"I've heard that the place is full of snakes," she answered. "Man or beast isn't safe from them. Rattlesnakes and all kinds--sometimes, I've heard folks say, if the nights are the least bit chilly, the rattlers crawl under the blankets to get warm. Imagine waking up in the morning and finding a snake in bed with you!" "He wouldn't hurt you, if you didn't provoke him," Sarah asserted. "Snakes are polite and they'll let you alone if you let them do as they please. I think snakes are the most interesting things to see!" "I don't!" said Mrs. King. "I'd run a mile before I'd face one. There is nothing, to my mind, more disgusting than a wriggling snake." Sarah looked grieved. "That's the same way my Aunt Trudy talks," she observed. "She is scared to death of little, tiny snakes. Even water snakes. And a water snake never hurts anyone." "Don't show me one," said Mrs. King hurriedly. "I don't care what kind of a snake it is, they're all alike as long as they can move. I never want to see one on the place." Sarah wisely concluded that another topic would be welcome and unconsciously the huge gray cat that climbed over the porch railing and leaped heavily to the floor, provided it. "What a darling cat!" cried Sarah, abandoning her chair in such haste that it narrowly missed falling backward. "Is it yours, Mrs. King?" "Yes, he's mine," said the landlady. "He used to be a right handsome cat but lately he's getting too fat. The girls in the kitchen feed him all the time. I don't believe he has caught a mouse or a rat for six weeks." "He wouldn't catch mice," Sarah declared feelingly. "Would you, darling? He's too nice for that," and she sat down in the cretonne-covered rocker again, holding the cat in her arms. "No cat is worth his board, to my way of thinking, who _doesn't_ catch mice and rats," retorted Mrs. King. "Garry used to be a famous mouser." "I guess the poor mice want to live," Sarah protested, stroking the thick fur of the purring cat with a practised hand. "It's a question of human beings living, or the mice," declared Mrs. King. "Of course if you want the mice to move into your house and you move out, that's another matter. Till I get ready to do that, I'm going to set traps in the pantry every night and leave Garry shut up in the kitchen." "Just like Winnie," murmured the hapless Sarah. "Seems to me you ought to run a zoo," said Mrs. King glancing curiously over her spectacles at the small girl rocking the fat cat. "Though how you're going to keep the mice and the cats and the snakes and the tigers all happy and contented together, is more than I'm able to figure out." "I could make 'em love each other," said Sarah confidently. "I don't know about that," argued Mrs. King. "Even in the circus they can't bring that about. Mr. Robinson would tell you that," and she pointed to the stout man who was still asleep in his chair.