I Know a Secret

Front matter

Other books by the same author

Fiction

(with Don Marquis)

Fourchette and the Kittens

FOURCHETTE was a wise old cat who knew how pleasant it is to sit still and do nothing. The top of the cellar doorway was her favourite place. The doors had just enough slope to make them very comfortable for sprawling; the morning sunshine fell warmly there; and the kitchen was just overhead, so she could smell the cooking and get an idea of what the next meal was likely to be. There were many reasons why Fourchette liked the cellar door, though she was too lazy to tell you them all. It was raised above the ground so that she could keep an eye on the kittens, Hops and Malta, as they played about. Just below it, behind the laurel bushes, was an open window into the cellar. It was convenient to be able to flit in there if anything sudden happened. One jump from the sill to the washtubs, one more jump to the cellar floor, and there you were with all sorts of dark hiding places to choose. An experienced cat, no matter how comfortably you see her dozing, has always picked out in her mind which way she will run in an emergency. An emergency means something dangerous that happens very quickly, such as Fritz, the Snyders' dog, coming into the garden and making a dash at her.

Also, Fourchette liked the cellar door because the old weatherbeaten gray paint was just the same colour as her fur. She looked handsome lying there, and a cat of good family thinks of her appearance. Dogs, as you know, don't care. Donny, the long-haired sheepdog, will spend half the night barking through the woods after rabbits, plunge into the marshy edges of Gissing Pond, and come home with his coat full of burrs and mud. Does he mind? Not a bit. He chooses the softest place in one of the flowerbeds and lies down for a nap. But a cat can't sleep until she is clean.

This Sunday moming in summer everything was a little too thrilling for sleep. There had been kippered herring for breakfast, and an exciting fishy whiff still lingered in the bright air, mixed with the warm sweetness of the mint that grew by the back steps. When there was kippered herring, Perez, the Filipino cook, always gave the cats the juice from the can. The herrings had been lying in that juice ever since they were packed somewhere in Scotland; I have often heard Fourchette say there isn't anything more delicious. The only difficulty was that Donny was very fond of it too, and Fourchette always had to stand guard and hiss him away; while she was doing that the kittens, their pink tongues flashing busily, got most of the treat. Then they complained of being thirsty, but Fourchette had taught them to lick little drops of dew from the grassblades. This was more refreshing than the water in Donny's bowl, which had a queer taste because there was a big lump of yellow sulphur in it.

Few people know how many pleasant smells a cat's nose enjoys on a warm morning. That is why cats usually stay near the kitchen where the fragrance is more interesting. Some day when you are walking round the house you can make a list of the different things you smell. Fourchette, as she lay with her front paws tucked under her, could feel in her nose not only the breakfast herrings, but the first cracklings of the leg of lamb that Perez had in the oven for lunch, and the cool ashy whiff from the cellar entry below her, oily and leathery smells from the garage, ticklings of heliotrope and mignonette in the flowerbed, and a soft mixed sweetness that drifted out of the woods on the other side of the house. There was a cat-bird in the wood, who made a queer mewing sound as if on purpose to tease her. When Fourchette heard that her ears tingled and twitched just as they do when you blow in them.

There was the smell of the kittens. Kittens smell very fragrant, like warm sweet biscuits. Louise knows that, and though she has been advised not to put stray cats up to her face, because they are often lively with fleas, yet I think I have seen her do it just to enjoy their smell.

And there were odours of dog. The smell of Donny, of course, was quite strong by the back steps; but Fourchette was used to that. Her nose also told her that Donny's friends Mike Hopkins and Fritz Snyder had been to call that morning.

