“My goodness gracious!” exclaimed the rosy-faced porteress, trying to fold them all into her arms at once. “Come in and warm yourselves and eat a bowl of hot soup. Who will be kind to four orphans if it isn’t an orphanage? And who will turn out such a pretty little cat? Come in, come in, the sun is going down, and all children should be having their supper and going to bed.”
The little brothers trotted into the orphanage behind her, while the porteress carried the baby in the basket and Gobbolino followed at their heels.
Soon the little boys were seated at trestle tables with four and twenty other orphans, and when Gobbolino saw how hopefully they gobbled up their soup, how often they passed their plates for more, and how cheerfully they banged the heads of the other orphans with their wooden spoons, he trotted into the kitchen behind the porteress in great contentment and thankfully lapped up the saucer of bread and milk that she offered him there.
“Such pretty boys!” said the porteress. “A father or mother would be proud to own them!”
And she told Gobbolino that in a few days’ time the Lord Mayor and Mayoress were coming to the orphanage to choose an orphan to bring up as their own child. She felt quite sure that when they saw the little brothers and their pretty ways they would choose all three of them and the baby as well.
“And as for you, my pretty Gobbolino, we need a cat in the kitchen to keep down the mice,” said the porteress. “You can stay here and help the cook and mind the orphans for as long as you please.”
Gobbolino thanked her very gratefully, though he sighed a little at the thought of parting from the little brothers, of whom he had grown quite fond; but he liked to think of the kind home waiting for them, and of the father and mother who would care for them and bring them up as worthy citizens. It would suit him very well, he thought, to become an orphanage cat, and although the cook was very sour-faced and bad-tempered, the porteress was very kind.
So he slept well enough on the piece of old carpet that the cook threw at him, and was up early in the morning watching at the mouseholes in the hope of showing what he was worth by the time the cook came downstairs.
A witch’s kitten is always an excellent mouser.
Gobbolino had only to turn himself into a piece of Stilton cheese and wait outside the mousehole.
Presently,sniff-sniff-sniff! Scrabble-scrabble-scrabble! The mouse came down the wainscot sniffing with its pointed nose and twitching its greedy whiskers. It crept into the kitchen and looked about for the cook, but there was nobody there– only a tempting piece of Stilton cheese lying on the shiny red tiles.
Sniff-sniff-sniff! The mouse crept closer and closer, and then all of a sudden Gobbolino was a cat again, and there was one thief the less in the kitchen– for the mice stole the orphans’ cake and ran all over the larder leaving dirty little footmarks on all the food, doing nearly as much damage as the hobgoblin.
6
Gruel
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Gobbolino had caught three mice by the time the cook came downstairs, but she would not look at him or give him a word of praise.
She set about making gruel for the orphans’ breakfast. It was very thin and grey and unpleasant, and the orphans hated it. The porteress had told the cook to make them good porridge, but she never woke up herself until the tables were cleared. So the lazy cook made gruel day after day, and the porteress knew nothing whatever about it.
When Gobbolino saw the unpleasant grey mixture that the cook was stirring in the cauldron he felt sorry for the orphans, and when her back was turned he put a spell into the gruel that filled it full of sugar-plums.
No wonder their eyes shone with pleasure as their little bowls were filled, no wonder that they scraped them clean and shining so that the cook could hardly believe her eyes when the cauldron came back empty into the kitchen. She was accustomed to giving most of the gruel to the pigs.
The next day Gobbolino put caramels into the gruel, and the orphans shouted for joy. He also caught five mice for the cook, but she never gave him a word of praise, although he made himself as useful as ten kitchen maids about the kitchen, wiping the dishes, peeling the potatoes, and polishing all the orphans’ little boots.
The little brothers romped joyfully with the other orphans, playing at hide-and-seek, touch last, follow my leader, and other nursery games. The baby sat on the porteress’s lap and sucked its thumb. It gladdened Gobbolino’s heart to see them so contented and happy.
When he crept into the nursery to see how they were doing the little brothers flew to clasp him round the neck.
“Oh, our dear, our darling, our beautiful Gobbolino!” they shouted, while the baby crowed and kicked, but they had no time to make a fuss of him before the cook called him back to the kitchen. She said that the mice came out and jeered at her when he was out of the way.
The next day all was bustle and confusion, for the Lord Mayor and his lady were coming on the morrow to choose an orphan to bring up as their own child, and everything in the orphanage was made ready to receive them.
All the orphans’ best white frocks and shirts must be starched and ironed, their hair put in curlers, their nails cut, and their shoes polished; in the evening Gobbolino helped the cook and the porteress to bath them, every one, with many shouts and splashings and a great deal of water over the kitchen floor,which annoyed the cook very much indeed.
The orphans that were being bathed by the cook tried to escape from her to Gobbolino:
“Oh, dear, kind Gobbolino – do come and bath us! Oh, do!”
When the little brothers fell into the bony hands of the cook they cried and screamed and made such a fuss that she boxed their ears in desperation and left the kitchen, to the great joy of all the orphans, who skipped about the floor in their little nightshirts crying“Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!” till even Gobbolino grew a little weary of them.
In the morning the cook was still so angry that she put salt into the gruel instead of sugar, and all the sugar-plums in the world could not hide the taste of it, so Gobbolino made another spell and turned it into chocolate sauce.
No wonder that the orphans’ eyes grew round with wonder and delight as they sat round the table in their clean white frocks and shirts, covered with clean white bibs, all ready for the Lord Mayor’s visit. No wonder that they polished all their little bowls until not a scrap was left, and then dug their wooden spoons into the cauldron and polished that too till it gleamed and shone, and Gobbolino, watching from the doorway, purred with joy to see them all so happy.
But when the cook came up from the kitchen to fetch away the cauldron her eyes nearly started out of her head, for the orphans’ rosy cheeks were covered with chocolate sauce, and so were their clean white bibs, put on in the Lord Mayor’s honour. No wonder that their faces shone with pleasure, or that their bowls were so clean and polished.
The cook rushed away to call the porteress, who appeared in her nightcap, blinking with sleep, for she was no early riser.
When she heard the cook’s story and saw the orphans’ bibs she turned quite pale.
“Where have you come from, my little cat?” she asked Gobbolino. “And who was your mother?”
“Please, ma’am, I was born in a witch’s cave and Grimalkin was my mother!” replied Gobbolino innocently. “My little sister Sootica is apprenticed to a witch in the Hurricane Mountains, but I wished to become a kitchen cat, so I left home, and here I am!”
“I knew it! I was positive of it!” stormed the cook. “Only a witch’s cat could do such things! No cat could kill so many mice without the aid of magic. He may cast spells on the children! He may turn us all into herrings or bats or horrible reptiles! Do away with him directly, ma’am! Don’t keep such a creature among innocent babies!”
The eyes of the honest porteress filled with tears as she looked at Gobbolino, for she had no heart to turn even a witch’s kitten out of doors, while all the orphans set up such a weeping and a wailing (particularly the little brothers) that they threatened to ruin all their best starched shirts and dresses as well as their dirty bibs, stretching out their arms and sobbing: