When it got to be time for the children to come from school, I went to the window to watch for Guy. But after all the children had passed by, and he did not come, I went to his room.
There I found a strange lady dressed in blue, and wearing a white cap and apron, and somebody was lying in Guy’s bed. I jumped up on the bed, as I had often done, and saw that it was Guy; but he looked so pale and thin, and to my great surprise, he took no notice of me. The house was very still, and everybody spoke in a whisper; I could not understand what it all meant.
During the afternoon a very tall gentleman called, with a hand bag. They called him “Doctor.” I heard him talk to the strange lady about “temperature” and “quinine” and “hot compress” and other things that I had never heard of before.
At supper-time Dennis came in and I went up to him and looked into his eyes. He put his nose down close to mine and gave a soft low growl; perhaps he was scolding me for having stayed away so long. Early the next morning I scampered over to Jack’s house. I found him seated on the ledge of the fence, intently watching the ash box, but as soon as he saw me he came to meet me.
“Where have you been?” said he, joyfully, as he rubbed his side up against me in the most friendly fashion. “I never expected to see you again, for I was afraid some of those dreadful college boys had got hold of you.”
At this moment Jack’s mistress came out into the yard, and when she saw me she too seemed delighted, and to fitly celebrate my return, she brought out the song box and made it play “The Cat Came Back.”
Of course, I had to give Jack an account of how I happened to disappear so suddenly, and when I told him about my black companion and that woeful night he expressed great surprise.
“That explains Nig’s absence,” said he. “His people, the Mortons, have missed him for several weeks. I don’t blame him for leaving, because they made him stay outdoors on the coldest nights; and they gave him his food in an old tin pan big enough to water a horse with; and his usual fare was plain boiled potatoes, or oat meal mush.”
I told Jack the condition Nig was in when I last saw him, but he said that was nothing unusual for Nig, and that he had often seen him with both eyes closed after a night’s outing.
It was many weeks before Guy went to school again, and as soon as he was able to be up, the nurse permitted me to stay in his room all the time; so I spent many pleasant days with him. He told me about a big Maltese cat that came to the house just before he was taken ill, and how they took her in and fed her as long as she stayed, because they wanted to do by her as they hoped some one was doing by me. I hope the kind Providence helped her to find her home again.