Spring is raw and brash and young
Bridling to run free
When growth and life are new begun.
Fall is soft, at least at first,
Summers warmth tempered
With Winters breath,
Caressed by melancholy
As days glide down
To sleep,
Until rebirth.
We named her Horrible, because of her coloring. She was probably the ugliest combination of colors possible in a cat—black, orange,tan, yellow all mixed together in a jumbled confetti. We became acquainted with her when we moved to the farm there on State Highway 2 in Iowa. She was included in the sale price although I am sure that the original owners had no idea that she even lived in the old bob-tailed barn. She didn’t require much care, just some milk in a pan set in an out of the way place and notice when she would come up and begin to wend her way in between our legs as if to say, “Hey, I need some lov’n.” So we would squat down by her and begin to scratch under her chin in that special way she liked. Cat like when she had enough she would rise up in her graceful manner and return to more interesting pursuits, which in her case was nursing her current batch of kittens or ‘mousing’.
Dad liked her, which is saying a lot as he was not a cat lover. In his opinion they all looked like over grown rats which is what he used to tell us when we would bring a favorite kitten to show him. I say this but it was Dad who would tell us where the new kittens could be found. Horrible was a valuable member of the farm ‘team’ because she was a hunter. Most cats will hunt for entertainment or food which Horrible did as well but in addition she had a natural killer instinct which meant that she helped keep the considerable mouse population down. I can remember one day when Dad was moving hay out of the mow up in the top of the barn which disturbed the nests of many of the furry little creatures that lived there. They were running everywhere trying to find dark holes to hide in and there was Horrible mowing them down as fast as she could. Without pause she would pounce, and crack another one lay limp on the floor where they joined their comrades, victims of this death wind, in the shape of a cat that rushed through the barn that day.
I must here come out of the closet and confess that I am a mouse-a-phobic. I truly don’t like them. Granted, you could tell me that I would if I only got to know them better and that there are many decent mice in the world just look at all the ones kept for pets or Mickey Mouse or the little poem I used to read to Sylvia when she was just a wee lass that went like this: I think mice are rather nice. Their tails are long, Their faces small, They haven’t any chins at all. Their ears are pink, their teeth are white, they run about the house at night. They nibble things they shouldn’t touch and no one seems to like them much. But I think mice are nice. (Rose Fyleman–I Think Mice Are Nice)
I suspect that my real dislike began when I went to gather eggs in the chicken house. Daylight wasn’t so bad if one didn’t mind getting pecked by a ‘broody’ hen who didn’t want to give up the egg/s she was sitting on. There were always a couple that were quite vicious about the whole thing and I can remember complaining quite vehemently about them to mother by way of explanation as to why there were’t as many eggs that day. She would then give me one of her looks and proceed out to the chicken house where she would march up to the nesting box and stick her hand in under the hen. Rarely would she get pecked. It was as if her body language said to the hen, and I must here add that chickens are not the brightest lights on the block by a long way, which is why it was so humiliating to be out witted by them, but when she arrived with her no nonsense don’t mess with me bearing, they didn’t. Upon having retrieved the eggs from under the soft fluffy warmth of the setting hen she would give me her, ” and that’s the way you do it look”, and head back for the house, leaving me to wonder why it was that some people, like my mother, could always make difficult things look so easy.
But I digress. When days got short we had to gather eggs in the dark which wouldn’t have been so bad except the light had to be turned on. You might think, “What was the problem At least there was a light”, but alas, the light hung down from the bulb which was located halfway into the chicken house. This meant that to get to it one had to enter the darkened building and cross this absolutely immense space hands outstretched, waving frantically trying to find the string that turned on the light, which was doable if one didn’t let their imagination take charge. This, then, is where my distaste for mice began in earnest–in the dark they would scamper out to find food and when someone came in they naturally headed for cover which in their panic often meant right over my feet, which I hated–it was always a toss up as to whom was more scared, me or the mice. I sometimes think that it was a wonder that I didn’t die of a heart attack when the mice went rushing past/over me in the dark.
Mother always cleaned out the chicken house in the Spring. I can see her still in my minds eye with the pitch fork in her hands tossing out the soiled straw that had built up over the winter. The weather was often raw and she would have her old tan chore coat buttoned around her with a scarf on her head that she always tied under her chin carefully working her way through the accumulation until she reached ‘ground’ level. Sometimes she would uncover nests of baby mice, helpless with their eyes still closed and their bodies hairless in the cold light of day to which they were so uncermoniously exposed. I can remember being fascinated by them–sorry for their helplessness but rescuing them would have been quite pointless. Farm life forces one to accept a hard reality about life or death that city life does not require.
