“Danger? what nonsense! I’ll disinfect it,” Grandmother said sharply. “Somebody heard that prayer, if the Lord didn’t, and the cat’s come for Christmas morning.”
“It’s a perfect beauty, even if it is thin,” said the children’s mother. “But it’s pretty young to keep.”
“I kept my babies when they were younger than that, and I’ll warrant this cat won’t make half so much trouble. Besides, its mother trusted you, so there’s nothing else to do.”
But it was not until after they had warmed some milk for the kitten, and Grandmother had wrapped her up in a First Aid bichloride bandage, that they remembered how the Alley Cat had gone out again into the night.
“She looked hungry,” said the children’s mother, with tears in her eyes, “and I know she must have been hungry. But she thought she wasn’t wanted, and went away. Oh, poor Alley Cat!”
She opened the outside door, and called, “Come back, kitty, come back, poor kitty, kitty! Come back, poor kitty-cat!”
But nothing entered except the wind and the snow. And they never saw the Alley Cat again.
CHAPTER TWO
THE ALLEY CAT’S KITTEN
