamp with a wooden bottom
that stood thereon; “she dropt just as easy! and she
won't come back — you may bet high on that.”
“But you did n't beat and mangle her, Isaac, did
you? If you did I should be afraid she would come back
and haunt us — I have heard of such things;” and she
looked anxiously in his face; but, detecting there no trace
of guilt, she patted him on the head, and parted his hair,
and told him to sit down and eat his supper, which the
young gentleman did with considerable unction.
“Isaac! Isaac!” screamed Mrs. Partington, at the
foot of the little stairway that led to the attic where the
boy slept, the next morning after the above occurrence.
“Isaac!” — and he came down stairs slowly, rubbing
his eyes as he came. She had disturbed his morning
nap.
“Isaac,” said she, “what is that hanging yender to a
limb of our apple-tree?” One scattering tree, as she
said, constituted her whole orchard, unless she counted
the poplar by the corner.
“I can't see so fur off,” said Ike, still rubbing his
eyes.
“Well, I should think it was a cat; and it looks to
me like our Tabby. O, Isaac! if you have done this!”
and a tone akin to horror trembled in her voice.
“I 'll go and see if it 's her,” said Ike, as if not hearing
the last part of her remark; and he dashed out of
every feature of his expressive countenance. “O, it 's
her! sure enough, it 's her!” cried he, “but I did drop
her!”
“Well, how could she come there then?” and the
good old lady looked puzzled.
“I 'll tell you how I guess it was,” said Ike, looking
demurely up. “I guess that she committed suicide,
because we was going to drop her; they are dreadful
knowing critters, you know.”
“True enough,” replied the old lady, while something
like a tear glistened in her eye — her pity was excited;
“true enough, Isaac, and I dare say she thought hard of
us for doing it; but she had n't ought to if she 'd have
considered a minute.”
Ike said no more, but went out and cut down the supposed
suicide, with a serious manner, and buried her
beneath her gallows, deep down among the roots of the
old tree, and she never came back.
The old lady told the story to the minister, and Ike
vouched for it, but the good man shook his head incredulously
at the idea of the suicide, and looked at the boy.
He very evidently understood how the cat was dropped.
| Life and sayings of Mrs. Partington and others
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