"You're going to get some help whether you want it or not."
Holding Frosty so that he could neither scratch nor bite, Andy carried him back to the house, pushed the door open with his knee and wondered. The kitten must be hurt because nothing withstood the strike of a great horned owl without getting hurt. In spite of the fact that he did not appear to be seriously injured, he probably would bear watching for a few days. Andy thought speculatively of one of the cages in which the muskrats had been shipped. He'd be able to watch the spunky little fellow closely if he put him in one.
For no apparent reason, he suddenly remembered when he had lived in town, working on the railroad nights and going to school days. There had always been a feeling of too little room and too much confinement. He looked again at Frosty . . . and put him down on the floor.
"Guess we won't lock you up."
Frosty scooted beneath the stove and again Andy's smile threatened to blossom. Running, the kitten looked oddly like a strip of black velvet upon which frost crystals sparkle. It was then that Andy gave him his name.
"Okeh, Frosty. If that's what you like, that's what you can have."
He stooped to peer beneath the stove and was warned away with a rumbling growl, so he straightened. After he had satisfied himself that the kitten was all right, Frosty would be free to go his own way. There never had been and never would be any prisoners in the swamp.
Going outside, careful to latch the door behind him lest it blow open and let Frosty escape, Andy caught up a discarded tin can and took a spade from his shed. He turned the rich muck at the swamp's edge, dropped the fat worms he uncovered into the can, then went back to the house for a willow pole with a line, hook and cork bobber attached. Carrying the pole and can of worms, he made his way to the watery slough in front of his house.
While their dozen children sported in the slough, Four-Leaf and Clover dug succulent bulbs in the mud on the opposite bank. None paid any attention to Andy. This colony, protected by the nearness of the house and seeming to know it, was not nearly as wary as those that lived in more remote sections of the swamp. Even the great horned owls had not attacked them. Andy strung a wriggling worm on his hook and was about to cast it when,
"Howdy."