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Page 21
From that time on Juno had been the friend and playmate of the younger
generation. She never seemed like an animal to any of us. Many a time I
have heard Ned apologize for having unintentionally hurt Juno, with the
exclamation:
"Oh, excuse me, Juno, I didn't mean to do that!"
After which Juno always purred softly, and showed that she had forgiven
him.
But the one thing that specially distinguished Juno from all the other
cats that I ever knew, was her big-hearted motherhood. If Juno had been a
woman, how many desolate orphans she would have cared for! She would have
given them summer outings, no doubt, and would have filled their
stockings brimful at Christmas time.
Not being a woman, Juno did her best, nevertheless, to make the world a
little easier for all the orphans she knew. What a heart must have beaten
under that gray fur! Ned and I often talked of it, and were filled with
regret that Juno could not understand our language so that we could talk
to her and get her views on the subject.
There was the time when she adopted the chicken, for instance. We knew
Juno so well that we felt perfectly certain how she looked at those
things, and so when the old yellow hen declined to acknowledge the little
black chicken as hers, and pecked its head whenever it went near her, we
took the helpless and disowned orphan and put it in Juno's bed, between
the two kittens.
"There, Juno," said Ned, by way of explanation to her look of
astonishment, "there's a child that's been deserted by its unfeeling
mother; I wish you'd look after it."
And Juno took the chicken and held it with one paw while she licked it all
over, though I am not sure that she liked the taste of the soft down that
covered the little stranger. She kept the chicken all that night and every
night afterwards until it considered itself big enough to go alone.
How we used to laugh to see Juno walking about the yard with her
foster-child chirping after her, or to see the chicken run to her and
insist on being hovered!
[Illustration]
As time passed the adopted child became independent and needed no further
guardianship, yet the friendliest relations existed between the two. Even
after the chicken was grown and had chickens of her own they seldom met in
their promenades about the place that Juno did not pause to rub her head
affectionately against the neck of the orphan that she had brought up.
* * * * *
Juno was about a year older, I think, when there was a death in her
family. The one little kitten that she loved with all her mother heart
died and left her desolate. It was a very sad occasion, I remember, but we
had a great funeral. We dug the grave at the end of the garden. Johnny's
express wagon was the hearse, and Johnny drew it, and was very serious
indeed. We borrowed Mrs. Martin's baby carriage, and that was the mourning
coach. Juno rode in it, with Ned and Gimps walking one on each side and
holding her in. I pushed the coach, while a long procession of the
neighbors' children came behind, crying with all their might. We sung a
hymn at the grave, and did everything we could to soothe Juno's grief.
But Juno would not be reconciled. She drooped around and mewed so
pitifully for several days that we could not endure it; so we went to a
neighbor's cat that had more kittens than she needed, and borrowed one of
them for Juno. Dear me, how proud she was of it, and how she took it in
her arms and cuddled it up close to her! The whole family came out to look
at her, and the Colonel said:
"And this is only a cat! What great tenderness there should be in the
human heart when a poor little animal can be like this!"
And the next day Uncle Dick, who was a great favorite with all of us, rode
up to the fence and shouted cheerily:
"Hello, boys! Here is a present for you. I killed a mother fox at the
mouth of her hole, and here is one of her babies."
And he reached down into his pocket and drew out a baby fox about as large
as an interrogation point, but the funniest and sharpest little thing you
ever saw, though its eyes were not open yet.
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