Hops and Malta were squabbling over the Funny Paper. There was plenty of it for both of them, and by taking turns they ought to have been able to enjoy it without fuss. But they always did fuss about it and Fourchette had threatened many times, if that sort of thing went on, to burn it up, before anyone had seen it at all, in the big wire basket where rubbish is put. The incinerator, she called it, a word that had a great effect on the kittens. They knew that sin meant things that were unpleasant, and this long word incinerator, they supposed, had something to do with it. "If you do that, I'll put you in the incinerator," Hops once shouted at Malta when they were quarrelling over their croquet. Fourchette then explained to them that the word simply means something that turns other things into ashes. Fourchette, who was a well-educated cat, worried a good deal about the kittens' training. She was a Wonderful Mother, the kind handsomely described on the Greeting Cards, but there are moments when even they are less Wonderful. She felt, lying there in the sunshine, that she really ought to punish the kittens for squabbling, but she was in one of those drowsing moods that are so helpful in the lives of middle-aged cats. There are times when even kittens must be left to settle things for themselves, as we all have to do sooner or later. But the squalling went on, and a little angriness began to prickle in her lazy muscles. Her eyes opened and brightened, and she was just getting ready for a sudden spring when she was startled by a very polite voice beside her.

"Is there where Madame Fourchette lives?" it said, with a slight foreign accent.

Fourchette was greatly surprised; so much so that for a moment she forgot her dignity and her manners and simply stared. The stranger was a snail, a creature quite rare in Long Island gardens. A large, fat, and very comely snail with a round striped shell and two bright anxious eyes at the ends of queer elastic prongs. Snails are rather short-sighted, which sometimes makes their behaviour seem bold and forward without their intending it, for they are really quite bashful. So the visitor had come very close before he saw Fourchette at all. Now, when she gave a start of astonishment, the stranger retired nervously inside his shell. There was a long silence.

"I beg your pardon," said Fourchette presently, still a little bewildered. "Did you say anything?"

The snail, very carefully, put out one eye from under his shell and looked at her. His eye was courteous but wary. Fourchette almost laughed, he was really rather amusing, peering up like that.

"Forgive me for taking you by surprise," he said, "I am so short-sighted. I really ought to wear glasses, but with eyes like mine it would be so difficult to keep them on." This was true, for now that he had put his head out again his eyes were constantly moving forward and back and waving to and fro. He kept gazing at her with a sort of nervous hopefulness which Fourchette found slightly embarrassing.

"I introduce myself," he continued. "My name is Escargot, pronounced S-car-go—with a slight accent on the go. You see, I am French. And when I heard your name mentioned at the station, I thought perhaps I would have the pleasure of meeting another person from my own country."

"How do you do, Mussoor," said Fourchette. "I believe that some of my ancestors were French. But before my marriage I was a Roulston."

Of course Fourchette's notion about French ancestry was nonsense: her name was given her by Louise when the family had lately come back from Normandy. Her connections were all with the chain-stores: she herself had grown up at Roulston's grocery, down by the station, and her husband (when last heard of) worked for the A & P in Roslyn Heights. He was that rather handsome cat who used to lie in a sack of white beans in the window.

"That is a long journey, from France," she said kindly. "You must be tired."

"I am very glad to be here," he said. "I left France because, though it is a beautiful country, they have one very regrettable habit. They eat snails. I fled from my home to avoid being eaten. Perhaps fled is too hasty a word," he added thoughtfully. "At any rate, I departed. Tell me, Madame," he said, waving his eyes anxiously, "in this country, snails are not, I believe, considered a delicacy?"

"Certainly not," Fourchette reassured him.

"So I understood," he said, "from the conversation of an American family that was visiting France. I was one of a platter of snails that their cook, old Julie, a truly murderous woman, had gathered for their dinner. But when they heard about it, they refused to have those brave snails sacrificed for their nourishment. Julie was instructed to replace us in the garden. Our lives were saved, and I have come to America to express my gratitude. As you say, it is a long journey, but I affixed myself to the baggage of some travellers and got here at last. It is true that I had some difficulty in the Pennsylvania Station, where I just escaped being trodden upon."

He moved his eyes rather wildly, and Four- chette noticed that he did not look at all well. She hastened to bring him a fragrant leaf of mint, but he had retired into his shell, speechless. Escargot had fainted.

