The Hunter Cats of Connorloa Read online

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  CAT STORIES.

  BY

  HELEN JACKSON (H. H.),

  AUTHOR OF "RAMONA," "NELLY'S SILVER MINE," "BITS OF TALK," ETC.

  LETTERS FROM A CAT.

  MAMMY TITTLEBACK AND HER FAMILY.

  THE HUNTER CATS OF CONNORLOA.

  WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.

  BOSTON:

  ROBERTS BROTHERS.

  1886.

  THE HUNTER CATS

  OF

  CONNORLOA.

  CONNORLOA.]

  THE

  HUNTER CATS

  OF

  CONNORLOA.

  BY HELEN JACKSON

  (_H. H._),

  AUTHOR OF "LETTERS FROM A CAT," "MAMMY TITTLEBACK AND HERFAMILY," ETC.

  WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

  BOSTON:

  ROBERTS BROTHERS.

  1886.

  _Copyright_, 1884,BY ROBERTS BROTHERS.

  Decorative panel]*

  THE HUNTER CATS

  OF

  CONNORLOA.

  I.

  Once on a time, there lived in California a gentleman whose name wasConnor,--Mr. George Connor. He was an orphan, and had no brothers andonly one sister. This sister was married to an Italian gentleman, one ofthe chamberlains to the King of Italy. She might almost as well havebeen dead, so far as her brother George's seeing her was concerned; forhe, poor gentleman, was much too ill to cross the ocean to visit her;and her husband could not be spared from his duties as chamberlain tothe King, to come with her to America, and she would not leave him andcome alone. So at the time my story begins, it had been many years sincethe brother and sister had met, and Mr. Connor had quite made up hismind that he should never see her again in this world. He had had asorry time of it for a good many years. He had wandered all over theworld, trying to find a climate which would make him well. He had livedin Egypt, in Ceylon, in Italy, in Japan, in the Sandwich Islands, in theWest India Islands. Every place that had ever been heard of as beinggood for sick people, he had tried; for he had plenty of money, andthere was nothing to prevent his journeying wherever he liked. He had afaithful black servant Jim, who went with him everywhere, and took thebest of care of him; but neither the money, nor the good nursing, northe sea air, nor the mountain air, nor the north, south, east or westair, did him any good. He only tired himself out for nothing, roamingfrom place to place; and was all the time lonely, and sad too, nothaving any home. So at last he made up his mind that he would roam nolonger; that he would settle down, build himself a house, and if hecould not be well and strong and do all the things he liked to, hewould at least have a home, and have his books about him, and have agood bed to sleep in, and good food to eat, and be comfortable in allthose ways in which no human being ever can be comfortable outside ofhis own house.

  He happened to be in California when he took this resolution. He hadbeen there for a winter; and on the whole had felt better there than hehad felt anywhere else. The California sunshine did him more good thanmedicine: it is wonderful how the sun shines there! Then it was nevereither very hot or very cold in the part of California where he was; andthat was a great advantage. He was in the southern part of the State,only thirty miles from the sea-shore, in San Gabriel. You can find thisname "San Gabriel" on your atlas, if you look very carefully. It is insmall print, and on the Atlas it is not more than the width of a pinfrom the water's edge; but it really is thirty miles,--a good day'sride, and a beautiful day's ride too, from the sea. San Gabriel is alittle village, only a dozen or two houses in it, and an old,half-ruined church,--a Catholic church, that was built there a hundredyears ago, when the country was first settled by the Spaniards. Theynamed all the places they settled, after saints; and the first thingthey did in every place was to build a church, and get the Indians tocome and be baptized, and learn to pray. They did not call theirsettlements towns at first, only Missions; and they had at one timetwenty-one of these Missions on the California coast, all the way upfrom San Diego to Monterey; and there were more than thirty thousandIndians in them, all being taught to pray and to work, and some of themto read and write. They were very good men, those first Spanishmissionaries in California. There are still alive some Indians whorecollect these times. They are very old, over a hundred years old; butthey remember well about these things.

  Most of the principal California towns of which you have read in yourgeographies were begun in this way. San Diego, Santa Barbara, San LuisObispo, San Rafael, San Francisco, Monterey, Los Angeles,--all of thesewere first settled by the missionaries, and by the soldiers and officersof the army who came to protect the missionaries against the savages.Los Angeles was named by them after the Virgin Mary. The Spanish namewas very long, "Nuestra Senora Reina de Los Angeles,"--that means, "OurLady the Queen of the Angels." Of course this was quite too long to useevery day; so it soon got cut down to simply "Los Angeles," or "TheAngels,"--a name which often amuses travellers in Los Angeles to-day,because the people who live there are not a bit more like angels thanother people; and that, as we all know, is very unlike indeed. Near LosAngeles is San Gabriel, only about fifteen miles away. In the oldentime, fifteen miles was not thought any distance at all; people wereneighbors who lived only fifteen miles apart.

  There are a great many interesting stories about the first settlement ofSan Gabriel, and the habits and customs of the Indians there. They werea very polite people to each other, and used to train their children insome respects very carefully. If a child were sent to bring water to anolder person, and he tasted it on the way, he was made to throw thewater out and go and bring fresh water; when two grown-up persons weretalking together, if a child ran between them he was told that he haddone an uncivil thing, and would be punished if he did it again. Theseare only specimens of their rules for polite behavior. They seem to meas good as ours. These Indians were very fond of flowers, of which thewhole country is in the spring so full, it looks in places like a gardenbed; of these flowers they used to make long garlands and wreaths, notonly to wear on their heads, but to reach way down to their feet. Thesethey wore at festivals and celebrations; and sometimes at thesefestivals they used to have what they called "song contests." Two of thebest singers, or poets, would be matched together, to see which couldsing the better, or make the better verses. That seems to me a moreinteresting kind of match than the spelling matches we have in ourvillages. But there is nothing of this sort to be seen in San Gabrielnow, or indeed anywhere in California. The Indians, most of them, havebeen driven away by the white people who wanted their lands; year byyear more and more white people have come, and the Indians have beenrobbed of more and more of their lands, and have died off by hundreds,until there are not many left.

  INDIAN MAKING BOWLS.--Page 19.]

  Mr. Connor was much interested in learning all he could about them, andcollecting all he could of the curious stone bowls and pestles they usedto make, and of their baskets and lace work. He spent much of histime riding about the country; and whenever he came to an Indian hut hewould stop and talk with them, and
ask if they had any stone bowls orbaskets they would like to sell. The bowls especially were a greatcuriosity. Nobody knew how long ago they had been made. When themissionaries first came to the country, they found the Indians usingthem; they had them of all sizes, from those so large that they arealmost more than a man can lift, down to tiny ones no bigger than atea-cup. But big and little, they were all made in the same way out ofsolid stone, scooped out in the middle, by rubbing another stone roundand round on them. You would think it would have taken a lifetime tomake one; but they seem to have been plenty in the olden time. Even yet,people who are searching for such curiosities sometimes find biggrave-mounds in which dozens of them are buried,--buried side by sidewith the people who used to eat out of them. There is nothing left ofthe people but their skulls and a few bones; but the bowls will last aslong as the world stands.

  * * * * *

  Now I suppose you are beginning to wonder when I am coming to the HunterCats! I am coming to them just the