A FAILED PLAN

The Reece children spent that afternoon in Mr.. Trim's woodshed chopping sticks for his fire. It was not a labour of love but a penance.

Jinny was a persistent child who did not readily yield to opposition. She had cried herself to sleep after the party because her mother had said she wished the striped kitten was dead. When she wakened the next morning she was more determined than ever that it shouldn't die for lack of anything she herself could do to save it.

She said to Joey, 'There's only us, so we got to do it.'

'Do what then?'

'Feed the kitten in Miss Coker's shed.'

'How we going to get the food? Our Mum won't give us nothin'.'

'I'll show you.'

Jinny's plan was simple. Unfortunately it mis­carried. At the first attempt, the pair of them had been caught red-handed filching scraps from the Trims' chicken pail, and this job was their reward.

'Ain't we done enough yet?' Joey wailed. 'I'm cold. .I want my tea.'

'You heard what he said. We got to fill the box.'

It was a huge box and by four o'clock when the light was failing they were still at it. Mrs. Trim brought them mugs of hot milk.

'If it was me I'd let you off,' she said. 'But Dad gits so mad. And it's not as if you done the little cat any good. Them pesky gulls take all you put out.'

'We wasn't going to put it out,' Jinny said. 'We was going to take it to Miss Coker's shed where the kitten sleeps.'

'God bless me, don't you go trespassin' there. You'll get into worse trouble.'

After Mrs.. Trim had gone back indoors Jinny burst out crossly, 'It's her fault. That old Miss Coker. Why don't she feed the kitten? Why don't she take it in? Why does she have to be so mean?'

This set Joey off giggling and he told how he had thrown earth at her window and called her a rude name. He expected Jinny's approval but did not get it. Instead, for no reason that she could have ex­plained, she smacked him. He howled.

'What you go and do that for? I paid her out, didn't I ?'

'You did a bad thing.' The quarrel developed, reached a climax and sud­denly fizzled out in the way their disputes generally did.

By the time the box was full they were friends again and their mother was calling them in to tea. As it was Christmas Eve she gave them two things they specially loved, currant buns from the bakery, and chocolate cake of her own making.

'Not that you deserve it,' she said, 'upsetting Mr. Trim again. He's cut me short on the eggs this time.'

'Fine pair you are,' their father said.

'We made up for it, Dad,' said Jinny. 'I'm that tired I could drop.'

'Oh, are you? That's a pity. I thought as how you might start on a box-full for me. And there's Ted, too. He could do with some. We can keep you busy for days yet.' He chortled and cut himself another slice of cake.

'Got yer stocking ready to hang up for Santa Claus? Reckon he'll bring yer a nice little chopper all of yer very own.'

'Don't tease her, Bert,' said Amy Reece, but Jinny was not nettled as she sometimes was by her father's teasing. A picture had swum into her mind of a wood chopper among the oranges and nuts and boiled sweets and little wrapped presents in her Christmas stocking, and it was so funny that she began to laugh. Soon they were all laughing and the cosy kitchen was filled with fun and happiness.

After tea Jinny helped her mother put the two younger children to bed. Then she rejoined Joey for the remaining time before they too would be sent to bed. They played a game of snakes and ladders on the table in the parlour window, while Bert dozed over the local paper.

'Come on, it's your turn to throw,' said Joey im­patiently. 'What you waiting for?'

Jinny had become inattentive.

'I was thinking about them carols Miss Johnson taught us.' The Reece children had been among those selected to sing at the end-of-term concert. `Seems a shame we only had a chance to sing 'em once. Think you can remember that one about the kings?'

`Course I can. I can remember 'em all. Or most.'

Jinny bent over the table to whisper. Joey's face at first registered protest, then reluctant acquiescence. They both got up and went into the hallway to put on coats, woollen caps, gloves and mufflers. Then they went out, closing the front door behind them unusually quietly.

 

THE SAVING OF TWO LIVES

Shortly before supper time Miss Coker suddenly rose from her chair, took the torch and went out to the shed. As she approached the kitten stirred and raised its head. She stooped and passed her hand over its body.

She had to force herself to do it. This was the first time in more than thirty years that she had fondled a living creature. The touch of the soft fur caused something to happen inside her, some easing of the frozen heart. The kitten struggled to its feet, arching itself under her hand. The white parts of its coat were soiled with coal dust. She understood then that it was too weak to clean itself, let alone go in search of food.

She straightened up, stood for a moment fighting the inclination, walked off and stopped halfway across the yard. She looked back and saw that the kitten had followed her.

It crouched in the snow a few steps away, the tail dragging, eyes unnaturally big in the starved face. It stole forward a trifle. A few more tottering steps took it to Miss Coker's feet where it halted, un­certain, hovering between hope and fear.

She bent and picked it up. It lay passive in her arms, its bony little head pressed against her chin. Light as a bird it seemed. The draggled fur under her hand was not only without warmth but without resilience, more like the coat of a dead creature than a live one. The feeble heartbeats of the small body emphasized the strength of her own.

Standing there alone in the ice-bound hush of the winter night she was suddenly and deeply aware of being alive. She saw, as if for the first time, the brilliance of the stars, the glittering beauty of the snow.

At this same moment she heard a burst of childish voices close at hand. `We three kings of Orien-tar!'

The unsteady altos soared and dipped. Behind them, faint but sweet, sounded a far-off chime of church bells.

Miss Coker waited a minute or two, listening in­tently, before re-entering her cottage. She closed the kitchen door and took from the peg behind it an old knitted shawl she used when she went to fill her coalscuttle or empty the rubbish bucket. Next she pulled from under the sink a square shallow box, which had once held apples. Lining the box with the shawl she set it down near the stove and laid the kitten in it while she warmed some milk. She filled a saucer and held the kitten in her arms while it lapped.

In her meat safe was a slice of liver she had bought for her supper. She cut off a portion and chopped it small, listening all the time to the carol singers outside her gate, who had now switched to The Holly and the Ivy. She fed the raw liver to the kitten, a tiny piece at a time, with long waits in between. Before it was finished the singers stopped. They had forgotten the second verse.

Miss Coker stood up and took from the dresser the two bars of chocolate she had bought at the post office store. She picked up the kitten and carried it down the hall to her front door, opened the door and stood on the step, beckoning to the children. Very cold, they were just on the point of going home. They stared at her, round-eyed with amazement. She beckoned again and held out the chocolate bars. Slowly, unbelievingly, they came up the path to take them. Neither child said anything. Nor did she.

They raced off with their news, bursting in and nearly knocking over the table on which Bert was trying to mend his old radio, both talking at once. `Mum, Mum, she's got the kitten ! She had it in her arms when she give us the choc! ' 

'She got it, Mum -'

`It had milk on its whiskers!'

`Well, my-o-me,' said Bert. `Wonders never cease.

Thing is, will she keep it?'

`I'd say she will,' Amy Reece said. `Hard to turn it out again once you take in a stray.'

`She's bound to keep it, Mum. She were stroking it!' Their mother beamed fondly on the rosy sparkling faces.

`Well, thank goodness for that. Now we can all have a happy Christmas. Off with you to bed.'

That night two lives rejoiced, and two hearts beat near each other. The kitten, purring her gratitude for food, warmth, and above all, love-- and the woman, listening to the sing-song of the happy kitten, driving away the painful, dark shadows of the past, wondered why she’d waited so long.

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