Of course the cats, who used to follow us when we were outside, would have a wonderful time. The house cats pretending to be hunters as they stalked their prey, catching them and then letting them go then catching them again all the while with their tails twitching in excitment. Horrible just got down to business and did what needed to be done. Our little fox terrier Stubby could be counted on to add his frantic yipping to the mix as he joined the cats in their fierce pursuit of any mice unlucky enough to enter the arena.
Horrible was with us for several years, quietly going about her business until one sad day when we found her, or rather what was left of her, on the highway. We mourned her passing even if she lived up to her name in leaving a Horrible mess on the road.
We loved these smallfriends. They were our companions as we went our daily rounds on the farm. They were often the subject of our dinner conversation as we regaled ourselves with stories of their births, deaths, fights. Life was simpler then , there on the farm. We were insulated from the world in many ways and so we found our entertainment where we could and I think we were the better for it.
“Ah, yes. Come in and sit down. It is so good to see you again. After our rather traumatic session of a week ago I wondered if you would have the courage to return and get to the bottom of this obsession of yours. Let me see, it was about butter, or to be more precise, the making of butter if I remember correctly. Yes, yes here it is right here in my notes. Now if you have made yourself comfortable, let us begin—the clock is after all ticking and I know that you have a need to get your money’s worth out of these little sessions of ours. Do you remember when it began? This making of butter?”
Wiggling down a little more into the softness of the leather chair in which I found myself ensconced I stared across the polished desk separating me from my therapist, my very expensive therapist even tho I qualified on the lower end of his sliding fee scale, and wondered how I could ever explain to one so learned about my ‘experience’ on a farm in Iowa where to quote my father ‘the weather was nine months of winter and three months darn late in the fall’. I, I who had grown up pampered and sheltered in the dry heat of Arizona surrounded by distant mountain peaks, the stark beauty of her desert wilderness. Her majestic forests where we camped and frolicked on vacations in the summer. How could I ever hope to present my feelings to one so unlearned in the existence to which I found myself transported at the tender age of thirteen?
We had fought the move, Bobbie and I. We had argued and cried and carried on until in exasperation we succeeded in turning our mother into a snarling, swearing shecat who snapped at us. “When you reach 21 you can live anywhere you d– well please, but until you do, you are here and you might as well get used to it.” Mollified and a little frightened at the vehemence of her answer we took solace in the fact that we could return ‘home’ in eight or nine years as respectively we made solemn vows to each other that we would one day do so. Which, alas, has not happened—at least not yet for either of us. Perhaps this is when my obsession took hold of me. My obsession for making the best of where I was and what I did which grew to include more and more of my activities until at last I was completely caught up in the life of an Iowa farm girl.
I had tried, in a previous session, to tell him what it was like to sit down beside a cow and extract her milk. To carefully carry the bucket into the house where mother would strain it into large containers letting the cream separate from the milk as it rose thickly to the top where it lay limply waiting to be skimmed off and added to that already collected until there was enough to put into the churn where the paddle turned by my unwilling hand awaited me unless grandmother took pity on me and completed my task, something she seemed to quite enjoy but which I found tedious in the extreme as on average it required sitting in one spot turning, turning turning the handle first with my right hand and then with my left as my right hand tired and so back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. . . . “You say you get the picture and want me to go on to something else? Why, yes, yes I can do that. . . .”
In about thirty minutes, it felt like an eternity, tiny flecks of gold would begin to appear and then with a few more turns the flecks began to seek the company of each other until they lumped together in big fat clumps floating in the buttermilk which my mother would save for my father who enjoyed drinking it—something he had learned from his childhood I suppose. (Who knows why ones parents do the things they do. Certainly not me. Perhaps that is something we could discuss in a later session?) Done you might think but no, no not at all. After the buttermilk was poured off the butter, for that is what the cream had metamorphosed into, it was placed into a bowl of fresh cold water ready for the large flat bottomed spoon to push and press and squeeze forcing the buttermilk still trapped in the butter out. When the water became too cloudy it was poured off and more icy, cold water was added and the process begun again and then repeated again and again. “Yes, yes there is a point to all this and I am getting there and yes I can see where the big hand has gotten to on the clock. . .”
