tremendous purrs. "I saved his life, and when you've
saved a creature's life you're bound to love it. It's
next thing to giving life. There's some turrible
thoughtless people in the world, Mistress Blythe. Some
of them city folks who have summer homes over the
harbor are so thoughtless that they're cruel. It's the
worst kind of cruelty--the thoughtless kind. You can't
cope with it. They keep cats there in the summer, and
feed and pet 'em, and doll 'em up with ribbons and
collars. And then in the fall they go off and leave
'em to starve or freeze. It makes my blood boil,
Mistress Blythe. One day last winter I found a poor
old mother cat dead on the shore, lying against the
skin-and-bone bodies of her three little kittens.
She'd died trying to shelter 'em. She had her poor
stiff paws around 'em. Master, I cried. Then I swore.
Then I carried them poor little kittens home and fed
'em up and found good homes for 'em. I knew the woman
who left the cat and when she come back this summer I
jest went over the harbor and told her my opinion of
her. It was rank meddling, but I do love meddling in a
good cause."

"How did she take it?" asked Gilbert.

"Cried and said she `didn't think.' I says to her,
says I, `Do you s'pose that'll be held for a good
excuse in the day of Jedgment, when you'll have to
account for that poor old mother's life? The Lord'll
ask you what He give you your brains for if it wasn't