  Farmer Slown arose early, milked the goat with nervous speed, breakfasted on one less egg than usual and started for the village in his flat-bottomed boat. His principal errand there was the buying of two huge steel traps guaranteed to hold anything up to a grizzly bear in size. These two traps having long been on exhibit in a hardware store window as curiosities to draw a crowd and to help advertise the store’s wares, their purchase by the Farmer very naturally aroused the curiosity of the shopkeeper and of several village loungers who happened to be witnesses of the sale. Questions soon drew from the Farmer enough details of the strange doings on Goose Creek to make a very good story. He was buying the huge traps to catch some uncanny creature which visited his farm at night and carried off whole clothes lines. That was enough for the village gossips. They enlarged the story at each telling until it became a regular fairy tale, with the villain a creature nearly as high as the trees, marching about in the woods terrorizing the inhabitants. So sure did the gossips become of the truth of the story, that they even made Farmer Slown wonder whether it might not be true. He stayed all day in the village repeating his version of it to all the newcomers and so thoroughly enjoying being a hero that he let his own imagination work a little to make the story better. He even described the dreadful creature as he thought it ought to look. Needless to say it did not resemble a little wood pussy. One of those who took great interest in the affair was the Editor of the little local paper. He saw a great opportunity and made the most of it in a special afternoon edition with the story under black headlines and illustrated with sketches of a creature as large as a house and resembling a cross between a camel and an elephant. The little paper circulated far and wide and was quoted by papers elsewhere until the story in its exaggerated form, was being discussed in the biggest cities. The general conclusion seemed to be that someone had gone loony or else that a prehistoric mammal had been hiding in the Pine Barrens all these years and had now suddenly been discovered. In a week Goose Creek was a famous place. Newspapers sent photographers there who poled up and down the stream taking pictures of places wild enough to be the den of the monster and of any holes in the mud which might be taken for its foot prints. And Farmer Slown was still the great hero whom everyone had to visit and listen to and sympathize with. He approached with caution Meanwhile the wood pussies, cause of all the excitement, could not understand what had happened to make the place so noisy and unsafe for them. There were strange people and strange dogs in the woods, there were shouts and gunshots and new odors. The mother, always nervous, hunted for a new den and finally moved the family to a deserted woodchuck burrow under a holly tree in the middle of the burned section of the wood, not very far from where the brush pile had once stood. But Striped Coat did not like the change. The other young ones were quarrelsome and the new quarters were crowded. Also he missed his white crow. So after one day in the burrow he made a trip all by himself back to the barn, looking more than ever like a fur ball as, all fluffed up with excitement, he marched along the field. Nor had his white crow disappointed him. He approached with caution and in her nest found a fine egg, with a shell thin enough for him to crack. Its luscious contents were both food and drink. Afterwards he wandered under the barn and remodelled the bed to suit his own needs. The remains of the blue night shirt he draped around the top, the socks he stuffed underneath. By morning he was curled up in the middle of the comfortable mass, fast asleep. That day a city cousin of the Farmer, a Mrs. Simpkins, arrived by boat to get first hand details of the strange affairs which had so suddenly made the family famous. She brought as companion her son, an overgrown boy named Oswald who, having read a good many books, thought himself pretty smart, and perhaps he was. At any rate, while his mother was talking to the Farmer in the parlor, Oswald nosed about the farm. He managed to escape disaster, except for one bee sting and a good butting from the goat, until by mere chance he wandered back of the barn and caught sight of the hole leading underneath it. Here was mystery! In true detective fashion he examined the opening and found two large hairs, one black the other white. “A cat!” said the bright Oswald. “Maybe it has kittens under here. I’ll have a look.” Getting down on his stomach he wormed his way under the barn until, his eyes becoming used to the darkness, he could see all about. Everything was bare except in one corner. Oswald elbowed his way in that direction. Yes, he had certainly found the kittens, for here was a bed for them, all nicely made with rags! “Pussy, pussy,” called Oswald. He did not want to surprise an angry cat. “Pussy, pussy.” And then to his joy there stood up in the middle of the nest not a big mother cat but a fluffy black kitten with white stripes on its head and neck. Oswald’s heart gave a thump of delight. Here was just the pet for him. He would catch it and take it home. Of course his cousin the Farmer wouldn’t mind, since it was he who had found it. But he must not let it get away! Craftily advancing an arm under cover of many “pussy, pussies,” he felt the right moment had come. Around went his hand in a sudden wild grab. “Yow-w-w-w-w!” howled Oswald as the little “kitten” gave him a musk bath precisely where it would do the most good—“Yow-w-w-w-w!” He could not see and he could not breathe, so he made up for it in yells which even reached his mother in the Farmer’s parlor. She had just been telling her cousin what a wonderful boy her Oswald was. “Yes,” she went on, “he isn’t like other boys at all. He is never idle, he is always finding out things for himself or doing something splendid! Ah! What’s that! I think I hear him calling. He always does that when he’s found something wonderful!” So Mrs. Simpkins and the Farmer went out of the house to see what Oswald had found. They heard him all right, but they could not find him. “Yow-w-w-w-w!” howled Oswald more wild with fury because his fond Mamma had not at once come to his rescue. “Yow-w-w-w-w!!!” “Sounds as if he were under the barn!” exclaimed the Farmer at last. He walked around to the back and there found a foot sticking out of the hole. Dodging a kick, he seized the foot and began to pull, Mrs. Simpkins, now much alarmed, pulling also until between them they nearly pulled Oswald in two. “We’ve got him!” gurgled Mrs. Simpkins as more body appeared and the sound of the yells grew louder. “Oh, what an awful smell!” “I say so, too!” agreed the Farmer heartily. “Let’s poke him back.” But just then the whole of Oswald came out and his mother clasped him to her in utter disregard of consequences. “My son,” cried Mrs. Simpkins tragically, “what has happened!” “A kitty!” cried Oswald, “a little black kitty with a white striped coat.” Then, seeing the Farmer’s convulsed face, his tears drowned all else. “Well, well, it’s all right,” crooned his mother, “but what’s that you’ve got in your hand?” The Farmer looked too and all at once his face grew very red. Tightly clutched in Oswald’s hand was all that was left of the blue night shirt. A few hours later Mrs. Simpkins, waiting with her son for a train at the village station, was being interviewed by an appreciative reporter. “Yes,” she was saying. “It was all my Oswald. He isn’t like other boys. He is always finding out things for himself. He went under the barn all alone and discovered the lost clothes. Isn’t he wonderful?” The reporter’s eye swept appraisingly over the blushing Oswald. “Well, yes,” he admitted reluctantly, “he certainly is; but, doesn’t he smell awful!” |
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