A CAT IN A STRANGE GARRET
There were others who felt as if they were in a strange garret, after the moving, besides the cat. The children’s mother was very homesick, for she was tired out; and she felt sad and lonely in the small house where her husband had never lived. The children did not mind so much, but it was strange, when they waked in the morning, to see the unfamiliar stretch of pasture from their window instead of the garden and the next house.
But Pussy minded it so much that she slipped out while the others were having their breakfast. They were all so busy that no one missed her until dinnertime, and then Peggy and Alice looked everywhere in the small house and they called “Lady Jane” many times, but no little furry, gray pussy answered.
Their grandmother had gone back to New York and their mother was too busy getting settled to hunt for the cat.
“She’ll come back when she gets hungry,” she said. “I want you children to help me unpack. See these nice drawers for the linen.”
“I don’t think they are half so nice as the linen closet in the other house,” said Alice.
“Now, children,” said their mother, “no one ever said this house was so nice as the large one where you were born, and we can’t pretend life is so pleasant as if we had your father here with us; but we have a great deal to be thankful for. If we haven’t much money, we have health and strength and each other. Your father said to me when he went away: ‘Mary, if I don’t come back, I don’t want you and the children ever to forget me, but I want you to remember all the happy times we have had together, and to think how glad I’d be of all the happy times you’d have by yourselves.’”
The children got very much interested in arranging the linen in the drawers.
“Oh, Peggy, you are no housekeeper; the pillowcases don’t go in that drawer,” said her mother. “See how carefully Alice puts the towels in.”
Alice smiled and showed her dimples, and Peggy stopped and gave Alice a hug.