BEETLE LIKED TO WATCH the cat stretching in the sunshine, combing his belly with his tongue, chewing the burrs and stubble out from between his toes.
She never dared get close, for she was afraid, but even from a distance could tell that there was a gleaming patch of white in the dusty orange of
his fur, right below his chin; that one ear had a great bite taken out of it; and that his whiskers were cockeyed, going up on one side and down on the other, giving him a frisky, cheerful look.
Sometimes she left bits of her bread or cheese near the fence post by the river where she first saw him, but not very often, for the midwife was
generous only with the work she gave Beetle and stingy with rewards, and the girl was never overfed.
Once she found a nest of baby mice who had frozen in the cold, and she left them by the fence post for the cat. But her heart ached when she thought of the tiny hairless bodies in those strong jaws, so she buried them deep in the dung heap and left the cat to do his own hunting.
The taunting, pinching village boys bedeviled the cat as they did her, but he, quicker and smarter than they, always escaped. She did not, and suffered their pinching and poking and spitting in silence, lest her resistance inspire them to greater torments. Mostly she avoided them and everyone else, hiding when she could, scurrying along hidden, secret paths around the village, her head down and shoulders hunched.
One sunny morning, with stolen bread in her pocket for dinner and a bit of old cheese to share with the cat, Beetle started for the fence post. The
boys were already there, holding the cat aloft by his tail. His hissing and screeching sounded like demons to Beetle, and she covered her ears.
“Into the sack with him, Jack,” cried one boy. “We will see whether a cat can best an eel.”
And the sack with eel and cat was tossed into the pond.
Beetle stayed hidden, more afraid to attract the taunts and torments of the boys than to lose the cat.
After a time the tumbling sack sank into the reedy water, and all was still.
“Ah, Jack, you was right. The eel took that cat right down.” And the boy with the runny nose gave two apples to the boy with the broken teeth and they all went back to the fields.
Beetle waited a long time before she came out of hiding and waded into the muddy pond. With a stick broken from a nearby willow she searched through the reedy water, poking around and around the spot where the bag had gone down, working in bigger and bigger circles. Finally, near the edge of the pond, half out of the water, she found the bag, now soggy and still.
She dragged it out of the water, sat back on her heels, and watched. No movement. She poked it with her stick. Nothing.
“Cat,” she asked, “are you drownt? I’d open the sack and let you out, but I be sore afraid of the eel. Cat?”
She kicked the bag with her dirty bare foot. Nothing. She left the bag and started back to the village. Came back. Left again. Came back again.
The devil take you, cat, she cried. “I be sore afraid to open that sack, but I can’t just let you be.” Taking a sharp stone, she slit the bag and ran behind a tree. Looking like the Devil himself, a shiny brown eel slithered out and made for the pond. And the bag was still again.
Beetle watched it. Nothing. She crept closer. Nothing. A sudden movement sent her scurrying back to the tree. And then nothing again. She crept up to the bag and found the scrawny, scruffy orange cat tangled in the soggy sack. Carefully she untangled his limp body and lifted him out of the bag by his front legs. “By cock and pie, cat, I would have you live.”
Ripping a piece from the rag she called her skirt, she wrapped him tightly and ran her secret hidden route back to the village. She scooped a hole in
the dung heap and laid the cat in it.
If Beetle had known any prayers, she might have prayed for the cat. If she had known about soft sweet songs, she might have sung to him. If she had known of gentle words and cooing, she would have spoken gently to him. But all she knew was cursing: “Damn you, cat, breathe and live, you flea-bitten sod, or I’ll kill you myself.”
All day the cat lay still in his cave in the dung heap. Beetle stole time from her chores and came often to see him, wrap her skirt more tightly around him, and make sure he still breathed. Twice she left little bits of cheese, but they were not eaten.
When she checked again after supper, as the sun was setting and the mist rising, he was gone and the cheese with him. Nothing in the cave in the
dung heap but her bit of raggedy dress and a few threads from the sack, which he must have carefully combed from his fur before setting forth into the night.
And two days later (a holiday for the village, it being Lady Day, but not for Beetle, for the midwife would not feed those who did not work, even on Lady Day) there was the cat sitting on the fence post, licking his white patch to make it whiter still, waiting for Beetle and a bit of cheese. Finally Beetle came and they sat and ate their cheese together, to celebrate Lady Day. And Beetle told him what she could remember of her life before they found each other, and they fell asleep in the sun.
