Riverton folk that poor Maria Champneys's boy was not what one might
call bright. Fancy carrying on like that about nothing but a cat!
But Peter used to lie awake at night, lonesomely, and cry because he
was afraid some evil had befallen the perverse creature of his
affections. Then he prayed that God would look out for Martin
Luther, if He hadn't already remembered to do so. The world of a
sudden seemed a very big, sad, unfriendly place for a little boy to
live in, when he couldn't even have a cat in it!

The disappearance of Martin Luther was Peter's first sorrow that his
mother couldn't fully share, as he knew she didn't like cats. Martin
Luther had known that, too, and had kept his distance. He hadn't
even made friends with Emma Campbell, who loved cats to the extent
of picking up other people's when their owners weren't looking. This
cat had loved nobody but Peter, a fact that endeared it to him a
thousandfold, and made its probable fate a darker grief.

One afternoon, when Martin Luther had been gone so long that Peter
had about given up hopes of ever seeing him again, Emma Campbell,
who had been washing in the yard, dashed into the house screeching
that the woodshed was full of snakes.

Peter joyfully threw aside his grammar--snakes hadn't half the
terror for him that substantives had--and rushed out to investigate,
while his mother frantically besought him not to go near the
woodshed, to get an ax, to run for the town marshal, to run and ring
the fire-bell, to burn down that woodshed before they were all stung
to death in their beds!

Cautiously Peter investigated. Perhaps a chicken-snake had crawled