Read Online One-Eyed Cat by Paula Fox - Free Book Online Page B

where his father would park it beneath the crab apple tree. But the car didn’t stop. Ned realized Papa was driving it to the stable.
    â€œI’m glad he’s home,” said his mother. “I think we’re going to have a fierce storm.”
    Mrs. Scallop was muttering in the doorway.
    â€œSpeak up, Mrs. Scallop!” Mama said sharply. “I’m not dead yet!”
    â€œOh—I was just saying, Ned’s milk will be all warm the way he don’t like it.”
    Mama gave him a conspiratorial smile and said in a low voice, “Better go down and drink it …”
    He felt almost happy, suddenly, and he went swiftly past Mrs. Scallop, down the stairs to the hall where he met his father carrying two large bags of groceries. “Help me, Neddy,” he called out. Ned grabbed a sack of potatoes. “Heavens! I nearly ran down a wretched cat at the foot of the driveway. I think we’re in for a big storm.”
    It was nearly as dark as night. Papa hurried into the kitchen and Ned watched him put away the groceries quickly, almost nervously, the way he did things he didn’t like doing. Ned had seen him sweep up like that, and cook supper, nearly leaping from table to stove until his task was over. He was so different in church, stately and slow, moving from moment to moment, as dignified as the organ music that rose like a fountain from the pipes behind the altar, its calm voice untroubled by the quivering, uncertain voices of the choir.
    â€œMay I turn on a light, Reverend?” asked Mrs. Scallop, who had slipped into the kitchen. It was always dark in there except for a brief moment in the late afternoon when a ray of sunlight entered the kitchen window and lay like a cloth of gold across the worn oilcloth of the kitchen table.
    â€œOf course, Mrs. Scallop,” Papa said. “You don’t need my permission, you know.”
    â€œWell—I’m thoughtful, Reverend,” said Mrs. Scallop. Ned didn’t think he’d ever met anyone who said so many nice things about herself. Mrs. Scallop held out his glass of milk to him.
    â€œWas the cat gray, Papa?” Ned asked.
    â€œI didn’t notice, Neddy. Did you have a good day at school?”
    â€œAll right,” said Ned. He took the glass and thanked Mrs. Scallop and turned away from her to drink the milk. He didn’t much like her to watch him eat. She went off to the pantry and Ned felt that relief that usually followed Mrs. Scallop’s departure from his vicinity. Papa washed his hands at the kitchen sink and dried them and sat down on one of the tall ladder-back chairs at the table. “Thank heavens I put up those lightning rods,” he said, looking out the window at the black clouds in the sky.
    â€œYou know Billy? He tried to take the fangs out of a snake,” Ned reported.
    Papa made a grimace.
    â€œAnd Janet Hoffman stopped him. She got him right down on the ground.”
    â€œAre you sure he was trying to defang it? I don’t believe there are poisonous snakes around here.”
    â€œI don’t know, Papa. But Billy was trying to hurt the snake.”
    â€œI expect he didn’t know he might. Perhaps he doesn’t understand a snake can feel pain.”
    â€œBut he did!” exclaimed Ned. “Everybody does!”
    â€œWell, this storm will clear everything up. We’ll have real fall weather, a touch of frost …”
    Ned leaned against a chair, feeling sleepy. “The snakes will sleep all winter,” he said softly, “in their rocky palaces.”
    His father smiled and reached across the table and clasped his hand.
    â€œI like the things you say, Ned,” Papa remarked.
    Ned felt for a moment the way he had last July 4th when he’d slid into the lake where Papa had taken him for a swim before the Waterville Fourth of July Parade, and the water hadn’t been too warm or too cold, and he’d discovered he could swim