The Hired Girl (22 page)

I saw the sycamore leaves flutter as the kitten fled. “Kittykittykitty,” sang Mimi in a sugary voice.

“Can you catch it?” I asked.

“Shhh. I’ll wait a little. You can’t chase after a cat too much. Cats have to come to you.”

Nobody ever told me that before. I wonder if that’s why Thomashefsky always ducks away from me. Maybe it has nothing to do with me being a Gentile. I heard a faint rustle, and Mimi crooned, “Kittykittykitty?”

She coaxed and crooned for the next five minutes, creeping farther and farther out on the branch. I wouldn’t have thought she could be so patient. I waited below, saying Hail Marys inside my head. I hope it wasn’t sacrilegious. It seems to me the Blessed Mother must love all creatures, including pussycats.

I heard a shriek of protest from the kitten. Mimi crowed, “Got him! Look out, I’m coming down!”

In an instant she was dangling from the branch. I rushed forward to catch her, but I didn’t time it right, or she didn’t; she dropped down before I expected. The best I could do was break her fall, and I guess I did. Both of us tumbled to the grass.

Once again we untangled. Mimi reached inside her dress and took out the kitten. He was trembling all over, poor little thing. “Here. You take him while I put my shoes back on.” She scooped him into my hands.

I clasped him to my breast. He was so frightened, and so small. At that moment . . . well, there’s a lot in books about love at first sight, but I’ve never known if I believed in it or not. But I never felt anything so like it as when I cradled that kitten in my hands. He was so tiny and fragile and scared that my heart ached. It felt soft and swollen with tenderness.

He’s such a pretty little thing. He has stripes. His background fur is the color of ginger, but his stripes are darker, like dark brown sugar. There’s a milky-white patch under his pointy chin, and his paws have sweet little pink pads and sharp, sharp claws. “His eyes are blue!”

“All kittens have blue eyes,” said Mimi, tugging at her stocking. “Just like babies. They change later on. Didn’t you know that?”

I didn’t. Father hates cats. Every now and then, a stray cat will take shelter in the barn, but Father always shoots it. I explained this to Mimi. Her eyes grew wide and solemn. “I think your father must be the meanest man who ever lived,” she said. “Thank goodness you ran away.”

We brushed off our dresses and put our hats back on, and I picked up my diary. We headed out of the park, taking turns carrying the kitten. I felt jealous when he was in Mimi’s hands, but I knew she had the right to hold him. She was the one who climbed the tree.

“I couldn’t have rescued him without you,” Mimi assured me. I swear that child can read my mind. “He’ll be both our cat. What’ll we call him? I think Harry’s a nice name.”

The perfect name came to me at once. “Moonstone. I’m reading a book about a yellow diamond that shines like the harvest moon. We’ll call him Moonstone.”

“Moonstone,” repeated Mimi, tasting it. She flashed her bewitching smile at me. “That’s even better than Harry.”

We walked home in perfect accord. I was so happy. I was happy because I was in love with Moonstone, but I was also happy because I felt close to Mimi. We really are friends, Mimi and I. I don’t believe she cares one bit that I’m only the hired girl.

But when we got back to Eutaw Place, everything went wrong. Mimi and I took the kitten to show Mrs. Rosenbach, and she said it was out of the question that we should keep him. She said they already had the Thomashefsky cat, and one animal was enough. Mimi argued that Thomashefsky really belongs to Malka, and she (Mimi) is tired of Thomashefsky and would rather have the kitten. Mrs. Rosenbach said that was a pity, but Malka had enough to do with feeding Thomashefsky and letting him out of the house a dozen times a day. I assured her I would feed Moonstone and look after him; I offered to pay for his food out of my wages.

But Mrs. Rosenbach was adamant. She said she didn’t allow her servants to keep pets. Mimi pointed out that Malka had Thomashefsky, but Mrs. Rosenbach said that Malka wasn’t a servant; she was a member of the family. She said we should take the kitten back to the park where we found it, so it would have a chance to find its way home. She said that it probably lived in the park and hadn’t been lost at all.
Now
it was lost, because we’d brought it to Eutaw Place.

I couldn’t believe the cruelty of that. I was close to tears. Mrs. Rosenbach told me, in the most
patronizing way,
to use my handkerchief, which wasn’t fair because I wasn’t crying. Mimi lost her temper and said her mother was mean, mean, mean. Mrs. Rosenbach sent Mimi to her room and ordered me to take the kitten back to the park. She said that cats are good at finding their way home.

