“That was in ’61,” said Morgan’s head noiselessly. “Good drive on the river that spring.”
“An’ I was a catty man on the logs. I could ride a soap bubble to shore, I could.”
“Still braggin’.”
Pigtail sat down cautiously in Cornelius’s deep-cushioned leather chair. “Holy Mackinaw! This shanty is sure-thing candyside!” The logger began to sing, in an eerie whine. “Oh, our logs was piled up mountain high, and our cots was on the snow … in that godforsaken countree-e-e of Michigan-eye-o!”
“Pipe down,” said Morgan. “My head’s aimin’ to go off like dynamite.”
“You think you’re bad off? I got a thirst that’d dry up the Tittabawassee River. I could chaw an ear off the tin-plated fool what called us back! Why couldn’t they leave us be?”
Morgan carefully fitted his head back on his shoulders.“It’s nigh to daylight. We’ll be goin’ soon.”
“No sense goin’ without leavin’ a sign,” said Pigtail. “I’m feelin’ stakey. Yahow!” he yelled in a ghostly facsimile of a logger’s howl as he upended the coffee table and pulled the needles out of Margaret’s knitting. Percy cringed in horror.
Then the logger began to swagger around the room.Click-click-click went his calks, although they left no mark on the polished wood floor.“What’s this jigamaree?” he said, as he pushed the seven-layer torte off the bar. It landed on the floorboards with a sickening splash. “Yahow-w-w!” There was a distant echo as a rooster at one of the inland farms announced the break of day.
“Pipe down, you furriner!” Morgan warned, getting up from the woodbox with clenched fists. “You aimin’ to split m’head open? If I could get holt o’ you, I’d—”
“Hit the gut-hammer!” Pigtail sang out. “It’s daylight in the swamp!”
Morgan Black lunged at him, and the two figures blended in a hazy blur.
“Da-a-aylight in the swamp!” was the last fading cry Percy heard as the cock crowed again. The blur was melting around the edges. It wilted and shrank until nothing was left but a puddle on the polished wood floor. Then all was quiet except for the swish of waves on the shore and the first waking peeps of the sandpipers.
Thankful that the raucous visitors had gone, Percy curled on the hearth rug with one foreleg thrown over his ears and slept. He was waked by a voice bellowing in consternation.
“It’s a rotten shame!” Bill Diddleton roared, pacing back and forth in his fishing clothes. “It’s a filthy rotten shame!”
“I fail to understand it,” Cornelius kept repeating. “He has never been guilty of any mischief of this sort.”
“It took me three hours to make that cake—with eighteen eggs and seven kinds of booze!”
The disturbance brought the two women sleepily to the balcony railing.
“Look at my torte!” Bill shouted up at them. “That blasted cat knocked it on the floor.”
Margaret groped her way downstairs.“I can’t believe Percy would do such a thing. Where is he?” Percy—aghast at Bill’s accusation—sensed it might be wise to disappear.
“There he goes!” Bill shouted. “Sneaky devil just ran under the couch.”
Then Margaret cried out in shocked surprise.“Look at my knitting! He pulled the needles out! Percy, you are abad cat!”
Percy laid his ears back in hopeless indignation, alone in the dark under the sofa.
“It is quite unlike him,” said Cornelius. “I fail to understand what could have prompted such … Margaret! My jigsaw puzzle has been swept off the table! That cat must have gone berserk!”
Now Deedee was coming slowly downstairs.“Do you know the floor’s all wet? There’s a big puddle right in the middle of the room.”
“I can guess whatthat is!” said Bill, looking cynical and vindictive.
“Percy!” shouted Margaret and Cornelius in unison. “What—have—you—done?”
Recoiling at the unjust accusation, Percy shrank into his smallest size. He was a fastidious cat who observed the formalities of the litterbox with never a lapse.
Margaret circled the puddle.“Somehow I can’t believe that Percy would do such a thing.”
“Who else would leave a puddle on the floor?” said Bill with a cutting edge to his voice. “A ghost?”
“Ghosts!” cried Deedee. “I knew it! It was that crazy stunt of yours, Bill!” She peered into an oversize brandy snifter on the bar. “Where’s—my—diamond—ring? I put it in this big glass thing when I helped Margaret in the kitchen last night. Oh, Bill, something horrible happened here. I feel all cold and clammy, and I can smell something weird and musty. Let’s go home. Please!”
Bill stood there scratching his right ankle with his left foot.“We’d better get back to the city, folks, before she cracks up.”
“Let me prepare breakfast,” Margaret said. “Then we’ll all feel better.”
“I don’t want breakfast,” Deedee wailed in misery. “I just want to go home. I’ve got some kind of rash on my ankles, and it’s driving me nuts!” She displayed some streaks of white blisters.
“That’s ivy poisoning, kiddo,” Bill said. “I think I’ve got the same thing.”
“It couldn’t be,” Margaret protested. “We’ve never seen any poison ivy at the cemetery!”
The Diddletons packed hastily and drove away from Big Pine Lake before the sun had risen above the treetops.
Percy, his pride wounded, refused to leave his refuge under the sofa, even to eat breakfast, and for some time following the weekend of the big puddle he remained cool toward Cornelius and Margaret. Although they quickly forgave him for all the untoward happenings, he found scant comfort in forgiveness for sins he had not committed. The incident was related to a new houseful of guests each weekend, and the blow to Percy’s reputation caused him deep suffering.
At the end of the season Deedee’s diamond ring was found behind the pine woodbox. The Diddletons paid no more visits to the chalet, however. Nor did Cornelius and Margaret return to the loggers’ graves; almost overnight the entire cemetery became choked with poisonous vines.
“Very strange,” said Margaret. “We’ve never before seen any poison ivy there!”
“I fail to understand it,” said Cornelius.
THE FLUPPIE PHENOMENON
We first became aware of the Fluppie Phenomenon fifteen years ago. My husband and I had no pets at that time, and innocently we agreed to provide bed and board for a Siamese kitten while my sister in St. Louis traveled abroad for a few weeks. Geraldine assured us that cat-sitting would be an enjoyable experience. She wrote:
“I wouldn’t trust Sin-Sin with anyone but you. She won’t be a bit of trouble. Just keep her indoors and be sure she doesn’t meet any male cats. She’s almost old enough to get ideas, and I don’t want her to mate casually. She has an impressive pedigree, and I intend to breed her with discrimination when she comes of age … . You will be rewarded with affection and entertainment. Sin-Sin has lovable ways and is a very mechanical cat … . What would you like me to bring you from Paris?”
“What’s a mechanical cat?” I asked Howard. He was tinkering with the stereo, which had been performing erratically for several weeks.
“When I was a kid it was a windup toy,” he said, “but I suppose they’re all battery operated now.”
“No, Geraldine is referring to her kitten,” I said. “Do you object if we cat-sit for a few weeks?”
“Go ahead and do it, if you want to,” Howard said, “but don’t get me involved. I’m going to stick with this stereo problem till I get it licked. I think it’s the amplifier.”
My husband made a startling discovery very soon; it was impossible to remain uninvolved with Sin-Sin.
We picked her up at the airport. Inside the ventilated cat-carrier there was an indistinct bit of fur. It stirred. It was alive. We placed the carrier on the back seat of the car.