"I can't break my word anyhow; I said he shouldn't come back, and he shan't; so now there's no use in pining yourself to death over a scapegrace."
"Mew! mew! mew! m-e-e-o-w!" shrieked the cat, with every bristle on end, and her claws scratching the floor.
"Mrs. Wiggins, I wish you would keep that miserable cat at home," said the deacon; and so the wee widow woman took up the wonderful cat and carried it home.
But the poor deacon couldn't rest. That night he thought he could hear that cat mewing at him all the time. He remembered that he had not seen Tom for some days. What if he was dying? It was a long night. The deacon at last got to thinking of the touching and wonderful Parable of the Prodigal. And then in the stillness he thought he could hear something in his heart mewing at him.
At last daylight came, and he hastened to find Tom in a wretched garret racked with disease. He brought him home tenderly, and Tom got well both in his body and in his soul.
The Chicken Little Stories.
Chicken Little fixed herself up in her new rocking-chair, set her mouth in a very prim fashion, leaned her head on one side, and began to rock with all her might, jerking her feet from the floor every time.
"I yish," she began, "I yish somebody yould tell some stories yat yould be little for me to hear."