My last hope was that Malka might let me keep the kitten in the kitchen. But Malka said the Thomashefsky cat wouldn’t like it, and as if to prove her right, the wretched cat hissed and growled at that poor little kitten. Malka told me to put the kitten out. She said it would find its way back to its mother.

I didn’t believe that for a minute. I’m sure that kitten has no mother. Somehow I know that Moonstone is like me, all alone in the world. It was
wrong
to put him back outside, where there are big dogs and automobiles and nasty little boys who throw stones. I really could not bear it, and I cried. At last Malka relented and said I could give Moonstone a little milk before I turned him out.

So I poured out a saucer of milk — I forgot to say that by that time Moonstone was tired of being held and was mewing and scratching. I took one of the cold fish balls we made for supper and broke it up for him. Malka said it was a crime to waste her good fish balls like that, but I told her I wouldn’t have any; Moonstone was only eating mine. I put the food on the floor, but the Thomashefsky cat came slinking over, the greedy thing. So I had to feed Moonstone outside, in Malka’s miserable little plot of a garden.

I was afraid he would run away but he didn’t. At first he hid behind the garbage bins, but I was able to coax him out again. When he tried to lap the milk, he sneezed. I squatted down and dipped my hand in the milk and let him lick it off my finger. I know he’s too young to face the world by himself. It hurts my heart, what a baby he is.

I could have stayed with him forever, but Malka called me in and made me shuck corn. All evening she scolded me because I kept looking outside to see if he was still there. The last time I looked — just before nine — he wasn’t, and I can’t bear thinking of that little, little darling thing out in the dark.

I can’t bear it. It’s past midnight, but I’m going to go search for him. No one will hear me creep downstairs and go out the cellar door. And if I find Moonstone, I shall bring him upstairs to my room, where he’ll be safe — and if I lose my job for saving his life, I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care.

Thursday, August the third, 1911

I am so bereft. I miss Moonstone, though my time with him was so fleeting. I wouldn’t have thought I could love anything so much in such a short while. Miss Chandler once told me about a great Italian poet named Dante Alighieri, who fell in love with a girl he saw on a bridge. He never got to know her; he just saw her crossing the bridge and fell in love. I thought it strange and wonderful that a poet could fall in love so quickly and stay in love his whole life long. The girl — her name was Beatrice — was little more than a child. But maybe he loved her just because she was so young. Maybe her youth made him feel tenderhearted, the way Moonstone made me feel.

When I went to search for Moonstone, I found him behind the garbage bins. I coaxed him out and smuggled him upstairs. I’m sure he was glad to see me, because he purred when I picked him up. And oh, he was so cunning in my bedroom, so bright-eyed and graceful that I couldn’t take my eyes off him.

Even though it was past midnight, he wanted to play. After an hour or so, I was sleepy. I put him in bed with me and blew out the candle, but he didn’t sleep. He thought I was a mountain range, and he wanted to explore. I tried to keep still so he’d go to sleep, but I have a way of twitching my toes back and forth when I’m drowsy, and that made him think there was a mouse under the sheet. He pounced on my toes again and again.

But by and by I slept, and he did, too. When I woke the next morning, there was a little circle of golden fur by my side. How can cats make themselves into such perfect rounds? I looked at him and he was so soft and stripy and golden and young; I kissed him again and again.

Only, when I got up, I found he’d been a bad cat in the night. He’d tried to cover it up, but he’d been bad on my stockings. I couldn’t blame him because he was a prisoner in my room, but the smell was nasty. I began to see how difficult it was going to be to hide him, with the messes and the meows and having to steal food from the kitchen.

I didn’t know what to do, so I prayed. I begged the Blessed Mother to show me a way to save Moonstone. I know she heard me, because all at once I remembered what Mrs. Rosenbach said my first night here.
Oh, Solly! It used to be cats and dogs!
I saw the significance of those words. Before he rescued me, Mr. Solomon must have brought home stray cats and dogs.

So then I knew what to do: ask Mr. Solomon for help. Perhaps he could talk Mrs. Rosenbach into letting me keep Moonstone. After all, he’s her firstborn son, and anyone can see how proud she is of him. I don’t always like Mrs. R., but she’s a very devoted mother.

