"Yes, indeed, I came here before I went to college. Gresham had not such a grand building then and accommodated only about fifty girls. It was more like a home school. Captain Leahy was then conductor on the local train and took an especial interest in the Gresham girls. I shall never forget how good he was to me on my first trip. I was lonesome and shy——"
"You, shy! Oh, Miss Peyton, were you, really?"
"I should say I was. Why, Annie Pore is brazen beside what I was as a child. Captain Leahy sat by me between stations and with his ready Irish tongue cheered me up immensely. He treated me to peanuts and made me laugh and gave me a new outlook on life. The poor fellow lost a leg in a railroad accident about ten years ago, and ever since then has kept the gate where the track crosses the main street of Gresham."
"Does he like cats?" I asked.
"Oh, yes, he adores them. That is the great bond of sympathy between us. He loves cats and he loves flowers. He also has a great fondness for young people. Here we are," and Miss Peyton pointed out the gate-house where her old friend lived.
It was just an ordinary little square box of a house painted the pumpkin yellow that railroads are so partial to, but all around it were window boxes, some of them filled with geraniums, some with Norway spruces and English ivy. A moon flower had completely covered one side of the little house, but the frost had touched the big leaves and they were dropping off one by one.
A grizzled old man with a long red beard and a peg leg was digging around the geraniums as we approached. "Captain, I have brought some of my girls to meet you," said Miss Peyton, holding out her hand to the old man and introducing us.
"And I am that proud to meet all of yez; and so will me cats be. The poor critters long for some petticoats to cuddle oop to. A peg leg is but cold comfort to a pussy when she is hankering for some women folk," and with a hearty laugh the old fellow stumped to the door of his little gate-house and called to the cats. Out they came, seven in all and a motley crew. The Captain was very democratic and not particular about the pedigree of his friends.
"All cats are aristocratic if you just give 'em a chance," he would declare when some cat snob would suggest that he go in for pure breeds.
Six of the cats came to him and rubbed their backs against his good leg; but the seventh, a large gray one with a mournful look in her eyes, began to sharpen her claws on a long strip of sand paper he had tacked to his wooden leg. We burst out laughing. It was the most comical thing I had ever seen.