Amos stared at the clouds; then he whirled on his heel and recognized both the voice, which had a different accent and quality of tone from the voices that he was used to hear, and the little, shabby, gray-headed woman who was scrambling down to him.
“‘I’LL GIVE THE KITTY SOMETHING TO EAT’”
“Will you?” exclaimed Amos, in relief, for he knew her by repute, although they had never looked each other in the face before. “Well, that’s very nice of you, Miss Clark.”
“I’ll keep him with pleasure, sir,” said the old woman. “I’ve had a bereavement lately. My cat died. She was ’most at the allotted term, I expect, but so spry and so intelligent I couldn’t realize it. I couldn’t somehow feel myself attracted to any other cat. But this poor fugitive—— Come here, sir!”
To Amos’s surprise, the cat summoned all its forces and, after one futile stagger, leaped into her arms. A strange little shape she looked to him, as she stood, with her head too large for her emaciated little body, which was arrayed in a coarse black serge suit, plainly flotsam and jetsam of the bargain counter, planned for a woman of larger frame. Yet uncouth as the woman looked, she was perfectly neat.
“I’m obliged to you for saving the poor creature,” she said.
“I’m obliged to you, ma’am, for taking it off my hands,” said Amos. He bowed; she returned his bow—not at all in the manner or with the carriage to be expected of such a plain and ill-clad presence. Amos considered the incident concluded. But a few days later she stopped him on the street, nervously smiling. “That cat, sir,” she began in her abrupt way—she never seemed to open a conversation; she dived into it with a shiver, as a timid swimmer plunges into the water—“that cat,” said she, “that cat, sir, is a right intelligent animal, and he has pleased the Colonel. He’s so fastidious I was afraid, though I didn’t mention it; but they are very congenial.”
“I’m glad they’re friendly,” says Amos; “the Colonel would make mince-meat of an uncongenial cat. What do you call the cat?”
“I couldn’t, on account of circumstances, you know, call him after my last cat, Miss Margaret Clark, so I call him Esquire Clark. He knows his name already. I thank you again, sir, for saving him. I just stopped you so as to tell you I had a lot of ripe gooseberries I’d be glad to have you send and pick.”