"Can't be the woman!" said Joe excitedly. "Why, she's as dead as a herrin'!"
"I have it, boys!" shouted Tom, as he jumped up excitedly and cut a caper. "It's the darned ole cat!"
A look of great relief passed over each countenance at the thought.
Tom, meanwhile, lifted up the locker lid, disclosing the rescued cat, which, together with her two bairns, were stowed in the locker shortly after being saved from the flood. The animals were snuggled together on a cornsack, and looked the very picture of contentment. The kittens were dining baby fashion, and the mother's purr declared the very excess of maternal rapture.
On seeing the boys, pussy gave a low, affectionate miaow, and made a sympathetic movement of the tail, as if to say: "Thank you a thousand times, young gentlemen, for the good deed which we never, never shall forget." And then, motherlike, proceeded to "lick" her offspring.
"It's not the cat, Tom."
"Well, what on earth, water, or air is it?"
The mystery is insoluble. As the boys look down upon the happy and contented felines, they one and all reject Tom's confident affirmation of a moment before. If not the cat, what then?
Again the tiny, shrill cry arose, but not from the cat's mouth. It came from the tree above, and as the startled youths looked up they saw the overhanging end of the blanket agitated.
"Why, why—the poor thing must really be alive after all, chaps. There's something more up there than I've discovered; so here's up again!"