When at last after interminable changes of water there came a time when the water was perfectly clear which was the purpose of all the changes. It had to be clear, you see, because if even the teeniest amount of buttermilk was left the butter would go rancid which is a taste no one should have to experience, ever. The taste and smell of rancid butter causes me to shudder even to this day. Do you have any idea of what it is like to have one of your mothers lighter than air rolls slathered with butter in your hand and bring it to your mouth in anticipation of a taste that is to die for and then discover the butter is bad. Oh the agony of having to forgo this treat is enough to make the angels weep which I am sure they did.
“No, no, I don’t wish to talk about my religious beliefs. Well, I take that back. What do you know about the Mormons and do you want to know more? Oh, oh you didn’t mean that? Well then, I best return to my butter making.”
Did I tell you that after the butter was cleaned a small amount of salt was added to enhance the flavor? This too had to be worked in carefully and thoroughly because no one likes their salt all at once. “What’s that? You say you never really thought about it? Well, if you had ever had all the salt in a pound of butter at once you would know what I am talking about which makes me wonder if you have understood anything I have been telling you. I saw your head nodding and even if you did have a big lunch that is no reason not to give me your complete attention—not at the price I am paying you!” I haven’t told you about molding the butter and wrapping it in waxed paper. What’s that? You think I’ve told you enough? Why I still haven’t told you about stamping the top with this little flower. You don’t care? Why I am paying you a small fortune to listen to me and you have the nerve to say that you don’t care, that you know more than you ever wanted to know about the fine art of making butter? Well, the absolute nerve. I’m leaving right now and yes, yes, I will stop at the receptionist’s desk and make an appointment for next week as I go out. I still have things to tell you. . . .
When it came time for Joy to leave for the first real billeting of her military career she couldn’t find her glasses anywhere. Since she doesn’t use them to read they often get placed on top of something and not necessarily the same ’something’ every time wherein lay the difficulty. (As if I have any room to talk as I misplaced my watch for a good four months when I put it in a bag with a crocheting project to take to Marie’s and then when I got home I carefully hung the bag in the closet to get it out of the way so I could work on something else and forgot that that is where my watch was until I went to retrieve a crochet hook last week and lo and behold there was my missing watch.) Not having done any driving to speak of, if you don’t count the 340 miles to Roosevelt and back, while she was here it wasn’t until she was ready to leave to catch the plane in Las Vegas that she began to seriously search for her glasses. When she looked on top of the piano, which is where she left them, they weren’t there. Jordan who had been seen playing with them earlier in the week was queried as to where he put them.
“On the piano”, he replied.
With that answer the adrenaline kicked in as we assumed our desperate search mode and began to hunt in earnest as the missing spectacles obviously were not on the piano or even under or behind it because we looked and time was running out. We also looked under the couch cushions and into the no- man’s- land that lies in the folds behind the couch cushions with their eclectic accumulation of crumbs and stray toys with no result, but as I hauled out a crochet hook a quarter and three pennies my search was not a total loss. We then fanned out over the house not quite in panic mode but close with nada, zip, zero to show for the combined result of three adults and two small children.
She still had the glasses that Kyle had prescribed for her before she joined the Marines but as they were not official ‘issue’ she couldn’t wear them on base. She could, however, wear contacts which was a good thing in the somewhat dim future she was facing as Kyle’s office was on the way to the airport so we stopped in Mesquite where he fixed her up with the necessary contacts giving her a brighter outlook. (What is it they say in real estate, location, location, location is ‘everything’ when it comes to selling property but it is also true that it helps to have a family member who is located on the way to the airport you are driving to and can help you out as Kyle did for his sister, so I will vote for location as being important for things other than selling real estate should anyone ever ask me what I think on that subject which they probably won’t but it is nice to have an answer ready once in awhile, just in case.
Two months later I am happy to report that the lost has been found by Grandpa, who of all people should be the one as he is hardly ever able to find anything, on the tool bench in the garage. Go figure on that one as if that just wasn’t the last place I would have thought of to look. . . .To be fair to him he wasn’t looking for glasses either but he did see them while looking for something else.
When I was a little girl and we would lose something mother would always tell us,
“Think of the last place you remember seeing it and go look there.”
After years and years of putting this into practice I would have to say that her advice has been good at least 99% of the time. It’s the 1% that causes me problems. . . .