The Grape Arbor Tea Room

THE visitor lay quite ill for several days. They carried him tenderly to the rabbit hutch beside the garage, where he lay on a lettuce leaf. Rabbits are the most sympathetic nurses, and Binny and Bunny tended him with care, even trying not to keep munching when they were close to him because it made him nervous. Bunny, who is a white lady rabbit with beautiful ruby eyes, was as pretty as a Red Cross nurse in a white uniform. Fourchette had explained the situation to everyone, and they all tried to keep as quiet as possible. The breakdown was really caused by the fact that Escargot had tried to board his first Long Island train just at the time when the rush of commuters was at its thickest. Again and again the bewildered snail had approached the gate where he saw the sign Oyster Bay. This had attracted him because he thought that people travelling on a line associated with oysters would be quiet and reposeful. But each time, as the gate was opened, the hurry of feet had frightened him away. This had gone on all Saturday afternoon and evening; it was not until early Sunday morning that he could get aboard a train. Even then he had to change at Jamaica, which was difficult. He had arrived at Roslyn in a very nervous state.

Mr. Mistletoe, the writer, looking out of his workroom window, was unfeeling enough to—hope, secretly, that Escargot would be ill a long while. For children and animals all kept much quieter on the snail's account than they ever had for the sake of his work. By the rabbit hutch Junior had put up a sign which said

Hospital! Do not scream or talk loud

There were ten children and two dogs who did most of their playing just outside Mr. Mistletoe's window. Perhaps that was why Mr. Mistletoe, though only thirty-seven, had four gray hairs by one ear and two by the other. The four gray hairs were by his left ear, which was the one nearer the window as he sat at his writing. But now, out of consideration for the suffering snail, there was a good deal of silence. The four young Mistletoes, the four young Snyders, the two young Cassidies, rode their bicycles and velocipedes elsewhere. Donny, who is rather a noisy dog, turned his face away when the iceman or Masini the grocer or Craft the meat market came to the house. He pretended not to see, so he would not feel it his duty to bark. Donny is a sheep dog who has never seen a sheep. All his ancestors were trained to herd sheep, so naturally he has a strong family desire to do so too. But never having seen a sheep, he does not know just what it is that he misses. He thinks that tradesmen and callers are sheep and wants to herd them.

Louise and Helen and Blythe, the three younger Mistletoes, held a meeting at the Sand Club, a mysterious little summerhouse in the back garden, and elected Escargot an honorary member. Junior got out a special number of the Roslyn Estates News, a typewritten newspaper, to report the invalid's progress. Hops and Malta tried hard not to quarrel. Fourchette kept com- ing out from the kitchen with leaves of Mr. Masini's best lettuce or spinach to tempt the snail's appetite. Perez, whose bedroom in the garage was just beside the rabbit hutch, sat there in the evenings playing soft encouraging music on his ukulele. At last the invalid seemed to shake off his weakness. His eyes no longer peered timidly from under his shell, but came out and waved boldly and gratefully. He even disputed with Bunny her habit of eating the old sheet of lettuce when she made his bed fresh every morning. He began eating part of it himself. He was getting better.

