“Stop it, Blackberry!” Judy chided him. “You’re not a kitten any more. Books are to read, not to play with.”
Blackberry turned one of the pages with his paw, and Judy began to laugh. He acted just as if he had understood her. She was still laughing when Peter came in at six o’clock.
“Look at Blackberry!” she pointed out. “He thinks he can read that old souvenir booklet I bought for the library exhibit.”
“So he does,” chuckled Peter. “It must be quite a story if a cat can read it. Of Mice and Men—”
“It isn’t a story,” Judy interrupted, laughing. “It’s just a list of names.”
“I see it is.”
Peter read the list and then began questioning Judy. She had wanted to tell him about Hugh Sammis and his queer, sheared-off house. Now she found herself coming to some odd conclusions.
“Peter,” she asked as she hurried to prepare dinner, “do you think he could have been one of the men who did the looting in Roulsville after the flood?”
“Hugh Sammis? I don’t think so,” Peter replied soberly. “He didn’t live in this part of the country then. That house belonged to a family by the name of Truitt.”
“Donna Truitt’s family?”