In the garden, too, was the only martin house in town, set upon a tall pole. There every spring a battle royal went on between the coming martins and the impudent sparrows, as the latter horde always appropriated the martin house during the absence of its proper owners in the South. Each cherry tree had its robin's nest—sometimes two. Mr. Robin likes to be near the supply of his favorite fruit. The wrens built under the eaves of the porch, and above the windows, in sheltered places. All the pigeons in the neighborhood flew here to strut and coo, and help eat any grain that might be thrown out.
What one saw now, waiting at the porch steps, was principally a family of cats. There were no less than nine posing expectantly before the queer looking character known to Milton folks as Seneca Sprague.
First of all, Sandyface, the speckled tabby-cat, sat placidly washing her face on the lower step. Close at her back, on the ground—one was even playing with its mother's steadily waving tail—was Sandyface's latest family, the four kittens bearing the remarkable names of Starboard, Port, Hard-a-lee and Mainsheet.
Grouped farther away from the mother cat were the four well-grown young cats, Spotty, Almira, Popocatepetl and Bungle.
Much farther in the background, and in the attitude of sleep, with his head on his forepaws, but with a blinking eye that lost nothing of what went on at the porch (for Mrs. MacCall might appear at any moment with his own particular dish) lay a big Newfoundland dog, with a noble head, intelligent brown eyes, and a muzzle now graying with age. This was the Corner House girls' newest and most valued pet, Tom Jonah.
In addition, on the clothes-drying green, was Billy Bumps. This suggestively named individual was a sturdy, wise-looking goat, with a face and chin-whisker which Mrs. MacCall declared was "as long as the moral law," and whose proclivity to eat anything that could be masticated was well-known to the Kenway children.
This collection of dumb pets the tall, lank, barefooted man in the broken straw hat and linen duster, now faced with a serious mien as though he were a real preacher and addressed a human congregation.
Seneca Sprague was a harmless person, considered "not quite right," as Tess had said, by his fellow-townsmen. Whether his oddities arose from a distraught mind, or an indulgence in a love of publicity, it would be hard to say.
His sharp-featured face and long, luxurious iron-gray hair, which he sometimes wore knotted up like a woman's, marked him wherever he went. Even those who thought him the possessor of a mind diseased agreed that he was quite harmless.
He came and went as he pleased, often preaching on street corners a doctrine which included a belief in George Washington as a supernatural being; and he was patriotic to the core.