The illness of Escargot had brought the neighbourhood together in a way nothing had done before. Every morning they would all gather round the rabbit hutch to inquire about the snail, and their interest in him seemed to make them forget any private feuds of their own. You would have been surprised to see them. Pigeons and chickens from Mr. Hopkins's, robins and squirrels from the woods near by, Fourchette and her kittens, Donny and Fritz, even Cap, the big red setter who hardly ever goes off Mr. Hopkins's grounds, all would sit quietly together beside the wire netting of the rabbit run while Bunny made her morning report. Fourchette and Fritz, who were too confirmed enemies to be really friendly, could not pretend any pleasure in their meetings, but they ignored each other with careful politeness. If Fritz ever caught Fourchette's eye he looked quickly in another direction. Fourchette did not forget that Fritz had once killed one of her cousins, and Fritz remembered the scratch she had given him across the tenderest part of his nose. But for the time all were on their best behaviour. Even the chipmunks who live in the wall of Mr. Mistletoe's study, behind the bookshelves, ventured out to join the meetings. Mr. Mistletoe believes that these gay little chipmunks have a kind of night club in the passages between his walls and ceiling. Late at night he hears them dancing: they scamper and skirmish in there, scrambling and pattering to and fro. Light, light are their tiny feet, frolicking in the dry dusty tunnels between the beams. They frisk there like thoughts in the back of the mind. Mr. Mistletoe, as he lies on his couch at night, thinking severely of things he wants to write, has a horrid suspicion that perhaps sometimes they nibble at the electric wires. He wonders whether this could cause a short circuit somewhere, so that some evening he might start up and find the whole house wreathed in flame.

Day by day, as Escargot grew stronger, he delighted them all with his charming ways. His French accent was pleasant to listen to: it seemed to give new and quaint meaning to very simple sayings. His small face was humorous and polite; with shy courtesy he thanked them all for their kindness. Fourchette, who had reached the time of life where she meditated much on the meanings of things, perceived that Escargot was a philosopher. For as soon as he was tired, he withdrew into his spiral cell. What he did or thought about in there, no one knew, but inside that personal fortress he could not be interrupted. How lucky are people with shells, Fourchette thought.

Cats have a love of quiet, and this general truce that accompanied Escargot's illness was a great joy to Fourchette. A secret fear had been troubling her for some time. She had seen Mr. Mistletoe, a man of sudden tempers, looking rather fiercely from his workroom window while the animals were at their pranks. Fritz would bark at the rabbits, the kittens would scream at Fritz, Donny would growl at them all or sprawl his heavy body in the flowerbeds, breaking down the irises and hollyhocks, squirrels would ride up and down the drive chattering on their velocipedes, and in the middle of all this hubbub Mr. Mistletoe would shout furiously from his window for a little silence.

"If this sort of thing goes on," he would yell, "I'll pack you all into the car and take you to the Bide-a-Wee." Fourchette had only a vague notion of what the Bide-a-Wee might be. But she knew, from whispered rumour among the cats and dogs of the neighbourhood, that it was a kind of farm, over on the South Shore, where animals were taken when they became a nuisance. It might be a very pleasant place, but animals have a strong sense of Home and hate to leave any place to which they are well accustomed. So the name became an omen, almost a Bad Word. The most embarrassing thing that one could say to another, in moments of temper, was "You go to Bide-a-Wee!"

So Fourchette's great idea came to her. The animals were all sitting around the rabbit run, and now that Escargot was getting stronger they were beginning again to be a bit noisy. One reason why animals squabble among themselves is that they are almost always hungry; and the sight of the rabbits, perpetually munching, was really irritating. It occurred to Fourchette that if she and Escargot started a tea room, in the grape arbor behind the garage, where the various creatures could always get something to eat whenever they wanted it, it would keep them all quiet and good humoured. Escargot, who was such a restful sort of person, would be an admirable manager for a tea room: and she herself could be waitress.

Bones, dog biscuits, milk, nuts, lettuce and carrot salads, corn for the chickens, a little oats now and then for the rabbits, fish occasionally for the kittens—Fourchette's eyes brightened when she thought of the car from the Roslyn Sea Food Market driving up the hill.

"But how would we pay for the food?" said Donny. "We haven't any of us any money."

"We'll arrange a course of lectures in connection with the tea room," said Fourchette. Just as Donny was a sheep dog who had never seen a sheep, so was Fourchette a well-educated female who had never been to lectures, and there was a vacancy in her life. She knew that whenever Mr. Mistletoe was very hard up he went off somewhere and gave a lecture.

"Here we have Mussoor Escargot, a distinguished foreigner," she said. "People will always pay more for lecturers from abroad. He can give a series of talks."

