University of Virginia Library

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,

looking upon him kindly, "and won't she comeback?"

"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 didn'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 yonder 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

the door, but soon came back, with wonder depicted on 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.