The Grey Story Book/The Grey and White Kitten

by Katherine Merritte Yates

The Grey and White Kitten.

AMMA, oh, Mamma, do come here!" called Jessie.

"Your mamma has gone out, Miss Jessie," said Katie, the maid, coming to the kitchen door. "She said to tell you that she would be home by six o'clock."

"Oh, dear, what shall I do?" exclaimed Jessie, the tears coming into her eyes. "My kitty is sick, awfully sick. She just lies still and cries. I found her that way just now, when I came home from school. Oh, dear, I know she'll die! I know she will!"

Katie came and stood looking down at the little grey and white kitten. "She does seem to be pretty sick," she said, shaking her head. "I'll make her some catnip tea. That's good for cats," and she turned toward the kitchen door.

"Do hurry," called Jessie after her, and then sat down on the floor and took the kitten into her arms. "You poor little darling," she whispered, "I know it hurts just dreadfully; but we will give you some medicine in a minute."

As she said the word medicine Jessie started and opened her eyes very widely. "Why," she exclaimed, "I can't give my kitty medicine. That wouldn't do at all. Christian Science is the only thing that really cures."

Placing the kitten back on its cushion, she ran to the kitchen door. "Katie," she called, "never mind about the catnip tea. We don't want it."

"It's all made, Miss Jessie," said Katie, lifting a steaming cup in one hand and a saucer of milk in the other. "We'll put some in the milk and she'll drink it, I guess."

Jessie glanced back at the little kitten, which wes mewing very pitifully, but stood her ground, sturdily. "No," she said, "Mamma will treat her in Christian Science when she comes home."

Katie shook her head. "She won't be alive when your Mamma gets home, likely as not. It's only half-past four now. Better let me give her some of this. I don't like to see her suffer."

"No," Jessie turned back and sat down beside the little cushion. "I'll treat her myself," she said, firmly. "Please go out and leave me alone with her, Katie. Thank you ever so much for fixing the tea, though."

Katie went out, without a word, and Jessie bowed her head upon her hands and tried to think how to begin; but the kitten's moans grew more and more piteous and heart-rending, so that the little girl had to put her fingers into her ears to shut out the mournful cries.

"Poor little thing! Poor little thing!" she kept saying to herself, dismally. "She's awfully sick and I don't know how to go to work to help her. I can't remember a thing, and I just expect she'll die before Mamma gets home. Oh, dear!" and she removed her fingers from her ears to feel for her handkerchief, just as a particularly piteous mew came from the little cat. This was too much, and burying her face in the cushion beside the kitten, she began to sob.

"Oh, my kitty, my kitty, I'm so sorry for you!" she wailed. "Oh, dear, I ought to be treating you! You're not sick at all, kitty, you really are not. Oh, you poor, poor little kitten!"

Just here there came a giggle from the doorway. Jessie looked up with flashing eyes, to see her brother standing there, looking in, a broad grin upon his face.

"Why, Carl Ferry," she exclaimed, angrily, "you ought to be ashamed of yourself, to stand there, laughing, and my poor kitten sick and dying!"

Carl's face sobered. "Well, what were you trying to do when I came," he asked.

"I was treating it in Christian Science," said Jessie, forlornly. "Mamma is away and—oh dear—I don't seem to do it any good at all!"

"Do you call that treating in Christian Science, the way you were talking when I came? Well, you're very much mistaken if you do," said Carl, bluntly.

"Why, I said she wasn't sick," rejoined Jessie, in a hurt tone.

"So you did," said Carl, "and before and after it, you said how sorry you were for her. What are you sorry for, if she isn't really sick?"

Jessie hung her head.

"You know better than that, Jessie," went on Carl, more gently. "I'm sorry I laughed; but it did sound funny for a Science girl to talk that way and hope to do any good. I'll go now, and you try again, and know the truth while you're saying it. Don't just repeat the words like a parrot."

Carl walked away from the door, and Jessie hid her face in her hands again. "Dear God, please—" she began. "No, that's the way I used to pray before I learned about Science, and now I just have to know the truth, instead of coaxing God to do things; and the truth is that God has already done everything good for me, and what I have to do is to realize it. I have to realize that my kitten isn't sick, because everything God does is good, and it isn't good that a little kitten should be in pain. Then God didn't do it. Nobody did it, so it can't be sick. Kitty, you really and truly aren't sick and I know you're not."

Jessie sat for a long time, thinking over what she had been taught in Science, and then she put her face down on the cushion beside the little cat, which had grown quiet, and thought some more about how good God is, to do all things for us, and make everything smooth if we only have trust enough to know it, and then she went off to sleep.

When Mamma came home she found her there, with the kitten just waking up and stretching and yawning and catching at the little locks of brown, curly hair that had strayed over her.

Jessie sat up and rubbed her eyes and then caught the playful kitten in her arms. "Oh, Mamma, she's well!" she cried. "Sickness and other mortal mind things are just bad dreams, aren't they?"

"Yes, dearie," said Mamma, tenderly, "they are nothing but bad dreams and we cure them by knowing that they are dreams and by waking up to the truth."