"I don't think I should be very good at lecturing," said Escargot. "Why don't we all tell stories?"

The animals pricked up their ears at this. For all animals love stories. They get them not out of books but out of the exciting things that actually happen.

"A very good idea," said Donny. "You say the kittens need some education, that's the best way to give it to them. If you'll supply the food, we'll tell Hops and Malta some fairy tales that will put sense into them. They can't ever be more than cats, but at least they'll be cats with some respect for intelligence."

And the chickens, squirrels, birds, rabbits, dogs, frogs, spiders, insects, all the creatures of the Roslyn Estates who were sitting by the rabbit run listening, echoed Donny's idea. So the Grape Arbor Tea Room and Storytelling School was founded.

Now I must tell you just a word about the grape arbor. It was not much of an arbor, only a place behind the garage where a long grape vine trailed down from a tree beyond the fence, and was propped on poles. But the animals all liked that little back-lot because a few years before it had been a regular small jungle of briars and thickets, snakes and poison ivy and violets. So it still had something of the good smell and feeling of a wild place. You go to it by a little path that passes under an arch of lilac and round the end of the garage. Behind the garage is a strip of blue gravel. The wide branches of an oak tree overhang the fence, and it is all quite snug and private. By the grape arbor is the little workroom, built against the end of the garage, where you can go if it rains. The grass is coarse and ragged, but there is a hollow in the ground where the sunshine is very warm and yellow. You feel that you are by yourself, and like it.

So they hurried to sweep and clean the arbor. Perez, always good natured, was glad to help. Fourchette, in a clean apron, made the tea on an oil stove in the workroom, and served meals on paper plates on the ground. Escargot, sitting on a large grape leaf where he would not get walked on, was master of ceremonies. Junior painted a sign for the arbor and typed the menu cards. The news soon went round among all the animals. People got the habit of dropping in about the hungry time of the afternoon. It was understood that the stories told after tea were specially for the benefit of the kittens, but there were amusements for others too. Sometimes Perez, sitting on a little bench under the trees, would play music for the company, or the squirrels would give a climbing exhibition. Once the Gissing Pond Choir, the best singers among all the frogs of the neighbourhood, came up to give a concert. Escargot made a rule that anyone who caused disturbance or argument would not be admitted again. It was a happy time.

Mr. Mistletoe became curious about this congregation of animals behind the garage. He used to see them quietly slipping toward the back lot. He would hear the silken whirr of pigeons' wings as they flew over from Mr. Hopkins's barn, or notice a file of frogs and wild rabbits hopping briskly up the drive. Writers are inquisitive, and many times he went out into the garage and hung about in the hope of hearing what went on. But animals are shy and whenever he was near they pretended they were doing something else. The tales they told would never have got into this book if it had not been for Escargot. How that happened you will learn later. Meanwhile, here are some of the stories.

Mr. Liverwurst's Picnic

THE kittens were always delighted when the picnic season began. It was a family that believed in picnics, and from April to October one might expect, almost any fine day, to see Fourchette burst out of the kitchen door, sniff the air, and suddenly exclaim "I'm sickantired of ordering meals! Let's shut up the house and go for a picnic!"

Then there was hurrying to collect bathing suits, towels, sweaters, sun hats, water wings, tin spades, toy boats, pieces of string, the old steamer rug, paper drinking cups, all the odds and ends that fill up the car and make a picnic a success.

But no food. It was understood that a picnic was to relieve Fourchette of the strain of housekeeping. When she went on a picnic she didn't even want to know what she was going to have to eat. That was to be a surprise.

