and if you were not able to go out at all they would put you in one of the nice clean barns.”
“Will they take tired dogs and birds out there?” I asked.
“They will take anything,” replied Billie. “Back of the brick farm house is a long, low building which is a dog’s boarding house. Any one going away in summer can put a pet animal there and know that it will have a good time roaming over the farm with the men.”
“Cats have a dreadful time,” I said, “when their owners go away and leave them.”
Billie began to laugh, and I said in surprise, “My friend, have you turned heartless about cats?”
“No, no,” said Billie, “but just listen to what Sammy-Sam is saying, as he walks up and down here under the trees.”
I looked at our handsome little lad, as he paced to and fro, a book by a well-known animal lover in his hand. Missie, before she went out this afternoon, had promised him a quarter if he would learn a nice poem for her before she came home, and this is what he chose, and it fitted in so well with what I had been saying that it had made Billie laugh:
“THE WAIL OF THE CAT”
“My master’s off to seek the wood,
My lady’s on the ocean,