“A witch’s cat!” cried one of the boldest youths, re-approaching. “We drove it in the corner to stone it to death!”
Now Adam had a lingering fondness for cats, from a time not many years past.
“A witch’s cat?” he repeated. “What nonsense! What harm can a poor cat do to big healthy boys like you? There are no witches, you young varlets.” He went into the corner and peered about eagerly, to find the dumb victim of the mad superstition then subtly growing in that Massachusetts colony.
“There was a witch and she ran away, screaming!” scolded back the bold spokesman of the group of boys, now gaining courage to edge nearer. “She ran away through this garden!” He pointed to a rear yard, leading off the alley to a house not far distant.
“She made me cough up pins and needles,” asserted another young liar, glibly. “And a monster black monkey with cock’s feet followed her when she ran.”
“He’s a prince of the powers of air himself,” whispered another lad, in awe-stricken tones.
Adam had found the cat, a middle-aged animal, frightened, hurt, soiled, but intelligent, since it knew it was being protected at last. He lifted it forth from its small retreat, finding it to be a heavy, black-and-white specimen, too inoffensive to scratch and claw, even in its terror.
“You young——” he started to say.
“Here she comes! Here she comes!” yelled one of the lads, interrupting. “Two of them! Run for your lives!”
The self-scared young cowards, screaming like so many demons, darted down the alley as fast as their legs would let them go. Adam looked where one had pointed and beheld, indeed, two female figures coming on a distracted run through the near-by yard, toward him as he was standing with the cat in his arms.