I find it hard to believe that summer is almost over but if I needed any convincing it is the fact that tonight we are due to receive our first hard frost with the weatherman promising us temperatures down to 30* F. Robyn, who came for pancake breakfast, this morning informed us that Fall officially arrives September 23rd. We are having her come have breakfast with us on Saturday mornings instead of visiting us on Sunday afternoons as she has been doing. If I have learned anything about Robyn it is that once she has decided upon a course of action she cannot be budged come hell or high water, sigh. She tells us of her comings and goings and generally keeps us updated on what is happening in her life. At the moment she is thinking of reducing her visits to Oasis House to one Friday a month which will be down from every Friday. This is because there are some club members who are making fun of her and others who seem to take a sly pleasure in seeing that she doesn’t get the meal she came for. Things have gone down hill since Rosie and the staff she recruited have left. Robyn has found new friends where she works two mornings a week and seems quite content to move on with her life.
We had a cracking good thunderstorm Thursday night complete with a totally awesome display of lightening flashing off and on in the sky above us. There was even enough rain that I didn’t have to water my ‘hose’ plants at all. I am afraid that as the days grow shorter my attention to the outside is waning which I realize is dangerous as I will lose plants if I don’t keep up the watering until the cold has forced all of them to go dormant.
My tomato plants have grown up over their wire cages. I bought the largest size and for quite a while was afraid that I had been overly optimistic but they are now quite luxuriant and full of blossoms which have about as much chance of becoming tomatoes as the proverbial snowball in hell does of remaining intact. We have had tomatoes this last few weeks and they have tasted sooo absolutely delicious that I find myself wondering why I bother to buy the cardboard substitutes they pass off as being the real things in the grocery store. ( I buy them because ‘hope springs eternal’ and like Charlie Brown running to kick the football which Lucy always moves just as he gets to it, I think that this time will be different! )
Here is a thought for you: He who loses money, loses much; He who loses a friend, loses much more, He who loses faith, loses all. —- Eleanor Roosevelt
I’ve had a real treat this week with the visit from my sister Barbara and her husband Bob who retired the end of June which means trips for them don’t have to be sandwiched in between work days. As they now have a daughter living in Provo, Elizabeth, whose husband Ed is head of the Army ROTC program at BYU as well as Utah Valley State College as well as SUU here in Cedar City they will be making regular trips to visit which means we will be able to see them occasionally as well. Such was the case when they arrived Monday morning at our home where we enjoyed their company for two days. Barbara and I are fourteen months in age and were very close when we were growing up. However, once we married we might as well have lived on opposite ends of the planet for the number of times we have seen each other so it was nice to be able to catch up on family happenings.
Today (I started writing this in July but became distracted, by life, if I remember correctly. At my age it doesn’t take much life to completely discombobulate me so pardon the time gap.) In Relief Society the lesson was on ’spiritual gifts of the pioneers’. Our teacher, bless her heart, isn’t going word for word from the manual but rather using it as a springboard for discussion, assuming that we can read the manual and don’t need to follow it word for word in class. Hallelujah! This is something I have felt quite strongly about for years and found very few teachers who have enough confidence in themselves to do so.
As part of this lesson she asked four of the sisters to relate experiences of their pioneer ancestors (She asked me but, regretfully, I had to decline as my ‘pioneers’ are from the ‘wrong side of the sheets’ in that they settled Kansas and Nebraska. Mother always told us to read the book My Antonia by Willa Cather if we wanted to know what it was like for the brave souls who settled that land which I have and I highly recommend it for your perusal if you haven’t. Pioneers, yes, just not Mormon so therefore not legitimate for the purposes of the lesson.)
She also had her seventeen year old niece tell about a beautifully framed fan shaped pedigree chart that she made for one of her Young Women in Excellence requirements. (I would love to have something similar on display in my home but I am afraid that I must first do the research that would allow me to put the thing together and that is not something one does on a whim–at least I don’t think one does? I’ll have to ask my sister Barbara about this as she is the family expert on the acquisition of family history)
Another thing our teacher did was to have us make butter which we did by shaking small jam jars half filled with cream while the sisters were sharing their stories. The butter was then spread on home made honey wheat bread which baked during class, yum, yum. All in all a most interesting class. (Okay, so I brought my butter home and ate my slice of bread plain fully intending to share with MGH but the little jar got ‘lost’ in my refrigerator where I think it still is as I come across it occasionally and I always promise myself that I must really fix it up right, which is why I brought it home in the first place, but as that lesson was taught several months ago I need to put it out of it’s misery, which I promise I will do the next time it surfaces.
