One morning Sam stopped his niece in the yard near the well, a droll, half-amused expression on his face. "Do you know," he said, "that I believe I'd 'a' made a bang-up detective if I'd given time to it."
"Do you think so?" Virginia said, absently.
"Yes, I do," he replied. "Now, I'm going to give you an instance of what a body can discover by sticking two and two together and nosing around till you are plumb sure you know what a certain thing means. Now, you are a woman—not an old one, but a woman all the same—and they are supposed to see what's at the ends of their noses and a heap beyond, but when it comes to detective work they are not in it. I reckon it's because they won't look for what they don't want to see, and to make a good detective a body must pry into everything that is in sight. Well, to come down to the case in hand, you've been sticking grub through that crack in the door to your mammy, who put herself in limbo several weeks ago, but in all that time you haven't seen the color of her cheeks to know whether the fare is fattening her or thinning her down to the bone. In fact, you nor me, on the outside, hain't supposed to know a blasted thing about what's going on in there. But—and there's where detective work comes in—one morning—it was day before yesterday, to be accurate—I took notice that all the stray cats and ducks and chickens had quit basking on the sunny side of the house and was staying around your mammy's window. Now, thinks I, that's odd; that's not according to the general run; so I set in to watching, and what do you reckon? I found out that all them Noah's Ark passengers, of the two and four footed sort, had assembled there to get their meals. Your mammy was regularly throwing out the dainty grub you fixed for her. I laid in wait nigh the window this morning and saw her empty the plate. I went close and took a look. She had just nibbled a bit or two, like the pecking of a sparrow, out of the centre of the bread-slices, but she hadn't touched the eggs nor the streak-o'-lean-streak-o'-fat you thought she set such store by. Good Lord, Virgie, don't you think the thing's gone far enough—having a drove of cats fed on the fat o' the land, when me and you are living on scraps?"
"Uncle"—Virginia's startled eyes bore down on him suddenly—"what does it mean?"
"Mean? Why, that there'll be a passle of cats on this place too fat to walk, while me 'n' you'll be too lean to cast a shadow if we stood side by side in the sun."
"Oh, uncle, do you suppose she is worse?" Virginia asked, in deep concern.
"I don't know," Sam said, seriously, "my Pinkerton job ended with the discovery of them cat banquets, but I've about reached one opinion."
"And what is that?" the girl asked, anxiously, as she bent towards her uncle.
"Why, I think maybe she's so mad and set back by all that's happened that she's trying to starve herself to death to get even."
"Oh, uncle, don't say that!" Virginia cried—"don't! don't!"