I shut Moonstone in my room and started downstairs. I tried to think how I might catch Mr. Solomon alone. It wouldn’t be easy because he often goes to Temple in the morning. I was still pondering when I reached the stair landing. Then impulse seized upon me. I tiptoed down the hall to Mr. Solomon’s door and stood outside, listening.

I heard a drawer open and shut. He was awake and humming one of those sad-happy Jewish tunes. I knocked. Now that I look back, it strikes me that going to his bedroom was a bold thing to do. But at the time, I didn’t think about it. Every day I go into Mr. Solomon’s room and make the bed, and dust the furniture, and pull the shades down so the room won’t heat up. I gather his dirty clothes and check to see if his shoes need polishing, and I comb the hairs out of his hairbrush. Mr. Solomon is tidy except for his socks. For some reason, he likes to roll them up in little balls and toss them around. I never know where I’ll find them. I don’t know why I’m writing this. I guess what I’m trying to say is that it would be easier for me to be shy about men’s bedrooms if I weren’t a hired girl.

All the same, I jumped when the door opened.

He was dressed and shaved, thank goodness. He looked at me quizzically and said, “Janet?” I could see him trying to work out why I was knocking on his door.

I thought I’d better be quick. I said, “Oh, sir, I’m sorry to trouble you, but I don’t know what to do and —”

“Is something wrong downstairs?” he asked. “Is Malka ill?”

“No, no,” I said. “But I need your help something awful — I don’t know who else could help me.” My eyes filled up with tears. I thought of how little Moonstone was, and how he didn’t have anyone but me, and how I didn’t have anyone but Mr. Solomon.

Mr. Solomon said, “Can’t this wait? Surely after breakfast —” But then he switched to making consoling Jewish sounds. I told him how Mimi and I rescued Moonstone together and how Mrs. Rosenbach said we couldn’t keep him. I told him how Malka made me shoo him outside and how in the night I couldn’t bear it and I had to rescue him again.

“The kitten’s upstairs?” he said, before I’d quite finished. “In your room?”

“I couldn’t leave him out in the dark,” I said. “He’s just a tiny little kitten.”

“Let me see him,” said Mr. Solomon.

He followed me to my room. When we opened the door, Moonstone was up on the windowsill, watching the sparrows. He leaped onto the chair and down to the floor, and crossed the linoleum with his little tail held high. My heart swelled at the sight of him. He was so bold, so curious, and so pretty.

Mr. Solomon hunkered down and tapped his fingers on the floor. Moonstone pricked up his ears. Then Mr. Solomon took his handkerchief from his pocket, shook it loose, and tickled the floor with it.

The kitten was delighted. He began to frisk and scamper and pounce. Mr. Solomon played with him — oh, so gently! Ma used to say that men were rough because that was their nature. I wish she could have seen Mr. Solomon playing with Moonstone.

“He’s a pretty little fellow,” said Mr. Solomon. With one deft hand, he caught hold of the kitten and turned him on his back. “Actually, it’s a she. She’s friendly, too. No wonder you lost your heart to her.”

I knelt down across from him. “That’s just it — that’s exactly what happened. I’ve lost my heart. I can’t part with him — her. I just can’t!”

He made a soft noise with his tongue against his teeth and dangled the handkerchief over Moonstone’s head, so she had to leap for it. Then he waved it in a circle, so that she chased her tail. I couldn’t help laughing. Most of the time when you laugh, it’s because something is amiss — clumsy or wrong or sad — but when you laugh at a kitten, you laugh for pure joy. “Do you think you can persuade your mother to let me keep her?”

He looked me straight in the eye. “No, I don’t. I’m sorry, Janet, but I know my mother. When I was a boy, I was always bringing home stray animals. Then it became Malka’s job to care for them, and Mother’s job to find them new homes. A kitten is more work than you think. They get into everything, and they need to be watched.”

“I’ll watch her,” I vowed, but I felt my eyes fill with tears. Malka keeps me busy all day long.

“You can’t,” said Mr. Solomon gently. “You have work to do. Besides, Mother won’t allow it. She’ll be even more set against the kitten when she finds out it’s a girl. That means kittens later on. And then there’s Thomashefsky. Cats don’t like sharing their homes.”

“But Moonstone’s so little, and she hasn’t any mother,” I wept.

Mr. Solomon took the handkerchief away from Moonstone and handed it to me. “Tell me, Janet,” he said, “do you love this kitten enough to want a good home for her, even if she has to live somewhere else?”