Winona did not come in when the others did. She sat down on the porch floor, pulled out her first-aid kit for the second time that day, sent Florence in for a basin of warm water, and set about doctoring the kitten. She sponged off the torn place in its side, and the little hurt in one of its hind legs that had made it limp. This last was only a scratch, but it had stiffened. She rubbed salve in the hurt places. Then she bandaged the cat’s leg very successfully. But when it came to tying up the side—for the cat would certainly have licked the salve off if she could—it wasn’t so simple. There wasn’t anything to fasten the bandage to. Finally she wound it round and round the meek little animal, and sewed it up on top. The cat looked as if it had on a large and fashionable sash, but it did not object. Then Winona gave it some evaporated cream out of a can in her knapsack, watched it while it ate, which it did till the belt tightened dangerously, and took it into the house with her. Florence took the basin back to the place she had gotten it from.
“Does this kitten belong to you?” Winona asked the landlady, who was hurrying about a long table in the dining-room, putting dishes full of steaming things on the table.
“Bless my soul, no!” she answered, stopping with a pan of baked beans poised in mid-air. “Why, I do believe that’s the kitten that belonged to Medarys, down the road, and they moved away last week. Well, poor little thing, the dogs must have got after it. It’s a mercy it got away at all.”
“People who abandon cats that way ought to be left out in a wilderness themselves, without anything to eat,” said Mrs. Bryan warmly, as she came up behind them.
“Ain’t it so?” said the landlady. “I’ll get somebody to drown the poor little thing to-morrow.”
“Oh, no! I’ll keep it if it’s nobody’s,” Winona said eagerly. “You don’t mind, do you, Mrs. Bryan?”
“If it hasn’t mange,” said Mrs. Bryan prudently.
“It hasn’t,” Winona and Florence assured her together. “It’s only hurt.”
“Very well,” said the Guardian; and the Merriams ran off to wash their hands in disinfectant and straighten themselves generally for supper. They left the cat in their room.
That certainly was a supper. When you have walked all day in the open you feel as if you could eat a house, if nothing tenderer offers itself. Even Nataly Lee, who was genuinely tired to death, was hungry. The girls stood behind their chairs for a moment, saying one of the Camp Fire graces softly in unison. Then they sat down, and ate as if lunch had been only a dream.