Gobbolino the Witch's Cat

The next day Gobbolino put caramels into the gruel, and the orphans shouted for joy. He also caught five mice for the cook, but she never gave him a word of praise, although he made himself as useful as ten kitchen maids about the kitchen, wiping the dishes, peeling the potatoes, and polishing all the orphans’ little boots.

The little brothers romped joyfully with the other orphans, playing at hide-and-seek, touch last, follow my leader, and other nursery games. The baby sat on the porteress’s lap and sucked its thumb. It gladdened Gobbolino’s heart to see them so contented and happy.

When he crept into the nursery to see how they were doing the little brothers flew to clasp him round the neck.

“Oh, our dear, our darling, our beautiful Gobbolino!” they shouted, while the baby crowed and kicked, but they had no time to make a fuss of him before the cook called him back to the kitchen. She said that the mice came out and jeered at her when he was out of the way.

The next day all was bustle and confusion, for the Lord Mayor and his lady were coming on the morrow to choose an orphan to bring up as their own child, and everything in the orphanage was made ready to receive them.

All the orphans’ best white frocks and shirts must be starched and ironed, their hair put in curlers, their nails cut, and their shoes polished; in the evening Gobbolino helped the cook and the porteress to bath them, every one, with many shouts and splashings and a great deal of water over the kitchen floor, which annoyed the cook very much indeed.

The orphans that were being bathed by the cook tried to escape from her to Gobbolino:

“Oh, dear, kind Gobbolino – do come and bath us! Oh, do!”

When the little brothers fell into the bony hands of the cook they cried and screamed and made such a fuss that she boxed their ears in desperation and left the kitchen, to the great joy of all the orphans, who skipped about the floor in their little nightshirts crying “Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!” till even Gobbolino grew a little weary of them.

In the morning the cook was still so angry that she put salt into the gruel instead of sugar, and all the sugar-plums in the world could not hide the taste of it, so Gobbolino made another spell and turned it into chocolate sauce.

No wonder that the orphans’ eyes grew round with wonder and delight as they sat round the table in their clean white frocks and shirts, covered with clean white bibs, all ready for the Lord Mayor’s visit. No wonder that they polished all their little bowls until not a scrap was left, and then dug their wooden spoons into the cauldron and polished that too till it gleamed and shone, and Gobbolino, watching from the doorway, purred with joy to see them all so happy.

But when the cook came up from the kitchen to fetch away the cauldron her eyes nearly started out of her head, for the orphans’ rosy cheeks were covered with chocolate sauce, and so were their clean white bibs, put on in the Lord Mayor’s honour. No wonder that their faces shone with pleasure, or that their bowls were so clean and polished.

The cook rushed away to call the porteress, who appeared in her nightcap, blinking with sleep, for she was no early riser.

When she heard the cook’s story and saw the orphans’ bibs she turned quite pale.

“Where have you come from, my little cat?” she asked Gobbolino. “And who was your mother?”

“Please, ma’am, I was born in a witch’s cave and Grimalkin was my mother!” replied Gobbolino innocently. “My little sister Sootica is apprenticed to a witch in the Hurricane Mountains, but I wished to become a kitchen cat, so I left home, and here I am!”

“I knew it! I was positive of it!” stormed the cook. “Only a witch’s cat could do such things! No cat could kill so many mice without the aid of magic. He may cast spells on the children! He may turn us all into herrings or bats or horrible reptiles! Do away with him directly, ma’am! Don’t keep such a creature among innocent babies!”

The eyes of the honest porteress filled with tears as she looked at Gobbolino, for she had no heart to turn even a witch’s kitten out of doors, while all the orphans set up such a weeping and a wailing (particularly the little brothers) that they threatened to ruin all their best starched shirts and dresses as well as their dirty bibs, stretching out their arms and sobbing:

“Oh, don’t send away our dear, darling, beautiful Gobbolino!”

And in the middle of it all the Lord Mayor’s coach rolled up to the door, and the Lord Mayor’s coachman pulled the bell.

The porteress had just time to dry the orphans’ tears, wipe the chocolate sauce off their faces and remove their bibs, while the cook, having flung her slipper at Gobbolino and driven him into the kitchen, ran to open the door.

The orphans were ready with bows and curtseys and shy smiles of excitement when the Lord Mayor and Mayoress came into the hall, but the cook bounced back into the kitchen and slammed the door behind her.