You see, I really know how to make butter from scratch, so to speak. Because I know, I wasn’t happy with the idea that one could eat the ‘butter’ without first working the excess liquid out with cold water, which obviously we couldn’t do in the Relief Society room. Then just the right amount of salt must be added to enhance the flavor and then it could, I suppose, be eaten but I prefer mine chilled so you see I absolutely had to take mine home to ‘finish’ it correctly, didn’t I?
To be honest I didn’t think butter could be made by shaking although I knew that the pioneers used to make it while they traveled by putting the cream in a container and letting the jostle of the wagons as they jerked and bumped along the trail do just that. I have no idea how they kept it sweet and fresh with no refrigeration–My guess is that it didn’t and probably went rancid quite quickly. Maybe my sister Barbara remembers as she often serves as my backup on things forgotten? No, my experience with butter making comes from my days on the farm when we used to make our own butter. As you may have noticed my mother was big on anything she could do that required home grown labor, think daughters and little cash outlay. She managed to acquire an ancient butter churn at an auction soon after we moved to the farm on Highway 2. Think of a square heavy glass gallon container with a metal lid that sported a paddle that fit down inside which was turned by a handle attached to the paddle from the out side and you can perhaps picture the kind we used. Well actually you don’t have to do that as I found a picture after I wrote the above. I think ours had wooden paddles but its along way back down memory lane and I could be wrong. . . .
ebay.com/Vintage-4-Quart-Butter-Churn_
At that time we were milking the cows by hand, a process that is interesting to say the least–especially if one has small hands, which I do. As I see it the larger the hands the better the grip and therefore the easier it is to get a BIG stream of milk to emerge which means the faster the bucket fills and the quicker one can leave the vicinity of the cows tail and feet which are the twin evils of, dealing with a cow when she is being milked. Dad had no problems. Swish, swish, swish, swish noises filled the air as the streams of milk landed squarely in the bucket held between his knees as he sat on the milk stool beside the cow he was milking. Foam would bubble on top of the rapidly filling bucket as the smell of the sweet warm milk began to dance its way over the more pungent smell of manure, to my nose as I struggled to follow his example. Alas, my bucket never had foamy milk try as I might to get a ‘grip’ that would accomplish this. Chores always took twice as long when I was alone. To be absolutely truthful, I was never really alone as Barbara also took her place as a milkmaid but to be honest I don’t remember her ever milking a cow as I think it was something she absolutely refused to do and when she absolutely refused to do something, she didn’t which I could never understand how she got away with as my refusal to do a chore always resulted in my having to do more of the despised task.
Bless their patient hearts the cows, usually, would endure my efforts with great patience swishing their tails at the flies that liked to settle on their backs which usually meant they were rid of their tormentors for a few seconds but since I was now in the way they didn’t get that relief so by the time I was finished I was well marked with the contents of said tails, be it burrs or other better left unmentioned contents. As for their hind feet, I have never met a cow that didn’t raise the one closest to the milk bucket the better to knock the bucket over if the milker wasn’t quicker than the cow or to plant a good hard kick on some portion of one’s anatomy. Of course the kick could be blocked by raising the left arm and by placing it on the leg which was in the act of being lifted apply enough pressure to convince the cow that she would be more comfortable standing on it rather than waving it in the air. Mind you this is done while balancing on the milk stool and trying to keep the milk bucket secure between one’s legs which I am sure is where the term ‘don’t cry over spilt milk came from’.
Here I must leave you as MGH has come home having attended 3 Sacrament meetings today and needs his lunch. More to come, you can count on that, but please don’t hold your breath. . . .
In the land of Cedar there once lived a small cat with blue eyes and very short legs who always wore an ivory coat nicely accented by black on the tip of her tail and paws. Everyone in the Kingdom knew she was a Princess even if she chose to no longer live at the castle. They knew this, as if seeing her weren’t enough to convince them, because of the way her subjects treated her.
Sir Brooks of the Data Stream would grant her every request and could often be found carrying her in his arms as she directed him around the manor where they lived to her favorite spots. She liked to look out the windows and would watch contentedly unless she saw a bird, at the sight of which her tail would begin to swish vigorously and her body would tense in anticipation. But alas she was never allowed OUTSIDE to chase the bird, oh no, never that. At night she could be found curled up beside him where the long hairs on her coat would tickle his nose and he would never tell her to go away. Not even when she was very very naughty and tore the ribbon from the printer and Sir Brooks had to buy a new one did he get upset, well, if he did he didn’t stay that way for she was a Princess, you see, and was greatly loved by her subjects.
