+-------------------------------------------------------------------+|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 HERFAMILY, " 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 wasConnor, --Mr. George Connor. He was an orphan, and had no brothers andonly one sister. This sister was married to an Italian gentleman, one ofthe chamberlains to the King of Italy. She might almost as well havebeen dead, so far as her brother George's seeing her was concerned; forhe, 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 tothe King, to come with her to America, and she would not leave him andcome alone. So at the time my story begins, it had been many years sincethe brother and sister had met, and Mr. Connor had quite made up hismind that he should never see her again in this world. He had had asorry time of it for a good many years. He had wandered all over theworld, trying to find a climate which would make him well. He had livedin Egypt, in Ceylon, in Italy, in Japan, in the Sandwich Islands, in theWest India Islands. Every place that had ever been heard of as beinggood for sick people, he had tried; for he had plenty of money, andthere was nothing to prevent his journeying wherever he liked. He had afaithful black servant Jim, who went with him everywhere, and took thebest of care of him; but neither the money, nor the good nursing, northe sea air, nor the mountain air, nor the north, south, east or westair, did him any good. He only tired himself out for nothing, roamingfrom place to place; and was all the time lonely, and sad too, nothaving any home. So at last he made up his mind that he would roam nolonger; that he would settle down, build himself a house, and if hecould not be well and strong and do all the things he liked to, hewould at least have a home, and have his books about him, and have agood bed to sleep in, and good food to eat, and be comfortable in allthose ways in which no human being ever can be comfortable outside ofhis own house. 

He happened to be in California when he took this resolution. He hadbeen there for a winter; and on the whole had felt better there than hehad felt anywhere else. The California sunshine did him more good thanmedicine: it is wonderful how the sun shines there! Then it was nevereither very hot or very cold in the part of California where he was; andthat 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 thisname "San Gabriel" on your atlas, if you look very carefully. It is insmall print, and on the Atlas it is not more than the width of a pinfrom the water's edge; but it really is thirty miles, --a good day'sride, and a beautiful day's ride too, from the sea. San Gabriel is alittle village, only a dozen or two houses in it, and an old, half-ruined church, --a Catholic church, that was built there a hundredyears ago, when the country was first settled by the Spaniards. Theynamed all the places they settled, after saints; and the first thingthey did in every place was to build a church, and get the Indians tocome and be baptized, and learn to pray. They did not call theirsettlements towns at first, only Missions; and they had at one timetwenty-one of these Missions on the California coast, all the way upfrom San Diego to Monterey; and there were more than thirty thousandIndians in them, all being taught to pray and to work, and some of themto read and write. They were very good men, those first Spanishmissionaries in California. There are still alive some Indians whorecollect these times. They are very old, over a hundred years old; butthey remember well about these things. 

Most of the principal California towns of which you have read in yourgeographies were begun in this way. San Diego, Santa Barbara, San LuisObispo, San Rafael, San Francisco, Monterey, Los Angeles, --all of thesewere first settled by the missionaries, and by the soldiers and officersof the army who came to protect the missionaries against the savages. Los Angeles was named by them after the Virgin Mary. The Spanish namewas very long, "Nuestra Seņora Reina de Los Angeles, "--that means, "OurLady the Queen of the Angels. " Of course this was quite too long to useevery day; so it soon got cut down to simply "Los Angeles, " or "TheAngels, "--a name which often amuses travellers in Los Angeles to-day, because the people who live there are not a bit more like angels thanother people; and that, as we all know, is very unlike indeed. Near LosAngeles is San Gabriel, only about fifteen miles away. In the oldentime, fifteen miles was not thought any distance at all; people wereneighbors who lived only fifteen miles apart. 

There are a great many interesting stories about the first settlement ofSan Gabriel, and the habits and customs of the Indians there. They werea very polite people to each other, and used to train their children insome respects very carefully. If a child were sent to bring water to anolder person, and he tasted it on the way, he was made to throw thewater out and go and bring fresh water; when two grown-up persons weretalking together, if a child ran between them he was told that he haddone an uncivil thing, and would be punished if he did it again. Theseare only specimens of their rules for polite behavior. They seem to meas good as ours. These Indians were very fond of flowers, of which thewhole country is in the spring so full, it looks in places like a gardenbed; of these flowers they used to make long garlands and wreaths, notonly to wear on their heads, but to reach way down to their feet. Thesethey wore at festivals and celebrations; and sometimes at thesefestivals they used to have what they called "song contests. " Two of thebest singers, or poets, would be matched together, to see which couldsing the better, or make the better verses. That seems to me a moreinteresting kind of match than the spelling matches we have in ourvillages. But there is nothing of this sort to be seen in San Gabrielnow, or indeed anywhere in California. The Indians, most of them, havebeen driven away by the white people who wanted their lands; year byyear more and more white people have come, and the Indians have beenrobbed 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, andcollecting all he could of the curious stone bowls and pestles they usedto make, and of their baskets and lace work. He spent much of histime riding about the country; and whenever he came to an Indian hut hewould stop and talk with them, and ask if they had any stone bowls orbaskets they would like to sell. The bowls especially were a greatcuriosity. Nobody knew how long ago they had been made. When themissionaries first came to the country, they found the Indians usingthem; they had them of all sizes, from those so large that they arealmost more than a man can lift, down to tiny ones no bigger than atea-cup. But big and little, they were all made in the same way out ofsolid stone, scooped out in the middle, by rubbing another stone roundand round on them. You would think it would have taken a lifetime tomake one; but they seem to have been plenty in the olden time. Even yet, people who are searching for such curiosities sometimes find biggrave-mounds in which dozens of them are buried, --buried side by sidewith the people who used to eat out of them. There is nothing left ofthe people but their skulls and a few bones; but the bowls will last aslong as the world stands. 

 * * * * *

Now I suppose you are beginning to wonder when I am coming to the HunterCats! I am coming to them just the way Mr. Connor did, --by degrees. Iwant you to know about the place he lived in, and how he used to amusehimself, before he decided to build his house; and then I must tell youabout the house, and then about the children that came to live with himin it, and then about the Chinamen that came to do his work, and abouthis orange-trees, and the gophers that gnawed the bark off them, and therabbits that burrowed under his vines. Oh! it will be a good many pagesyet 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 eastand 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 sharpand jagged, with more peaks and ridges, crowded in together, than youcould possibly count. At the bottom, they reach out into the valley bylong slopes, which in the olden time were covered thick with trees andshrubs; but now, the greater part of these have been cut down andcleared 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 orangeorchards 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 orchardsand vineyards, he began to think he should like to have some too. So hewent up and down along the base of the mountains, looking for a goodplace. At last he found one. It was strange nobody had picked it outbefore. One reason was that it was so wild, and lay so high up, that itwould be a world of trouble, and cost a deal of money, to make a road upto it and to clear the ground. But Mr. Connor did not care for that. Itwas a sort of ridge of the mountains, and it was all grown over thickwith what is called in California "chapparal. " That is not the name ofany one particular shrub or tree; it means a mixture of every sort andkind. You all know what mixed candy is! Well, "chapparal" is mixedbushes and shrubs; mixed thick too! From a little way off, it looks assmooth as moss; it is so tangled, and the bushes have such strong andtough stems, you can't possibly get through it, unless you cut a pathbefore 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 thoughthow well a house would look up there, with the splendid mountain wallrising straight up behind it. And from the windows of such a house, onecould look off, not only over the whole valley, but past the hills ofits southern wall, clear and straight thirty miles to the sea. In aclear day, the line of the water flashed and shone there like a silverthread. 

