BROTHER CATS

By

BRADLEY W. SIMPSON

     Two brother cats lived together with a farmer and his wife in a house in the country.  One was a white cat named Sprinkles, the other one was a black cat named, Sparkles.  The cats were fat and old in years, and they took the greatest joy in lying around the house, flopped down like two over-stuffed pillows.   In the summer, they would lounge on the windowsill, feeling the breeze blowing in from the dale.  In the winter, they would curl up on the hearth, warming themselves by the fireplace.

     One evening, when the two cats were curled up on their mistress’s bed, Sprinkles said, “Would you just look at us, lying around like two lazy bumpkins.  Why don’t we ever go out hunting like we did in our youths?”

     “Because our mistress worries about us when we are gone too long,” answered Sparkles.  “You know how protective she is.”

     “Seriously, you and I should go out tonight and prowl the countryside once again, just for the sport of it,” said Sprinkles.

     “And how will we manage that, when our mistress keeps us under lock and key after dark?” Sparkles pointed out.

     “There is still half an hour of daylight left.  Let’s go out now, and by the time she comes to look for us, we will be long gone,” explained Sprinkles.  “We will be back in the morning in time for breakfast.”

     The cats went outside, and when they were sure the mistress wasn’t looking, they hightailed it under the fence and into the wide-open pastures.  As the last of the sun disappeared behind the hills, they came upon a thick meadow.  “Do you remember this meadow,” asked Sparkles. 

     “Yes,” said Sprinkles.  “We used to come here as young cats with our long lost brothers.”

     The night air was cool, and the brother cats felt frisky.  They pounced at frogs, and chased crickets as they pleased.  They had a fine time running through the meadows and over the heath that stretched over the countryside.  They hunted and they crouched and they sprang forth.  They played and they rolled and they kicked the tall grass with their hind paws.  At last, they grew tired and laid down under a tall tree at the edge of a dark forest to catch their breath.

     “You almost had that wren, brother,” said Sprinkles.  “If only you hadn’t tripped over that root.”

     “And you would have made a meal of that field mouse,” said Sparkles, “if dust hadn’t gotten in your eyes at the last second.”

     Presently, the cats heard a rustling in the brush in front of them, and out stepped a big, hungry timber wolf.  The cats couldn’t run; they were hemmed between the tree and the wolf.

     “Hello dear friends,” said the wolf, drool hanging from the corners of his mouth.  “Kindly say your prayers, for I plan to eat you shortly.”

     It seemed the brother cats were in a desperate squeeze, for they certainly didn’t want to be made into a meal by the old wolf.  “Look here, Squire Wolf,” Sparkles said.  “You don’t really want to eat us.  We’ll just be on our way.”

       But the wolf said, “I didn’t spare your brothers when they used to play in the fields, so why should I spare you?”

       “Well, then,” said Sprinkles, “you’re welcome to eat us if you must.  But why waste your appetite on two skinny old felines?”

     “You look plenty fat to me,” insisted the wolf.

     “Well, I assure you, you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to us,” Sparkles said.  “But I know a cave where a large family of fat cats live.  THEY would make a much better meal than we would.”

     “Fatter than you?  Are you sure?”  asked the wolf, his mouth watering at the thought of the plump, tender cats roasting in his oven.

     “Oh, much fatter,” Sparkles assured the wolf.  “Just follow us to their cave, and you will soon eat to your heart’s delight.

     The wolf thought the two cats were certainly not very loyal to their own kind, but he agreed to follow them to the cave, with the threat of eating them on the spot should they try to trick him.

     The cats led the wolf on a very long journey. They traveled through the forest, into a deep valley, around a marsh, over a large plain, and finally, to a thick, wooded hollow.

     “Aren’t we there yet,” cried the wolf, his paws aching from the long walk.  “I ought to eat you now, for leading me halfway across the country.”

     “We’re here, Squire wolf,” said Sparkles.  They stood before a large black cave that receded into the side of a hill.

     “Your meal awaits you inside,” Sprinkles said.  “Go on in, but be very quiet, at first.  You don’t want to scare them.”

     “True,” said the wolf.  “I’ll just gobble them up while they’re sleeping.”  With that, he crept inside the dark cave.  The brother cats waited outside.

     The wolf eased deeper and deeper into the cave, thinking about the wonderful meal he was about to have.  He could here the loud snores of the slumbering cats, and all at once he pounced.  But the mean old wolf had been tricked.  For the cave was not the home of a family of cats after all, but a den full of sleeping bears. The bears awoke to find the wolf trespassing in their home, and that was the end of the wolf.

     The sun was peeping over the hills in the east, when the brother cats made it home to the farmhouse.  The mistress was in the yard, searching under the washbasin and in the bushes, calling everywhere for her missing pets.  When she saw them creeping under the fence, she scolded them for staying out all night and making her worry.  Then she knelt, and took them in her arms and petted them affectionately.  “Come on in, varmints,” she said.  “Breakfast is ready.”