"You fellers," said Seth, chuckling while he spoke, "make me think of the little kid that took a notion to run away from home, and wandered around all day. When night came along he just couldn't stand it any longer, and crept home. His folks knew what was up, and they settled on punishing him by not noticing him, or saying a thing about his being gone. The kid tried to ketch the attention of maw, but she was sewing, and kept right along, just like he'd been around all day. Then he tried dad; but he read his paper, and smoked his pipe, and never paid the least attention. That boy just couldn't understand it. There he'd been away from home a whole year it seemed to him, since morning, and yet nobody seemed to bother the least bit, or make a fuss over him. And when he couldn't get a rise from anybody, he saw the family pussy sittin' by the fire. 'Oh!' he says, says he, 'I see you've still got the same old cat you had when I went away!'"