Mr. Connor used to sit on his horse by the half hour at a time gazing atthis hillside, and picturing the home he would like to make there, --abig 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 longerhe 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 hada big force of men hacking away at the chapparal, burning it, digging upthe tough, tangled roots; oh, what slow work it was! Just as soon as abig enough place was cleared, he built a little house of roughboards, --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 waitfor it to be done; and he was never happy except when he was overseeingthe men, hurrying them and working himself. Many a tough old bush hechopped down with his own hands, and tugged the root up; and he grewstronger 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 stemsof this shrub are bright red, and twisted almost into knots. They makecapital firewood; so Mr. Connor had them all piled up in a pile to keepto burn in his big fireplaces; and you would have laughed to see such awoodpile. It was almost as high as the house; and no two sticksalike, --all prongs and horns, and crooks and twists; they looked likemonster'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 thelibrary and dining-room; on the west, the parlor and a bigbilliard-room; upstairs were four large bedrooms; at the back of thehouse, a kitchen. No servants were to sleep in the house. Mr. Connorwould have only Chinamen for servants; and they would sleep, with therest of his Chinamen laborers, in what he called the Chinese quarter, --along, low wooden building still farther up on the hill. Only Jim was tosleep in the house with Mr. Connor. 

The Chinese quarter was a very comfortable house; and was presided overby 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 entirelytoo long to pronounce. There were twenty Chinamen on the place; and afunny 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 hishead for a hat, and his long, black hair braided in a queue, not muchbigger than a rat tail, hanging down his back. 

People in California are so used to seeing Chinamen, that they do notrealize how droll they look to persons not accustomed to the sight. 

Their yellow skins, their funny little black eyes, set so slanting intheir heads that you can't tell half the time whether they are lookingstraight at you or not, their shiny shaved heads and pig-tails, are allvery queer. And when you first hear them talking together in their owntongue, you think it must be cats trying to learn English; it is amixture of caterwaul and parrot, more disagreeable in sound than anylanguage I ever heard. 

About a year after Mr. Connor had moved into his new house, he got aletter, one night, which made him very unhappy. It told him that hissister and her husband were dead; they had died, both of them in oneweek, of a dreadful fever. Their two children had had the fever at thesame time, but they were getting well; and now, as there was nobody inItaly to take care of them, the letter asked what should be done withthem. Would Mr. Connor come out himself, or would he send some one? TheCount and his wife had been only a few days ill, and the fever had madethem delirious from the first, so that no directions had been given toany one about the children; and there the two poor little thingswere, all alone with their nurse in their apartment in the King'spalace. They had had to live in the palace always, so that the Countcould 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 marblefloored rooms, so huge and cold; and armed soldiers for sentinels, standing at the corners and doors, to keep people from going into roomswithout permission, and to keep watch also, lest somebody should get inand kill the King. The King was always afraid of being killed; therewere so many unhappy and discontented persons in Italy, who did notwant him to be King. Just think how frightful it must be to know everyday, --morning, noon, and night, --that there was danger of somebody'scoming stealthily into your room to kill you! Who would be a king? Itused to make the children afraid whenever they passed these tallsoldiers in armor, in the halls. They would hold tight to each other'shands, and run as fast as they could, past them; and when they got outin the open air, they were glad; most of all when their nurse took theminto 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 theyused to say they wished their father and mother were poor, and lived ina house like that, and kept a donkey. And then the nurse would tell themthey 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 oneof the most beautiful of the Queen's ladies; but you couldn't have madethe 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 theirreal names: Giuseppe was called Jusy, and Maria was called Rea; Jusy andRea, nobody would ever have guessed from that, what their real nameswere. Maria is pronounced _Mahrea_ in Italy; so that was the way shecame to be called Rea for shortness. Jusy gave himself his nickname whenhe 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 littlethings, when they first got strong enough to totter about after thisfever; so weak they felt, they could hardly stand; and they cried morethan half the time, thinking about their papa and mamma, dead and buriedwithout their even being able to kiss them once for good-by. The Kinghimself 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 Jusywould reply, --

"I don't know, Rea. As soon as I'm a man, I can take care of you andmyself too, easy enough; and that won't be a great while. I shall askthe 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 thishorrid palace. Ask him to give you a little house in the country, with adonkey; 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 surehe 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 hadto work for all the money he had. "

It was a glad day for the children when the news came that their unclein America was going to send for them to come and live with him; andthat 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 hewould not leave the children uncheered in their suspense and lonelinessone minute longer than he could help; so he sent the message bytelegraph; and the very day after this telegraphic message went, Jim setout for Italy. 

Jim had travelled so much with Mr. Connor that he was just the bestpossible person to take charge of the children on their long journey. Heknew how to manage everything; and he could speak Italian and French andGerman well enough to say all that was necessary in places where noEnglish was spoken. Moreover, Jim had been a servant in Mr. Connor'sfather's house all his life; had taken care of Mr. Connor and his sisterwhen they were a little boy and girl together, just as Jusy and Rea werenow. He always called Mr. Connor "Mr. George, " and his sister "MissJulia;" and when he set out to go for the children he felt almost as ifhe 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 theyhad heard about their Uncle George ever since they could remember; andall about "Jim" too. Almost every year Mr. Connor used to send hissister a new picture of himself; so the children knew very well how helooked. 

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 aline 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 Jusythought it was splendid. Every morning the lonely little creatures usedto stand in front of this line of pictures and say, "Good-morning, UncleGeorge! 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 thathe might be there in three weeks from the day the despatch came; and assoon as the three weeks were ended, they began almost to hold theirbreaths listening for him; they were hardly willing to stir out of thepalace for a walk, for fear he might come while they were away. Reawatched at the windows, and Jusy watched at the doorway which led intothe 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'dbetter be at the door to run and meet him. "

All their clothes were packed ready for the journey; and all the thingswhich 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 wasimpatient to get settled in the apartment herself, and kept coming tolook at it, and discussing, in the children's presence, where she wouldput this or that piece of furniture, and how she would have her pictureshung. 

"I think she is a very rude lady, " said Jusy. "The Queen said these wereour rooms so long as we stayed, just the same as if mamma were here withus; 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, asthey passed the big sentinel at the outside gate, he nodded to thempleasantly, 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 fromAmerica. "--Page 42. ]

You see everybody in the palace, from the King down to the scullions inthe kitchen, was interested in the two fatherless and motherlesschildren, and glad to hear that Jim had arrived. 

The very next day they set off. Jim was impatient to be back inCalifornia again; there was nothing to wait for. Caterina was greatlyrelieved to find that he did not wish her to go with him. The Queen hadsaid she must go, if the black signor wished it; and Caterina waswretched with fright at the thought of the journey, and of the countryfull 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 amneeded. 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 tobeg to be allowed to go. The child cried and clung to her neck; andCaterina cried and sobbed too. 

