"I don't know," she said. "But I can't believe that anything so adorable wasn't brought into the world for a purpose."
We didn't get much sewing done that morning for practically every time we picked up a strip of cloth Daisy June was dangling on the end of it and as fast as Eve wound the balls, the kitten unwound them. When we went in for dinner, we left her sleeping peacefully in the box. She at any rate had no misgivings about the future.
"I see somebody has been trampling the petunia bed," remarked Aunt Cal, dishing out lamb stew and dumplings. "But I suppose it's no more than is to be expected when one leaves things to take care of themselves!"
It was Eve who persuaded my aunt to go upstairs after dinner for a rest. "After being up all night," she urged, "it's the only sensible thing to do." And though Aunt Cal declared stoutly that she did not hold with naps in the daytime, she finally yielded.
After we had finished the dishes Eve carried out a saucer of milk for Daisy June. To our dismay the kitten was gone. There was her bed of carpet rags, still matted where her soft form had lain, but no sign of its late occupant. We searched every corner of the yard, calling softly so that Aunt Cal would not hear. But neither the yard nor garden yielded any trace of her.
Could she have got through the hedge, I wondered? I went to look. And there she was, big as life, sauntering up the path toward the Captain's back door. I beckoned to Eve. "Look," I whispered, "for all the world as if she was about to drop in on a friend for tea or something!"
I was about to pop through the hedge after her when the back door of the house opened and the owner himself emerged. He was jauntily dressed in immaculate white trousers and a nautical blue jacket. I wondered how he managed, living alone as he did, always to look so spick and span. He was descending the steps when he met the kitten. "Bless my boots!" The words floated across the quiet air. "Now where in blazes did you come from?"
Daisy June's answer was to leap up the intervening step and begin her accustomed twining movement about the Captain's ankle. I hurried forward. "Oh, I'm so sorry," I began, "we do have such trouble with our cats!"