Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 59, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 March 1915 — Little New York Girl Has Meat Line for Cats [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Little New York Girl Has Meat Line for Cats

NEW YORK. —Every afternoon when little Ruth Owen, seven years old, runs from school to her home at 349 East One Hundred and Forty-ninth street, the Bronx, there awaits her in the rear yard a coterie of cats. The

daily line-up of felines is as regular as the day itself, for they have come to know the little girl as their friend. Ruth feeds the kitties at precisely half-past three o’clock, and if she should happen to be late the entire neighborhood knows it from the chorus of meows in the yard. More than a year ago Ruth strolled into a restaurant In One Hundred and Forty-ninth street, near Third avenue,* and bashfully asked Miss Helen Hartnett, the cashier

there, if she would not sell her five cents’ worth of waste meat and bones. The young woman behind the desk was highly amused at such a request coming from the youngster and asked her for whom she wanted the scraps. Ruth replied that the meat was for her back-yard cats, and she was sent away with a good supply under each arm as a gift It soon became a daily habit with the little girl and the waiters, in the restaurant began to regard the day’s business incomplete if Ruth did not appear for her cat meat * To her back yard she hurries and is greeted by the feline aggregation. She is the center of attraction for a few minutes only, as each cat, snatching the biggest portion available, runs off to safety. This performance .is repeated daily and now the cat-meat line has reached such proportions that the individual morsels will have to be greatly diminished, or else Ruth will be compelled to obtain a more abundant supply. ~ .