But the wise Jim had provided himself with a powerful helper. He hadbought a little white spaniel, the tiniest creature that ever ran onfour legs; she was no more than a doll, in Rea's arms; her hair was likewhite silk floss. She had a blue satin collar with a gilt clasp andpadlock; and on the padlock, in raised letters, was the name "Fairy. "Jim had thought of this in New York, and bought the collar and padlockthere; and the dog he had bought only one hour before they were to setout on their journey. She was in a beautiful little flannel-linedbasket; and when Rea clung to Caterina's neck crying and sobbing, Jimstepped up to her and said, --

"Don't cry, missy; here's your little dog to take care of; she'll bescared if she sees you cry. "

"Mine! Mine! That sweet doggie!" cried Rea. She could not believe hereyes. She stopped crying; and she hardly noticed when the Queen herselfkissed her in farewell, so absorbed was she in "Fairy" and the bluesatin collar. "Oh, you are a very good black man, Signor Jim, " shecried. "I never saw such a sweet doggie; I shall carry her in my ownarms all the way there. "

It was a hard journey; but the children enjoyed every minute of it. Theaccount of all they did and saw, and the good times they had with thekind Jim, would make a long story by itself; but if I told it, we shouldnever get to the Hunter Cats; so I will not tell you anything about thejourney at all except that it took about six weeks, and that theyreached San Gabriel in the month of March, when everything was green andbeautiful, and the country as full of wild flowers as the children hadever seen the country about Florence in Italy. 

Mr. Connor had not been idle while Jim was away. After walking up anddown his house, with his thinking-cap on, for a few days, looking intothe rooms, and trying to contrive how it should be rearranged toaccommodate his new and unexpected family, he suddenly decided to buildon a small wing to the house. He might as well arrange it in the outsetas it would be pleasantest to have it when Jusy and Rea were a younggentleman and a young lady, he thought. What might do for them very wellnow, while they were little children, would not do at all when they weregrown up. 

So, as I told you, Mr. Connor being a gentleman who never lost any timein doing a thing he had once made up his mind to, set carpenters at workimmediately tearing out half of one side of his new house; and in littleover 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 openingout of it, for her sitting-room; beyond this another room in which hernurse could sleep, while she needed one, and after she grew older, thegoverness who must come to teach her; and after she did not need anygoverness, the room would be a pleasant thing to have for her youngfriends who came to visit her. This kind uncle was planning for a goodmany years ahead, in this wing to his house. 

These rooms for Rea were in the second story. Beneath them were twolarge rooms, one for Jusy, and one for Jim. A pretty stairway, with alattice-work wall, went up outside to Rea's room, and at the door ofher room spread out into a sort of loggia, or upstairs piazza, such asMr. Connor knew she had been used to in Italy. In another year thisstairway and loggia would be a bower of all sorts of vines, things growso fast in California. 

 * * * * *

And now we are really coming to the Cats. They had arrived before thechildren did. 

When the children got out of the cars at San Gabriel, there stood theirUncle George on the platform waiting for them. Jusy spied him first. "There's Uncle George, " he shouted, and ran towards him shouting, "UncleGeorge! Uncle George! Here we are. "

Rea followed close behind, holding up Fairy. "Look at my doggie thatSignor black Jim gave me, " she cried, holding Fairy up as high as shecould reach; and in the next minute she herself, doggie and all, wascaught up in Uncle George's arms. 

"What makes you cry, Uncle George?" she exclaimed; "we thought you wouldbe very glad to see us!"

"So I am, you dear child, " he said. "I am only crying because I am soglad. "

But Jusy knew better, and as soon as he could get a chance, he whisperedto Rea, "I should have thought you would have known better than to sayanything to Uncle George about his having tears in his eyes. It wasbecause we reminded him so much of mamma, that he cried. I saw thetears come in his eyes, the first minute he saw us, but I wasn't goingto say a word about it. "

Poor little Rea felt badly enough to think she had not understood asquickly as Jusy did; but the only thing she could think of to do was tospring up in the seat of the wagon, and put her arms around her uncle'sneck, 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 mydoggie!"

But when she said this, the tears came into Mr. Connor's eyes again; andRea looked at Jusy in despair. 

"Keep quiet, Rea, " whispered Jusy. "He doesn't want us to talk justyet, I guess;" and Rea sat down again, and tried to comfort herself withFairy. 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 offull of joy and gladness as she had thought it would be. Finally shestole her hand into his and sat very still without speaking, and thatreally did comfort Mr. Connor more than anything she could have done. The truth was, Rea looked so much like her mother, that it was almostmore than Mr. Connor could bear when he first saw her; and her voicealso was like her mother's. 

Jusy did not in the least resemble his mother; he was like his fatherin every way, --hair as black as black could be, and eyes almost as blackas 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 likethunder-storms, Jusy's fits of anger were; but, if they were swift andloud, like the thunder, they also were short-lived, --cleared offquickly, --like thunder-storms, and showed blue sky afterward, and abeautiful rainbow of sorrow for the hasty words or deeds. 

Rea was fair, with blue eyes and yellow hair, and a temper sunny as herface. 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 ather, 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 thelittle blue-eyed, golden-haired angel. " Rea did not know that the peoplesaid 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 thehouse was in sight all the way; it was so high up on the mountain-sidethat it showed plainly, and as it was painted white, you could see it inall directions like a lighthouse. Mr. Connor liked to be able to see itfrom all places when he was riding about the valley. He said it lookedfriendly to him; as if it said, all the time, "Here I am, you can comehome 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 nameof 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 mighthave called it Connor Hill, but I thought 'loa' was prettier. "

"Oh, so do I, " said Jusy. "It is lovely. Connorloa, Connorloa, " herepeated. "Doesn't it sound like some of the names in Italy, Rea?" hesaid. 

"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 armsaround 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 MissJulia herself; but the boy is not much like you. "

"No, " said Jusy proudly, throwing back his handsome head, and his eyesflashing. "I am always said to be exactly the portrait of my father; andwhen 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 inConnorloa 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 wouldbe the finest thing possible to live in a palace. "

"I don't, " said Rea. "I just hate them; the rooms are so big and socold; and the marble floors are so slip-py, I've had my knees all blackand blue tumbling down on them; and the stairs are worse yet; I used tohave to creep on them; and there is a soldier at every corner with a gunand a sword to kill you, if you break any of the rules. I think a palaceis 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 anyking. There were Republicans in Italy; very bad men. Papa said theyought to be killed. Why do you call Rea by that name, Uncle George?" andJusy 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 allRepublicans here. You know we do not have any king. We do not think thatis the best way to take care of a country. "

"My papa thought it was the best way, " haughtily answered Jusy. "I shallthink always as papa did. "

"All right, my man, " laughed Uncle George. "Perhaps you will. You canthink and say what you like while you live in America, and nobody willput you in prison for your thoughts or your words, as they might if youlived in Italy. "

It was near night when they reached the house. As they drove slowly upthe long hill, the Chinamen were just going, on the same road, to theirsupper. When they heard the sound of the wheels, they stepped off theroad, and formed themselves into a line to let the carriage pass, and toget a peep at the children. They all knew about their coming, and werecurious to see them. 

[Illustration: "The Chinamen were just going to their supper, and theyformed themselves into a line. "--PAGE 60. ]

When Rea caught sight of them, she screamed aloud, and shook withterror, and hid her face on her uncle's shoulder. 

"Are those the savages?" she cried. "Oh, don't let them kill Fairy;" andshe nearly smothered the little dog, crowding her down out of sight onthe seat between herself and her uncle. 

Jusy did not say a word, but he turned pale; he also thought these mustbe the savages of which they had heard. 

