The explanation of this came two days later, when the door-bell rang, and a strange little girl announced proudly: “I’ve brought back your kitty. He came to our house. We live out of town.”
“Thank you so much, dear,” Mrs. Wood said, trying to look pleased. “But how did you know it was our kitty? Have you seen him here in the yard?”
“Oh, I read the direction on his collar. It was ’most rubbed out, but I read it. I’m in the second grade.” And pulling Ivanhoe’s head around until he meekly choked, she exhibited some very fine printing on the frayed orange ribbon that he wore. Mrs. Wood remembered that Ivanhoe had worn this ribbon, and that she had allowed him to keep it, as a kind of trousseau, when he went away. But she did not know that the ribbon said: “Please return to Eunice Wood, 1132 Burnside Ave.”
“Thank you very much for your kindness, dear. But wouldn’t you like to keep the kitty yourself? We have several more.”
“Oh, so have we! Our old cat’s hid ’em in the barn; but we heard ’em squealin’. I guess they’ll come out soon.”
Mrs. Wood sighed, but Ivanhoe had already vanished behind the house, so she allowed the child to depart, with a little cake, and a fresh piece of that same orange ribbon for her own kitty.
“Eunice, why did you write that address on the collar?” Mrs. Wood asked, when her daughter came in from school with Ivanhoe under one arm.
“Why, you never told me not to,” Eunice said. “You know you never told me not to, Mother. I just thought if he happened to run away from whoever you gave him to, he might’s well come back here.”
Mrs. Wood’s eyes twinkled as they sat down to dinner, but grew grave again as she heard Ivanhoe plunging down the cellar stairs in his most maltese fit of all.
“I suppose he ought to be killed,” she thought; “but no cat’s fits are worth a child’s happiness, and at least, fits aren’t contagious.”