THE WINTER CAT

As much a mood piece as a narrative, this has all the hushed stillness of the winter snowfall in which a ""wild"" cat evades three bundled-up children's attempts to catch him. At last ""one day it is just too cold to be a wild cat any longer"" and Homer (whom the children have so named in hopes that he'll come home) ""lets himself be carried into the house."" There isn't a cloying note in Knott's brief text, but it is his delicate black and white pictures, made of cross-hatched lines and soft gray washes with small white spaces for the falling snowflakes, that set and sustain the tone.