Mr. Connor could hardly speak for laughing. "Who ever put such an ideaas that into your head?" he cried. "Those are men from China; those aremy 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, --"savagesand 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 tofrighten these children in that way. It was abominable. "

"She did nothing of the kind, " cried Jusy, his face very red. "She wastalking to her cousin; and she thought we were asleep; and Rea and Ilistened; and I told Rea it was good enough for us to get so frightenedbecause 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 gladnessof their hearts. Mr. Connor was a good master to them; and they knew itwould be to him great pleasure to have these little children in thehouse. 

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 theybreak if they hit them?"

At first, Mr. Connor could not understand what she meant; then in amoment he shouted with laughter. 

Chinamen have their heads shorn of all hair, except one little lock atthe top; this is braided in a tight braid, like a whiplash, and hangsdown their backs, sometimes almost to the very ground. The longer thisqueer little braid is, the prouder the Chinaman feels. All the rest ofhis head is bare and shining smooth. They looked to Rea like the headsof porcelain baby dolls she had had; and that those would break, sheknew by sad experience. 

How pleased Rea and Jusy were with their beautiful rooms, and witheverything in their Uncle George's house, there are no words to tell. They would have been very unreasonable and ungrateful children, if theyhad not been; for Mr. Connor had not forgotten one thing which could addto their comfort or happiness: books, toys, everything he could thinkof, or anybody could suggest to him, he had bought. And when he ledlittle Rea into her bedroom, there stood a sweet-faced young Mexicangirl, 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 totake off Rea's hat; on which Rea exclaimed, --

"Why, she is Italian! That is what Caterina called me. And Caterina hada 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 soundsso 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 speaksmuch more Spanish than English. That is one reason I took her. I wantyou 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 onereason he was so useful to the King. Nobody could come from any foreigncountry that papa could not talk to. My papa said the more languages aman spoke, the more he could do in the world. I shall learn all theAmerican 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 languagefor every State, I should say. But the fewer you learn of them thebetter. If you will speak good English and Spanish, that is all you willneed 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, andwent out and told the Chinamen in the kitchen that Miss Rea wished tolearn to speak Chinese at once. So they thought she must be a very nicelittle girl, and were all ready to be her warm friends. 

The next morning, as Rea was dressing, she heard a great caterwaulingand miaowing. Fairy, who was asleep on the foot of her bed, sprang upand began to bark furiously; all the while, however, looking as if shewere frightened half to death. Never before had Fairy heard so manycats' voices at once. 

Rea ran to the open window; before she reached it, she heard Jusycalling 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: thestables, the Chinamen's quarters, the tool-house, the kitchen, thewoodpile; there was nothing he had not seen; and he was in a state ofsuch delight he could not walk straight or steadily; he went on the runand 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 comeup to have my hair done afterwards. What is it, Anita? Is it reallycats? Are there a thousand?"

Anita laughed. "No, seņorita, " she said. "Only seventeen! And you willsee them every morning just the same. They always make this noise. Theyare being fed; and there is only a very little meat for so many. Jimkeeps 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 gophersand rabbits and moles. They are clearing them out fast. Jim says byanother 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 eastveranda. At the kitchen door stood a Chinaman, throwing bits of meat tothe 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 lookedlike twice as many cats as there really were, and as if every cat had adozen tails. "Sfz! Sfz! Sputter! Scratch, spp, spt! Growl, growl, miaow, miaow, " they went, till, between the noise and the flying around, it wasa bedlam. 

Jusy had laughed till the tears ran out of his eyes; and Ah Foo (thatwas the Chinaman's name) was laughing almost as hard, just to see Jusylaugh. The cats were an old story to Ah Foo; he had got over laughing atthem long ago. 

Ah Foo was the cook's brother. While Jim had been away, Ah Foo hadwaited at table, and done all the housework except the cooking. Thecook's name was Wang Hi. He was old; but Ah Foo was young, not more thantwenty. He did not like to work in the house, and he was glad Jim hadgot home, so he could go to working out of doors again. He was veryglad, 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 likeJim, only a different color. They have men of all kinds of colors herein America. They are just like other people, all but the color. Comeon, 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 ofthe veranda. "I can see very well here, " she said; and there she stoodclinging to the pillar. She was half afraid of the cats, too, besidesbeing very much afraid of the Chinaman. 

The cats' breakfast was nearly over. In fact, they had had their usualallowance before Rea came down; but Ah Foo had gone on throwing out meatfor Rea to see the scrambling. Presently he threw the last piece, andset the empty plate up on a shelf by the kitchen door. The cats knewvery well by this sign that breakfast was over; after the plate was seton that shelf, they never had a mouthful more of meat; and it was drollto see the change that came over all of them as soon as they saw thisdone. In less than a second, they changed from fierce, fighting, clawing, scratching, snatching, miaowing, spitting, growling cats, intoquiet, peaceful cats, some sitting down licking their paws, or washingtheir 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 hadall they wanted, and wouldn't thank anybody for another bit of meat, ifthey could have it as well as not. This was almost as funny as the firstpart of it. 

After Ah Foo had set the plate in its place on the shelf, he turned togo into the kitchen to help about the breakfast; but just as he had puthis hand on the door-handle, there came a terrible shriek from Rea, afierce sputter from one of the cats, and a faint bark of a dog, all atonce; and Ah Foo, looking around, sprang just in time to rescue Fairyfrom the jaws of Skipper, one of the biggest and fiercest of the cats. 

Poor little Fairy, missing her mistress, had trotted downstairs; andsmelling on the floor wherever Rea had set her feet, had followed hertracks, 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 herin less than one minute if Ah Foo had not been there. But Ah Foo couldmove almost as quickly as a cat; and it was not a quarter of a secondafter Fairy gave her piteous cry, when she was safe and sound in hermistress's arms, and Ah Foo had Skipper by the scruff of his neck, andwas holding him high up, boxing his ears, right and left, with blows sohard they rang. 

"Cat heap wicked, " he said. "You killee missy's dog, I killee you!" andhe 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, evenif he had flown at Fairy. "It will kill him, " she cried. 

Ah Foo laughed. "Heap hard killee cat, " he said. "Cat get nine time lifegood;" and as he spoke, Skipper, after whirling through the air inseveral somersaults, came down on his feet all right, and slunk off intothe woodpile. 

"I tellee you, " said Ah Foo, chuckling. 

"Thatee isee heapee goodee manee, " cried Jusy. "I havee learnee talkeeoneee language already!"

A roar of laughter came from the dining-room window. There stood UncleGeorge, holding his sides. 

"Bravo, Jusy!" he exclaimed. "You have begun on pigeon English, haveyou, 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 theChinese way of talking English. It is called pigeon English. But come into breakfast now, and I will tell you all about my cats, --my huntingcats, I call them. They are just as good as a pack of hunting dogs; andbetter, for they do not need anybody to go with them. "

How pleasant the breakfast-table looked!--a large square table set withgay china, pretty flowers in the middle, nice broiled chicken and friedpotatoes, 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'tbe 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 seealmost anything in the shape of a human being, --man, woman, orchild, --come there to live. How much more, then, these two beautiful andmerry children!

Jusy and Rea thought they had never in all their lives tasted anythingso good as the broiled chicken and the baked apples. 

