Thomasina - The Cat Who Thought She Was God by Paul Gallico Read Free Book Online Page B

MacQuarrie asked what they meant to do with the animals in the cages.”
    “Oh,” exclaimed Hughie, even more interested, and by now so was Mary Ruadh, and so was I. “What animals, in what cages?”
    Geordie reflected before he replied, “Well, they had a bear and an eagle and a mountain lion and some monkeys and dogs and an elephant and horses, and—”
    “Poooh!” remonstrated Hughie, “gypsies never have elephants.”
    Geordie looked as though he was sorry he had said it. “Well, maybe they didn’t really have an elephant, but they DID have a bear and an eagle and a mountain lion and monkeys and they said they were going to let people look at them for a shilling.”
    “I say,” Hughie burst out with enthusiasm, “if I can wheedle a couple of shillings out of Mummy, we must go—”
    Geordie had not yet finished his account. He continued, “Mr. MacQuarrie said he supposed that was all right as long as they did not ill-treat the animals, or give a performance.”
    Mary Ruadh asked, “What’s a performance?”
    Hughie replied, “Standing on their heads and doing tricks, I suppose. I’ll bet they’re going to when the police aren’t looking.”
    Geordie concluded: “The man with the belt started to laugh again, but the other gypsy with the hat and the waistcoat went over and pushed him with his shoulder and Mr. MacQuarrie went away. I tried to look under the cover of one of the wagons to see what the animals were like, but a big boy came and chased me. He had a whip.”
    All this Mary Ruadh recounted to her father that night, during the time he gave her her evening bath and he listened to every word she said as though she were as grown-up as he, which I must say, astonished me, for grownups have a way of talking to children—yes, and to us too—that is most patronizing, irritating and humiliating. But Mr. MacDhui just nodded and grumbled and grunted seriously , as he listened, all the time soaping the back of her neck and ears with the washrag. “Well, little pink frog,” he said finally, “just see that you keep well away from those gypsies whatever they mean to do, for they were always a filthy thieving folk and you cannot tell me they have reformed their ways in the last generation just because the police are content to condone their presence, eh?”
    I think that Mrs. McKenzie was shocked at the idea of Mr. MacDhui giving Mary Ruadh her bath, but much as I dislike the man, I, who have been a mother, can testify that no kitten ever received a more painstaking and thorough washing than did she at the hands of her father when he came home at night, for this was the moment in the day that he seemed to enjoy the most, and therefore was almost pleasant—though of course, not to me, for I was not allowed to come into the bathroom, but sat outside in the hall and looked in.
    He sang to Mary Ruadh,—can you imagine?—in his loud and most disgusting voice, the silliest words ever. I remember them. They went:
There dwelt a puddy in a well,
    Cuddy alone, cuddy alane,
    There dwelt a puddy in a well,
    Cuddy alane and I.
    There was a puddy in a well,
    AN a mousie in a mill;
    Kickmalcerie, cowden doon,
    Cuddy alane and I.
    Now, I ask you, where was the sense in that? But somehow Mary Ruadh seemed to understand, and when her father bellowed, “Kickmalecrie, cowden doon!” she screamed and shouted and splashed with her bath toys until the water shot all the way out into the hallway where I was sitting.
    Then Mr. MacDhui picked her out of the tub and gave her a tousle and a rubdown until her whole body was red, when he would say, “How now, little pink puddy! Now this fine blue towel really becomes you. What shall we have for tea? Kickmalecrie Mary Ruadh!”
    But me, he never so much as deigned to notice.
    After they had their supper in the dining room, with Mary Ruadh sitting on a pile of cushions so that she would be higher, they would go into her room across the hall, where he played with her or sometimes