“Yes; he’d lick him too, if Flash wasn’t Tom’s body-guard.”
“Well, just listen! This morning your mama set out the meat for their breakfast. I had Geewhillikins and Jerusalem Crickets in the pound—the woodshed, you know. Oh, they had a big breakfast before,” she added quickly, feeling rather than seeing Billy’s disapproval.
“I forgive you,” he condoned.
“In a minute I heard the teentiest little mew. I looked and there was Tom crouched against the side of the house. He was shivering with fright, and that old tramp cat was eating up his breakfast.”
“The darned old robber!” Billy started up and walked restlessly toward the door.
“I took a stick of kindling from the kitchen and crept out to chase the thief away; but just then Flash trotted around the corner of the house. He’s been on the front lawn all the morning watching for gophers; wouldn’t come when we called him.”
“That’s Flash; he always works for his breakfast,” Billy pompously approved.
“He ran up and touched noses with Tom like a Feegee Islander,—are they the people that touch noses for ‘How do you do?’”
“I guess so. What else?”
“And Flash mewed just once, very softly. He couldn’t see the tramp cat, for the big oak tree hid him. But the second Tom answered his mew, Flash flew like a lightning streak, around the tree and up to that old, stealing feline cat. And he ran— O Billy, you’d have laughed an ache in your side if you could have seen him run,—over the fence, he ran again, across the street, down the sidewalk,—he never stopped till he came to the tip top of Mr. Potter’s big locust tree.”