"Heapee goodee cookee, Uncle George!" said Jusy. He was so tickled withthe 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 seethat they do not add the 'ee' to every word. It is hard to imitate themexactly. "

Jusy was crestfallen. He thought he had learned a new language in halfan hour, and he was proud of it. But no new language was ever learnedwithout 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 huntingcats. He had been greatly troubled by gophers and rabbits: the gopherskilled his trees by gnawing their roots; the rabbits burrowed under hisvines, ate the tender young leaves, and gnawed the stems. 

Jim had tried every device, --traps of all kinds and all the poisons hecould hear of. He had also tried drowning the poor little gophers outby pouring water down their holes. But, spite of all he could do, thewhole hill was alive with them. It had been wild ground so long, andcovered so thick with bushes, that it had been like a nice house builton 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 themscampering away wherever you went; and in the early morning it was veryfunny to see the rabbits jumping and leaping to get off out of sightwhen 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 tipto their tails, they are called "cotton-tails. "

When Mr. Connor first moved up on the hill, Jim used to shoot acottontail almost every day, and some days he shot two. The rabbits, however, are shyer than the gophers; when they find out that they getshot as soon as they are seen, and that these men who shoot them havebuilt houses and mean to stay, they will gradually desert their burrowsand move away to new homes. 

But the gopher is not so afraid. He lives down in the ground, and canwork in the dark as well as in the light; and he likes roots just aswell as he likes the stems above ground; so as long as he stays in hiscellar houses, he is hard to reach. 

The gopher is a pretty little creature, with a striped back, --almost aspretty as a chipmonk. It seems a great pity to have to kill them alloff; but there is no help for it; fruit-trees and gophers cannot live inthe same place. 

Soon after Mr. Connor moved into his new house, he had a present of abig 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 andsquirrels 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 turneda minute, and eat you out of house and home. I'll give you a splendidcat. She's a good hunter. I've got more cats than I know what to dowith. "

So she presented Jim with a fine, big black and white cat; and Jim namedthe cat "Mexican, " because a Mexican woman gave her to him. 

The first thing Mexican did, after getting herself established in hernew 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, wasto go out hunting for food for them; and one day, as Mr. Connor wasriding up the hill, he saw her running into the woodpile, with a big fatgopher in her mouth. 

"Ha!" thought Mr. Connor to himself. "There's an idea! If one cat willkill one gopher in a day, twenty cats would kill twenty gophers in aday! I'll get twenty cats, and keep them just to hunt gophers. They'llclear the place out quicker than poison, or traps, or drowning. "

"Jim, " he called, as soon as he entered the house, --"Jim, I've got anidea. I saw Mexican just now carrying a dead gopher to her kittens. Doesshe kill many?"

"Oh, yes, sir, " replied Jim. "Before she got her kittens I used to seeher with them every day. But she does not go out so often now. "

"Good mother!" said Mr. Connor. "Stays at home with her family, doesshe?"

"Yes, sir, " laughed Jim; "except when she needs to go out to get foodfor 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 havingher about. "

"No more do I, " replied Mr. Connor. "But I do not dislike them so muchas I dislike gophers. And don't you see, if we have twenty, and theyall hunt gophers as well as she does, we'll soon have the placecleared?"

"We'd have to feed them, sir, " said Jim. "So many's that, they'd nevermake all their living off gophers. "

"Well, we'll feed them once a day, just a little, so as not to let themstarve. 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'tget them any other way. There is room in the woodpile for fifty tolive. "

Jim did not much like the idea of having such an army of cats about; buthe went faithfully to work; and in a few weeks he had seventeen. Onemorning, 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? Weshall be overrun. "

Jim laughed. "I'm three short yet, sir, of the number you ordered, " hesaid. "There are only seventeen in that batch. "

"Only seventeen! You are joking, Jim, " cried Mr. Connor; and he triedto count; but the cats were in such a scrambling mass, he could notcount them. 

"I give it up, Jim, " he said at last. "But are there really onlyseventeen?"

"That's all, sir, and it takes quite a lot of meat to give them all abite of a morning. I think here are enough to begin with, unless youhave 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 willmake twenty-three. "

"Plenty! plenty!" said Mr. Connor. "Don't get another one. And, Jim, " headded, "wouldn't it be better to feed them at night? Then they will behungry the next morning. "

"I tried that, sir, " said Jim, "but they didn't seem so lively. I don'tgive them any more than just enough to whet their appetites. At firstthey sat round the door begging for more, half the morning, and I had tostone them away; now they understand it. In a few minutes, they'll allbe 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 thereare squirrels living in there too. It is just a kind of cage, thatwoodpile, with its crooks and turns. I saw a squirrel going up, up, init the other day; I thought he'd make his way out to the top; I thoughtthe cats would have cleaned them all out before this time, but theyhaven't; I saw one there only yesterday. "

Jim had counted too soon on Mexican's kittens. Five of them came to asad end. Their mother carried to them, one day, a gopher which she foundlying dead in the road. Poor cat-mother! I suppose she thought toherself when she saw it lying there, "Oh, how lucky! I sha'n't have tosit 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 hishole; and as soon as the little kittens ate it, they were all takendreadfully ill, and all but one died. Either he hadn't had so much ofthe gopher as the rest had, or else he was stronger; he lingered alongin misery for a month, as thin, wretched-looking a little beast as everwas seen; then he began to pick up his flesh, and finally got to be asstrong a cat as there was in the whole pack. 

He was most curiously marked: in addition to the black and white of hismother's skin, he had gray and yellow mottled in all over him. Jimthought it looked as if his skin had been painted, so he named himFresco. 

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. Thenthere was Big Tom, and another Tom called China Tom, because he wouldstay all the time he could with the Chinamen. He was dark-gray, withblack stripes on him. 

Next in size and beauty was a huge black cat, called Snowball. He wasgiven to Mr. Connor by a miner's wife, who lived in a cabin high up onthe mountain. She said she would let him have the cat on the conditionthat he would continue to call him Snowball, as she had done. She namedhim 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 shelived, she liked a joke whenever she could contrive one. 

Then there was Skipper, the one who nearly ate up Fairy that firstmorning; he also was as black as coal, and fierce as a wolf; all thecats were more or less afraid of him. Jim named him Skipper, because heused to race about in trees like a squirrel. Way up to the very top ofthe biggest sycamore trees in the caņon back of the house, Skipper wouldgo, 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 bettereating than gophers. 

Mexican, Big Tom, China Tom, Snowball, Skipper, and Fresco, --these aresix of the names; the other four were not remarkable; they did not meananything 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 gaveher that name because she was so artful and sly about getting more thanher share of the meat. She would watch for the biggest pieces, andpounce on them right under some other cat's nose, and almost alwayssucceed in getting them. So Jim named her Humbug, which was a very goodname; 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 shewhisked in, and got the biggest pieces, and twice as much as any othercat 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 attheir morning meal, or while they were prowling, looking, and waitingfor gophers and rabbits. 

For a long time, Rea carried Fairy tight in her arms whenever there wasa cat in sight; but after a while, the cats all came to know Fairy sowell that they took no notice of her, and it was safe to put her on theground and let her run along. But Rea kept close to her, and neverforgot her for a single minute. 

