“Why don’t you let the pussy in?” asked Trouble.
“What pussy, Trouble?” she asked, not yet quite awake. “There isn’t any pussy here. You must be dreaming. Go to sleep again.”
“Yes they is a pussy!” insisted the little fellow, sitting up in his berth. His mother could see him in the dim little electric light. “They is a pussy and she’s mewing and she wants to come in out of the rain. Bring her in, Mommie.”
Mrs. Martin thought Trouble was imagining all this, or that it was part of a dream. Often he had dreams and went right on with them when he awoke.
“I’ll get you a drink, and then you can go back to sleep again,” his mother said, as she got up.
“Pussy wants a drink, too,” declared Trouble. “She wants a drink of milk. There! Didn’t you hear her mew?”
There came a lull in the storm and, to her surprise, Mrs. Martin heard, through a porthole opened for ventilation on the leeward side of the boat, the mewing of a cat.
“Why, Trouble!” she exclaimed, “there is a pussy out in the rain. The poor thing!”
“It’s my pussy!” declared the little fellow. “Bring her in!”