Dear Bianca, Yours, Rudyard

By Barbara A. Childs

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• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Mar 30, 2010
• ISBN: 9781449087845

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CONTENTS

Prologue

Chapter I   Pawing With The Perils Of Robin Hood

Chapter II  Ballooning With Bianca

Chapter III   Lap Cat Of Louis Xv

Chapter IV  Thar She Blows

Chapter V  My Egyptian Period

Chapter VI   Strawberry Jam And The Garden Club Ladies

Chapter VII   Castle Cat

Chapter VIII   Shah Jahn, Sambu, And The Taj Mahal

Chapter IX   Rudyardovatti, Tenor Of The High C’s

Chapter X   The Call Of The Cloister

Chapter XI   "The Gift Of The Egg

Chapter XII   Sir Rudyard Of The Renaissance

Chapter XIII   Double, Double, Toil And TRouble; Fire Burn And Cauldron Bubble.

Chapter XIV   Willie Woos And Lemon Mare-An-Goo

Epilogue

PROLOGUE

Dear Reader,

My name is Rudyard Kipling. I am a black and gray striped tabby cat with white paws and a soft white underside, reaching from my chin to my tail. The following pages render a history of my nine lives in cat correspondence with my dear feline friend, Bianca. These letters reveal the journey my soul has traveled on this earth in a scenario of passages in its search for perfection. I am in my ninth life, which has posed some peculiar problems not met or dealt with in my previous eight glorious existences. This is why I’m writing to Bianca now; perhaps she can advise me on the current dilemma of dealing with the intrusion of a dog - a big dog who is usurping my rightful place of authority and superiority in the happy life I’ve been leading with my mistress, Anna, here in Hub Woods at the coach house.

Let me tell you more about Bianca, myself, and this interloper - the dog.

Bianca, christened from Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew is my special feline friend and companion. I met her when Anna, my mistress, took me to her friend Agnes’ home this past summer for a three week stay while she went bicycling and bird watching on Nantucket Island. Bianca is a slender black and gray striped tabby, like myself, with no white markings. She has huge glowing green eyes that shine like emeralds. I find her fascinating. Bianca is a young soul in the order of cat spirituality, for this is only her first life.

Anna thinks she named me Rudyard Kipling, but I know who I really am; that’s why I nodded in assent when she spoke the name to me when I was a kitten. Some of the names she spoke to me were: Alfred Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, Sir Edmund Spencer, Mozart, Beethoven, and then Rudyard. Rudyard Kipling - yes, that’s the one. I nodded and opened my eyes in acknowledgment. I was left abandoned one late evening in a shoe box on one of the carriages in the coach house where we live.

After being cramped in a shoe box for a couple of hours (it did have holes in it so air circulated for breathing), I felt the need to exercise my limbs. I ran up and down the stairs of the coach house twenty times; Anna was not pleased. She said I should come to bed because it was past midnight, and we would rise early. I snuggled beside her and purred softly. I learned that when Anna slept, it was time for me to retire, also. I can recall the busy flutter and bustle of the morning activities that began the day. Anna made the bed, fed me, turned on the radio to listen to the news and weather conditions, left to feed her horse across the road, and then returned to dress for school. She teaches language arts and Latin at an inner city in Chicago. When Anna ate her toast, I ate my tuna; when Anna dressed for school, I began my toilette; when she descended the stairs to leave, I ran ahead of her, prostrating myself before the door, begging her not to open it and leave me alone. For if she did, I’d run out and get smashed by a truck, and then she’d be sorry. This method did not always work, although I managed to escape five times. I allowed her to coax me back and catch me. After these little bouts of flight, I felt I gained a slight supremacy over Anna. I did not want her to take me for granted.

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The coach house is nestled beside a bridle path in Hub Woods among green and white barked birch trees. It is painted a deep red, has white shuttered windows, and is surrounded by a post and rail fence. The lower part of the dwelling stores two real eighteenth century coaches, which are collector’s items kept there by the owner of the estate. They’re all black and shiny with crystal lanterns above the doors. Brass fittings abound over the coaches’ exteriors. The seats inside are lined with red velvet, which I carefully brush, after having catnapped there, lest any of my loose fur mar their beauty.

Upstairs, where Anna and I live, is a wood paneled studio apartment with windows on every side of the walls that offer vistas of nature’s gift from each season. Deep blue indigo buntings come every spring along the perimeter of the woods; along the creek at the end of the property, ducks and red winged black birds raise their young. Black raspberries, rich and sweet, purple thistle, white Queen Anne’s lace, all sprinkle their jewels of color in late summer. Jack-in-the-pulpit, Solomon’s seal, and cattails frequent the woods in fall. All winter I see the red-bellied woodpecker in his gaudy black and white checked plumage and the red-throated yellow-bellied sapsucker as they feed on the suet log outside the kitchen window. The village hunt, supported by the equestrian members of our community, use the bridle path near the coach house to follow the drag scent of the fox to canter and jump over hunt fences in the woods. I often see and hear them on frosty autumn mornings in their traditional pageantry as the hunting horn is blown to announce their passing. The hounds bark and yap excitedly as they gather to pick up the fox’s scent. I wish to become master of the hounds someday and keep these disorderly canines at my command with hunting horn and whip.

Dr. Mason, a child psychologist, owns the four-acre estate and the magnificent coaches.

Anna has not discovered any of my secret lives or letters. My pen, papers and inkpot are kept hidden under the