There were many strange things which these cats did, besides hunting thegophers. They used also to hunt snakes. In one of the rocky ravines nearthe house there were large snakes of a beautiful golden-brown color. Onwarm days these used to crawl out, and lie sunning themselves on therocks. 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, andcome down with his fore claws firm planted in the middle of the snake'sback; then he would take it in his teeth, and shake it, flapping itshead 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 sohelpless in the claws of a cat. 

Another thing the cats did, which gave the men much amusement, was, thatwhen 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 beheard in the stables; and on running to see what was the matter, therewould be found Big Tom or Skipper, sitting down calm and happy by theside of a dead rabbit, which he had carried in, and for some reason orother best known to himself had deposited in plain sight of the mules. Why they chose to carry dead rabbits there, unless it was that theyenjoyed seeing the mules so frightened, there seemed no explaining. Theynever took dead gophers up there, or snakes; only the rabbits. Once amule was so frightened that he plunged till he broke his halter, gotfree, and ran off down the hill; and the men had a big chase before theyovertook him. 

But the queerest thing of all that happened, was that the cats adopted askunk; or else it was the skunk that adopted the cats; I don't knowwhich would be the proper way of stating it; but at any rate the skunkjoined the family, lived with them in the woodpile, came with them everymorning to be fed, and went off with them hunting gophers every day. Itmust have been there some time before Jim noticed it, for when he firstsaw it, it was already on the most familiar and friendly terms with allthe cats. It was a pretty little black and white creature, and looked agood deal like one of Mexican's kittens. 

Finally it became altogether too friendly: Jim found it in the kitchencellar one day; and a day or two after that, it actually walked intothe house. Mr. Connor was sitting in his library writing. He heard asoft, furry foot patting on the floor, and thought it was Fairy. Presently he looked up; and, to his horror, there was the cunning littleblack and white skunk in the doorway, looking around and sniffingcuriously at everything, like a cat. Mr. Connor held his breath and didnot dare stir, for fear the creature should take it into its head thathe was an enemy. Seeing everything so still, the skunk walked in, walkedaround both library and dining-room, taking minute observations ofeverything by means of its nose. Then it softly patted out again, acrossthe 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 neckhe could wring with one hand; and yet he no more dared to touch it, ortry to drive it out, than if it had been a roaring lion. As soon as itwas 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 hadadopted, seems to be thinking of adopting me; he spent some time in thelibrary with me this morning, looking me over; and I am afraid he likedme and the place much too well. I should like to have him killed. Canyou manage it?"

"Yes, sir, " laughed Jim. "I was thinking I'd have to kill him. I caughthim in the cellar a day or two since, and I thought he was getting tofeel too much at home. I'll fix him. "

So the next morning Jim took a particularly nice and tempting piece ofmeat, covered it with poison, and just as the cats' breakfast wasfinished, and the cats slowly dispersing, he threw this tidbit directlyat the little skunk. He swallowed it greedily, and before noon he wasdead. 

Jim could not help being sorry when he saw him stretched out stiff nearhis home in the woodpile. "He was a pert little rascal;" said Jim. "Idid kind o' hate to kill him; but he should have stayed with his ownfolks, if he wanted to be let alone. It's too dangerous having skunksround. "

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 haddone 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 willbe horrified to hear the name of this enemy. It was the linnet. Yes, themerry, chirping, confiding little linnets, with their pretty red headsand bright eyes, they also were enemies, and must be killed. They weretoo fond of apricots and peaches and pears and raspberries, and allother nice fruits. 

If birds only had sense enough, when they want a breakfast or dinner offruit, to make it off one, or even two, --eat the peach or the pear orwhatever it might be all up, as we do, --they might be tolerated inorchards; nobody would grudge a bird one peach or cherry. But that isn'ttheir way. They like to hop about in the tree, and take a nip out offirst one, then another, and then another, till half the fruit on thetree has been bitten into and spoiled. In this way, they ruin bushels offruit 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 tocry. 

"Yes, my dear sweet little girl, " said Uncle George. "The dear sweetlittle linnets will not leave us a single whole peach or apricot orcherry to eat. "

"No!" said Jusy, "they're a perfect nuisance. They've pecked at everyapricot on the trees already. "

"I don't care, " said Rea. "Why can't they have some? I'd just as sooneat after a linnet as not. Their little bills must be all clean andsweet. 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 mightkill a thousand to-day and not know the difference. "

The cats had already done a good deal at hunting linnets on their ownaccount, in a clandestine and irregular manner. They were fond of linnetflesh, and were only too glad to have the assistance of an able-bodiedman with a gun. 

When they first comprehended Jim's plan, --that he would go along withhis gun, and they should scare the linnets out of the trees, wait forthe shot, watch to see where the birds fell, and then run and pick themup, --it was droll to see how clever they became in carrying it out. Retriever dogs could not have done better. The trouble was, that Jimcould shoot birds faster than the cats could eat them; and no cat wouldstir from his bird till it was eaten up, sometimes feathers and all; andafter 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 tiredof the linnet diet, and did not work with so much enthusiasm. But atfirst it was droll, indeed, to see their excitement. As soon as Jimappeared with his gun, every cat in sight would come scampering; and itwould not be many minutes before the rest of the band--however theymight have been scattered, --would somehow or other get wind of what wasgoing on, and there would be the whole seventeen in a pack at Jim'sheels, all keeping a sharp lookout on the trees; then, as soon as a catsaw a linnet, he would make for the tree, sometimes crouch under thetree, sometimes run up it; in either case the linnet was pretty sure tofly 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 aminute more, there would be nothing to be seen of that linnet, except afew 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 wouldnever go. She used to sit sorrowfully at home, and listen for thegunshots; 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 isa cruel, cruel boy! I wouldn't see them shot for anything, and I don'tlike the cats any more. "

"But, " said Anita, "my little seņorita did not mind having the gopherskilled. It does not hurt the linnets half so much to be shot dead in onesecond, as it does the gophers to be caught in the cats' claws, and tornto pieces sometimes while they are yet alive. The shot-gun kills in asecond. "

"I don't care, " said Rea. "It seems different; the linnets are sopretty. "

"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 thecontrary, they were frightful to look at; yet you pitied them so muchthat you shed tears. "

"Oh, yes!" cried Rea, "I should think I did; and, Anita, I dreamed aboutthem all night long. I am going to ask Uncle George to build a littlehouse for them up in the caņon. There is plenty of room there he doesnot want; and then nobody could drive them out of that place as long asthey live; and I could carry them their dinner every day. Don't youthink he will?"

"Bless your kind little heart!" said Anita. "That would be asking agreat deal of your Uncle George, but he is so kind, perhaps he will. Ifsomebody 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 onthe piazza now to watch for him. " And taking Fairy in her arms, Reahurried downstairs, went out on the veranda, and, climbing up into thehammock, 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 flushedwith the heat, his eyes sparkling. 

"O Rea!" he said. "We have had a splendid hunt! What do you think! Jimhas shot twenty linnets in this one morning! and that Skipper, he'seaten five of them! He's as good as a regular hunting dog. "

"Where's Uncle George?" asked Rea sleepily, rubbing her eyes. "I wantUncle 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. Allpeople 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. "Atleast, you won't have any fruit orchard. You'll have just a treeorchard. "

"Well, a tree orchard is good enough for anybody, " replied Rea halfcrossly. She was not yet quite wide awake. "There is plenty of fruit instores, 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 tosell, had to kill all the linnets and things, just the same way, or elsethey 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; andas 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 UncleGeorge 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 killinglinnets, and such cruel things; I think you are real wicked. Don't youknow those poor old Indians we saw yesterday?--the ones that are goingto be turned out of their house, down in San Gabriel by the church. Ihave been thinking about them ever since; and I dreamed last night thatUncle 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 facewith a look which made him ashamed. "Jusy, " she said, "I can't help itif you are older than I am; I must say, I think you are cruel. You liketo 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 badyourself, if your skin was black, and you were a hundred years old, andhadn't got a penny in the world. You are real hard-hearted, Jusy, I dothink you are!" and the tears came into Rea's eyes. 

