The Story of a China Cat by Laura Lee Hope

Author:Laura Lee Hope [Hope, Laura Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Children
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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CHAPTER VII

THE RESCUE

For a few moments after this wild shouting in the street there was no sound in the negro basement where the China Cat and the Cloth Dog without any tail were perched on the shelf. The rain pelted down harder than before, a regular flood in itself, and to the noise of the drops was added the roar from the flooded river.

Presently there came a pounding on the basement door of the tenement where Jeff, the colored boy, lived.

Bang! Bang! Bang! came the loud knock.

"Who's dat?" asked Jeff's mother from the bedroom where she was sleeping. "Who's dat knockin' at de do'?"[77]

Bang! Bang! Bang! came the sound again.

"Can that be thunder?" whispered the China Cat to the Cloth Dog.

"No, this isn't a thunderstorm," answered the Dog. "It is much worse than any thunderstorm I ever heard. There is going to be a bad time here, with a flood and everything."

"Who's dat?" asked the voice of Jeff's mother again, as the pounding at the door sounded a second time.

"The police!" was the answer.

Jeff, who had been awakened, heard this answer. He covered his head with the clothes, and cowered down in the bed.

"Oh, mah good land!" thought Jeff when he heard this. "De p'lice has done come to git me 'cause I took de China Cat! Oh, good land! I ain't so smart as I thought! Oh, dey's gwine 'rest me suah!"

But the police had not come to get Jeff.[78] Once more the officer pounded with his club on the basement door.

"Come there!" he cried. "Get up and dress and skip out if you don't want to be drowned! The river is rising. It will flood all these basement tenements! You'll have to clear out—all of you! Wake up and get out! We'll help you! Open the door!"

"Oh, massy me! A flood!" cried Jeff's mother. "Does yo' heah dat, Rastus?" she called to her husband. "Dere's a flood an' we's done got to run out! Git up an' open de do' an' I'll roust up de chilluns!"

"I'll open the do,' Ma," said Jeff, slipping out of his bed, and as he swung the door open there stood a policeman.

"Come, boy; lively!" cried the officer. "You were long enough answering my knock. You've all got to leave here! How many of you are there?"

"Ten," answered Jeff, and he looked[79] over the mantel shelf to see if the officer noticed the China Cat.

But the policeman had something else to do just then. He and others had been sent to the tenement district, near the rising river, to rouse and save the poor people from the flood.

"Ten, eh?" cried the policeman. "That's quite a family. Well, don't stop to put on more than a few clothes. There isn't any time to save things. The river will be pouring in here soon."

"Some of it's heah already," remarked Jeff, as he saw the water on the floor.

"Lively now!" called the policeman again. "Here, let me take some of those," he said, as Jeff's father came out of a bedroom carrying in his arms two sleepy little colored girls.

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