THE HOME FRONT
161
part, guilty on the woman's. It seemed to him that the life of the rest
of the house had ceased, that all was at an ominous standstill before
a final battle to the death. And then, incredibly, the cat came back.
When he first heard the mewing outside his door on the dot of seven,
Dr. Pakheiser could not believe his ears. Not until the sound had
been repeated two or three times did he open the door. His joy at
the reunion was less than his shame for falsely accusing Mrs. Horvath
and less than his bewilderment at her shifty-eyed embarrassment.
Apparently Milenka had just wandered off somewhere as tom-cats do
in
the spring. He was thin and mangy and his coat was matted with
cockleburrs and beggar's lice. His purr had a bronchial rasp and the
doctor made a note on his memorandum pad to bring home a worm
pill the next night. Nor had he any appetite for the bit of herring
which was all that the doctor had to offer him, and after less than
half an hour, he asked to be let out. But this•strangeness, under good
case, would pass. That night the doctor slept well.
"Good morning," he cried heartily as he met Mrs. Horvath in
the hall the following day. "Have you seen my friend, Mrs. Horvath?
He came back for his sardine as you promised me."
The woman's eyes opened from their sleepiness, her lips parted
in disbelief, and she said, "Back? That cat back?" Dr. Pakheiser
assured her that what he said was true and at that moment, to con–
firm him, Milenka leaped to the windowsill from the veranda and
sat there in profile, blinking his eyes. ·Mrs. Horvath stared, "I do not
know," she said. "It is like a dream." The doctor surmised, then,
that the cat had been put into a bag and taken into the country some–
where and been abandoned. It was scarcely believable that he could
be so gross as to laugh triumphantly and almost to sob his words:
"Yes, Mrs. Horvath, my dearest friend is restored to me!"
She looked away from the window. "But, Doctor, I do not know.
My son, he catch birds all while now. His school finish pretty soon.
I think he don't want that cat here."
"It is cruel to catch birds," he said severely, no longer tyrannized
over by her now that he had got his cat back. "And
I
want him here
even if that boy doesn't." It gave him pleasure to say "that boy"
just as she and her son spoke of "that cat."
"But, Doctor, the cat kill birds. My boy don't kill them. He make
them into good pet."
"It
is the eat's nature to kill birds. But it is not the nature of
man to take prisoners."
"No?" she said. The look of cunning returned to her face.
"What we fight war for, then, Doctor?"