"What is all this?" said Uncle George, coming up the steps. "Notquarrelling, my little people!"

"Oh, no! no!" cried both the children eagerly. 

"I never quarrel with Rea, " added Jusy proudly. "I hope I am old enoughto know better than that. "

"I'm only two years the youngest, " said Rea, in a mortified tone. "Ithink I am old enough to be quarrelled with; and I do think you'recruel, Jusy. "

This made Uncle George smile. "Look out!" he said. "You will be in aquarrel yet, if you are not careful. What is it, Rea?"

While Rea was collecting her thoughts to reply, Jusy took the words outof her mouth. 

"She thinks I am cruel, because I said I didn't believe you would builda 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 sooften done in this world, --one of the unfairest and most provoking ofthings; he had told the truth in such a way as to give a wrongimpression, which is not so very far different, in my opinion, fromtelling a lie. 

"A home for Indians up in the caņon!" exclaimed Uncle George, drawingRea to him, and seating her on his knee. "Did my little tender-heartedRea want me to do that? It would take a very big house, girlie, for allthe poor Indians around here;" and Uncle George looked lovingly at Rea, and kissed her hair, as she nestled her head into his neck. "Just likeher mother, " he thought. "She would have turned every house into anasylum if she could. "

"Oh, not for all the Indians, Uncle George, " said Rea, encouraged by hiskind smile, --"I am not such a fool as Jusy thinks, --only for those twoold ones that are going to be turned out of their home they've alwayslived in. You know the ones I mean. "

"Ah, yes, --old Ysidro and his wife. Well, Rea, I had already thought ofthat myself. So you were not so much ahead of me. "

"There!" exclaimed Rea triumphantly, turning to Jusy. "What do you saynow?"

Jusy did not know exactly what to say, he was so astonished; and as hesaw Jim and the cats coming up the road at that minute, he gladly tookthe 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 veryold Indian; nobody knew how old; but he looked as if he must be ahundred at least. Ever since he could remember, he had lived in a littlehouse in San Gabriel. The missionaries who first settled San Gabriel hadgiven a small piece of land to his father, and on it his father hadbuilt this little house of rough bricks made of mud. Here Ysidro wasborn, and here he had always lived. His father and mother had been deada long time. His brothers and sisters had all died or gone away to livein some other place. 

When he was a young man, he had married a girl named Carmena. She wasstill 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 inthe little mud house. 

They were very poor; but they managed to earn just enough to keep fromstarving. There was a little land around the house, --not more than anacre; but it was as much as the old man could cultivate. He raised a fewvegetables, chiefly beans, and kept some hens. 

Carmena had done fine washing for the San Gabriel people as long as herstrength 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 inbed most of the time, for she had the rheumatism in her legs and feet soshe 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 notgone into her hands, for the money she earned by making lace was thechief part of their living. 

Sometimes Ysidro earned a little by days' works in the fields orgardens; but he was so old, people did not want him if they could getanybody 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 madethem out of the stems of a plant called yucca; but he had to go a longway to get these plants. It was slow, tedious work making the mats, andthe store-keepers gave him only seventy-five cents apiece for them; soit was very little he could earn in that way. 

Was not this a wretched life? Yet they seemed always cheerful, and theywere as much attached to this poor little mud hovel as any of you canbe to your own beautiful homes. 

Would you think any one could have the heart to turn those two poor oldpeople out of their home? It would not seem as if a human being could befound who would do such a thing. But there was. He was a lawyer; I couldtell you his true name, but I will not. He had a great deal to do withall sorts of records and law papers, about land and titles and all suchthings. 

There has always been trouble about the ownership of land in California, because first it belonged to Spain, and then it belonged to Mexico; andthen we fought with Mexico, and Mexico gave it to us. So you can easilysee that where lands are passed along in that way, through so manyhands, it might often be hard to tell to whom they justly belonged. 

Of course this poor old Ysidro did not know anything about papers. Hecould not read or write. The missionaries gave the land to his fathermore than a hundred years ago, and his father gave it to him, and thatwas all Ysidro knew about it. 

Well, this lawyer was rummaging among papers and titles and maps ofestates in San Gabriel, and he found out that there was this little bitof land near the church, which had been overlooked by everybody, and towhich nobody had any written title. He went over and looked at it, andfound Ysidro's house on it; and Ysidro told him he had always livedthere; but the lawyer did not care for that. 

Land is worth a great deal of money now in San Gabriel. This littleplace of Ysidro's was worth a good many hundred dollars; and this lawyerwas determined to have it. So he went to work in ways I cannot explainto you, for I do not understand them myself; and you could notunderstand them even if I could write them out exactly: but it was alldone according to law; and the lawyer got it decided by the courts andthe judges in San Francisco that this bit of land was his. 

When this was all done, he had not quite boldness enough to come forwardhimself, and turn the poor old Indians out. Even he had some sense ofshame; so he slyly sold the land to a man who did not know anythingabout the Indians being there. 

You see how cunning this was of him! When it came to the Indians beingturned out, and the land taken by the new owner, this lawyer's namewould not need to come out in the matter at all. But it did come out; sothat a few people knew what a mean, cruel thing he had done. Just forthe sake of the price of an acre of land, to turn two aged helplesspeople out of house and home to starve! Do you think those dollars willever do that man any good as long as he lives? No, not if they had beena 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. Thelawyer had been cunning enough to make sure he was safe, before he wenton to steal the old Indian's farm. The law was on his side. Ysidro didnot really own the land, according to law, though he had lived on it allhis 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 willdo away with these bad laws, and make better ones. 

The way Rea had found out about old Ysidro was this: when Jim went tothe post-office for the mail, in the mornings, he used generally to takeAnita and Rea in the wagon with him, and leave them at Anita's mother'swhile 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 greenparrot, that could talk in both Spanish and English; and Rea was nevertired of listening to her. She always carried her sugar; and she used tocock her head on one side, and call out, "Seņorita! seņorita! Pollylikes sugar! sugar! sugar!" as soon as she saw Rea coming in at thedoor. It was the only parrot Rea had ever seen, and it seemed to her themost wonderful creature in the world. 

Ysidro's house was next to Anita's mother's; and Rea often saw the oldman 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 inbed at work on her embroidery. When Carmena heard that Rea was Mr. Connor's niece, she insisted upon giving her a beautiful piece of lacewhich she had made. Anita did not wish to take it, but old Carmenasaid, --

"You must take it. Mr. Connor has given us much money, and there wasnever anything I could do for him. Now if his little seņorita will takethis, it will be a pleasure. "

So Rea carried the lace home, and showed it to her Uncle George, and hesaid she might keep it; and it was only a few weeks after this that whenAnita and Rea went down to San Gabriel, one day, they found the oldcouple in great distress, the news having come that they were going tobe turned out of their house. 