There are all sorts of places to go picnicking, depending on the weather. You can go out the Parkway, where you see the airplanes over the flying fields and have a fine view across those wide grassy plains. Later on you get into the pine woods, or even go as far as Lake Ronkonkoma—a name the kittens found it hard to say. Or you can go to Lloyds Neck, a wonderful region they highly approved. If you knew the lanes and trails of Lloyds Neck you could find your way past that huge oak tree (the biggest on Long Island) to Target Rock. Donny used to remark, a little anxiously, as he drove the car, that all those wonderful lonely beaches on Lloyds Neck were "Private Property." But in those days the Neck was very quiet, they disturbed no one and were never moved off. Indeed the kittens came to believe that the words Private Property simply meant a fine place for a picnic.

Or there was the lighthouse at Eatons Neck, another excellent shore to visit. Donny really preferred that. Though it was farther to go, it belonged to the government, and he felt he had a right to use it. Once when the lighthouse keeper seemed a little doubtful Donny produced his license. It said: State of New York, Dog License Number 184525. Fee $2.25. Town of North Hempstead, County of Nassau. Dog's Name, Donny. Breed, English Sheep. Donny asserted that this proved him to be a tax-paying citizen, with a right to enjoy government property. The lighthouse keeper was so surprised at Donny's firmness that he let them go through and down to the beach.

But perhaps best of all were the picnics to the little Boat Club at Glen Cove. Because there, in case of a storm, you had the clubhouse to take shelter in. You were, so to speak, on your own ground and couldn't be turned off; and there was the catboat Platitude.

Hops and Malta, unlike most kittens, were very fond of the water. Even Fourchette, though she did not care much for sailing, admitted that a catboat was the most suitable kind of craft. A platitude simply means something flat and shallow, and she was. She had a centreboard, and was almost as broad as long. Donny used to say that she had submarine blood in her, for in a strong breeze she had a tendency to push her nose down into the water as if she was going right under. But on calm days, when there was a gentle breeze, Fourchette sat in a rocking chair on the verandah of the clubhouse while Donny and the kittens drifted about in the boat. Hops and Malta wore their little green bathing suits and they had old tire tubes, blown up with air, twisted round their waists in case of accident. If they were becalmed the kittens put their fishing lines overboard and hoped for a bite. They rarely caught anything, but they always hoped, and peered eagerly over the stern to watch their painted floats. Donny, who was not much interested in fish, smoked his pipe and watched the sky and looked quite like an old hairy sailor. Sometimes, if the wind failed altogether, he got out the oar and paddled the boat back to the dock. Then the kittens were always excited by the long spinning twirls of silver bubbles made by the blade of the oar in the still water. Fourchette always felt quietly relieved when they got safely back to the dock. In her own thoughts she was doubtful about water and once remarked that there was too much of it about Long Island. Donny said that was nonsense; that when you had an island you had to have enough water to go all the way round.

Wherever they went on a picnic, they always began by going to the same place—to Mr. Liverwurst's delicatessen store in Mineola. That was not his real name, but they called him so because Fourchette was extremely fond of his liverwurst sandwiches and said that all his meats were very reliable. She and the kittens sat in the car while Donny went into the shop to buy the lunch. No one was allowed to go in with him, so the food would always be a surprise. Donny tried to make it different each time, but he always got some liverwurst sandwiches (with rye bread, and no mustard). Among the things he enjoyed were sweet pickles, cheese cake, pork and bologna sandwiches, sardines, crackers, peanut butter, ginger ale, cream soda, stuffed olives, potato chips, chocolate, cream cheese, salted almonds, strawberry jam, and plain cake. Milk chocolate with cream cheese spread on it was an invention of his own which he liked enormously. Sometimes the night after a picnic, Donny growled a little in his sleep.

Mr. Liverwurst was a nice little German who had run this delicatessen store for a long time. All summer, every fine day, he was busy slicing sandwiches and making up bags of lunch for people who were going on picnics. On Saturdays and Sundays he must have cut hundreds of sandwiches. But he never had a chance to go on a holiday himself. Indeed he hardly knew just what a picnic was. He thought about this a great deal, until he got quite savage. If you think of a thing for a long time and do nothing about it you get yourself in a rather queer state. So it was with Mr. Liverwurst.