And it was the night after this visit that Rea dreamed about the poorold creatures all night, and the very next morning that she asked herUncle 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 withme?"

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 tobuild them a house. "

"Uncle George, will you really, truly, do it?" said Rea. "I think youare the kindest man in all the world!" and she ran for her hat, and wasdown on the veranda waiting, long before the horses were ready. 

They found old Ysidro sitting on the ground, leaning against the wall ofhis house. He had his face covered up with both hands, his elbowsleaning 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 veryrarely cry. He is feeling all the worse that he will not let himselfcry, 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 tryit?"

"I've tried to try it, " said Rea, "and it felt so much worse, Icouldn't. "

It was not easy at first to make old Ysidro understand what Mr. Connormeant. He could not believe that anybody would give him a house and homefor 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 knowhow little strength he had; so he said, --

"Seņor Connor, I am very old; I am sick too. I am not worth hiring towork. "

"Bless you!" said Mr. Connor. "I don't want you to work any more thanyou do now. I am only offering you a place to live in. If you arestrong 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; hegazed as if he were trying to read his very thoughts. Then he looked upto the sky, and he said, --

"Seņor, Ysidro has no words. He cannot speak. Will you come into thehouse 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 sawMr. Connor and Rea coming in at the door, she threw up her hands andburst out into loud crying. 

"O seņor! seņor!" she said. "They drive us out of our house. Can youhelp us? Can you speak for us to the wicked man?"

Ysidro went up to the bed and took hold of her hand, and, pointing withhis 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 stayhere! She won't be glad of the new house. "

"Yes, she will, by and by, " whispered Mr. Connor. "Stop crying, that'smy good Rea. "

But Rea could not. She stood close to the bed, looking into oldCarmena's distressed face; and the tears would come, spite of all herefforts. 

When Carmena finally understood that not even Mr. Connor, with all hisgood 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, forhe was afraid Mr. Connor would think her ungrateful. But Mr. Connorunderstood it very well. 

"I have lived only two years in my house, " he said to Rea, "and I wouldnot change it for one twice as good that anybody could offer me. Thinkhow 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, --"thedirtiest 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 isthat one loves. "

Just as Mr. Connor and Rea came out of the house, who should come ridingby, but the very man that had caused all this unhappiness, --the lawyerwho 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 theirpossessions, and planning what big vineyards and orchards they wouldplant and how much money they would make. 

When this man saw Mr. Connor, he turned as red as a turkey-cock'sthroat. He knew very well what Mr. Connor thought of him; but he bowedvery low. 

Mr. Connor returned his bow, but with such a stern and scornful look onhis 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 badnessI most despise. " But he did not tell her that he was the man who wasresponsible for the Indians being driven out of their home. He thoughtit better for Rea not to know it. 

"Are there different sorts of badness, --some badnesses worse thanothers?" asked Rea. 

"I don't know whether one kind is really any worse than another, " saidMr. Connor. "But there are some kinds which seem to me twice as bad asothers; and meanness and cruelty to helpless creatures seem to me thevery 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, theycrossed the grounds of a Mr. Finch, who had a pretty house and largeorange orchards. Mr. Finch had one son, Harry, about Jusy's age, and thetwo boys were great cronies. 

As Mr. Connor turned the horses' heads into these grounds, he saw Jusyand 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 hadsomething to show him. "

As soon as Jusy caught sight of the carriage, he came running towardsit, 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 imaginewhat had become of him. They finally came to the conclusion that he musthave 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 ateach end of a little bridge over the ditch, through which the water wasbrought down for irrigating Mr. Finch's orchards. Harry's dogs werethere too, one at each end of the bridge, barking, yelping, watching asexcitedly 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 beout presently. "

Sure enough, there he was, plainly to be heard, scuffling and spittingunder the bridge. 

The poor little rabbit ran first to one end of the bridge, then to theother, trying to get out; but at each end he found a dog, barking todrive him back. 

Presently Snowball appeared with the dead rabbit in his teeth. Droppingit 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 twodogs and he, fell to eating the rabbit in the friendliest manner. 

"Don't you think!" cried Jusy. "He's been hunting this way, with thesedogs, all this time. You see they are so big they can't get in under thebridge, and he can; so they drive the rabbits in under there, and hegoes in and gets them. Isn't he smart? Harry first saw him doing it twoweeks ago, he says. He didn't know it was our cat, and he wondered whoseit could be. But Snowball and the dogs are great friends. They gotogether all the time; and wherever he is, if he hears them bark, heknows they've started up something, and he comes flying! I think it isjust 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 aschicken, the other day. It isn't any worse for cats and dogs to eatthem, than it is for us; is it, Uncle George?"

"I think Jusy has the best of the argument this time, pet, " said UncleGeorge, looking fondly at Jusy. 

"Girls are always that way, " said Harry politely. "My sisters are justso. They can't bear to see anything killed. "

After this day, Rea spent most of her time in the caņon, watching themen at work on Ysidro's house. 

The caņon was a wild place; it was a sort of split in the rocky sides ofthe mountain; at the top it was not much more than two precipices joinedtogether, with just room enough for a brook to come down. You can see inthe picture where it was, though it looks there like little more than agroove in the rocks. But it was really so big in some places that hugesycamore 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'shouse. It was built out of mud bricks, called adobe, as near aspossible like Ysidro's old house, --two small rooms, and a thatched roofmade 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 ofroom in the wagon, besides, for the few little bits of furniture theyhad. 

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 iton the table, all ready for them. 

When they lifted Carmena out of the wagon, she held, tight clutched inher hand, a small basket filled with earth; she seemed hardly willing tolet go of it for a moment. 

"What is that?" said Jusy. 

"A few handfuls of the earth that was ours, " replied Ysidro. "We havebrought it with us, to keep it always. The man who has our home will notmiss 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 theyhave to move away from a home they love they carry a little of the earthwith them; sometimes they put it in a little bag, and wear it hanging ontheir necks; sometimes they put it under their heads at night. "

"Yes, " said Carmena, who had listened to what Jim said. "One can sleepbetter 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 carethen. "

"Well, I do now!" he cried. "I didn't think how bad they'd feel. Now ifit were in Italy, I'd go and tell the King all about it. Who is thereto tell here?" he continued, turning to his Uncle George. "Who is therehere, 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 atthe top, as our King is in Italy?"

"Yes, there is one above all the rest, " replied Mr. Connor. "We call himthe President. "

"Well, why don't you write and tell him about Ysidro?" said Jusy. "Iwish I could see him, I'd tell him. It's a shame!"

"Even the President could not help this, Jusy, " said Mr. Connor. "Thelaw was against poor Ysidro; there was no help; and there are thousandsand 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; andat 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 Ican; and I have made up my mind that when I am a man I shall not go toItaly, as I said I would, to be an officer for the King. I shall stayhere, and be an officer for the American President, instead; and I shalltell him about Ysidro, and about all the rest of the Indians. "

 * * * * *

There is nothing more to be told about the Hunter Cats. By degrees theydisappeared: some of them went to live at other houses in the SanGabriel Valley; some of them ran off and lived a wild life in thecaņons; 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 seeingthem hunt gophers and linnets. 

Perhaps, some day, I shall write another story, and tell you more aboutJusy and Rea, and how they tried to help the Indians. 

[Illustration: MATS MADE BY YSIDRO. --Page 126. ]