Lady Nancy who was allergic to cats and had to put special drops in her eyes in order to be near them, did so with great regularity so that she could hold ‘Princess Indigo’ in her lap and stroke her soft coat over and over for which she was rewarded by a soft “purrr” and much kneading of her paws on Lady Nancy’s leg. ‘Princess’ Indigo knew that if she balanced on her haunches and put her paws together and moved them up and down that Lady Nancy would feed her a choice morsel from her plate. She also knew that if it was not to her liking Lady Nancy would throw it away thus making sure the manor was always clean just as the ‘Princess’ liked it to be. Even when ‘Princess’ Indigo was very very naughty and jumped onto the kitchen counter and pushed dishes to the edge so that she could watch them fall, Lady Nancy never got upset. Well, if she did, she didn’t stay that way for long for she was a ‘Princess, you see, and Lady Nancy loved her very much. ‘Princess’ Indigo liked to follow the Lady Nancy from room to room watching what she did with great interest but there was one place she was never allowed to follow and that was OUTSIDE
The Young Lord, Dakota could often be found dragging a string around the manor for her to try and catch, which she sometimes did and then again she sometimes didn’t. Never -the- less they would play until one of them had to stop and catch their breath before resuming their game. Endless hours were passed in this manner as the two could be found running up and down the stairs of the manor. The Young Lord, Dakota never got upset with her even when she would bite his hand and make it bleed, well if he did it wasn’t for very long for she was a ‘Princess’ you see and he loved her very much. Even tho they were the best of playmates the Young Lord, Dakota was always very careful to see that she never followed him OUTSIDE for that was where black Tigger disappeared one dark and stormy night never to be seen again.
One day Sir Brooks of the Data Stream left on a long dangerous journey to seek fame and fortune in the far away kingdom of Michigan leaving Lady Nancy, and the Young Lord, Dakota to care for the manor and ‘Princess’ Indigo while he was away. This was a very lonely time for Lady Nancy and the Young Lord, Dakota. ‘Princess’ Indigo did the best she could to cheer them up but alas this proved to be impossible.
Lady Nancy soon realized that if she wanted to be happy again with her heart’s true love she must follow him to the far-away land of Michigan and seek her fame and fortune there as well. The Young Lord, Dakota chose to go with her rather than being fostered by his father. He too hoped to find fame and fortune as well as take a class in boxing at his new academy which he felt would help prepare him for serving in the King’s Guard (Marine’s) after he finished his schooling. This left only ‘Princess’ Indigo who, in spite of being royalty, was not consulted as everyone knew she would go where she could continue to hold court because she was of royal blood and her subjects treated her so well.
Having made the decision and given her notice to the MAVERICK that she could no longer serve them, tho they had promised to cross her palm with even more silver in the future, boxes began to appear and then disappear as they were filled and stored in the attached stable. Indigo watched all this with her usual intentness and soon found it possible to slip through the adjoining door while large items were being placed there. While not quite OUTSIDE it did open up endless opportunities to jump from one box to another and slither through small openings in chase of imaginary prey and it was imaginary as Lady Nancy would never allow rodents in her manor!
One day, the Young Lord, Dakota asked Lady Nancy if she had seen Indigo recently, which she hadn’t. This led to an immediate search which didn’t take long as they were living in much reduced circumstances. To their dismay and horror they realized that ‘Princess’ Indigo was OUTSIDE having used a clever paw to pull the front door open when the latch had failed to catch. Distraught the Lady Nancy grabbed her cell phone and ran out the door where she rapped the door of each dwelling in their hold asking if anyone had seen a small ivory colored cat with blue eyes and very short legs only to be told “No”, each time to her frantic inquiry. Undaunted she walked to the main thorough- fare as far as the place of the mobile healers calling “Kitty, kitty, kitty, here Kitty, kitty, kitty” but only silence attended her efforts. Then as she began to dial the number of Sir Brooks to tell him the sad news she heard a faint “meow”. Could it be? Was it possible that ‘Princess’ Indigo was alive? Quickly following the sound she came upon a storm drain. Getting down flat she was able to peer into the dark and there was a very frightened ‘Princess’ Indigo huddled in the depths unable to escape from the prison her curiosity landed her in.
Springing quickly into action Lady Nancy tried desperately to lift the grate only to find it immovable. Calling for help from her bondwoman Jodi she spent the intervening time wiggling an arm through the opening at the end of the grate where she was just barely able to grasp a paw which she held onto for dear life as she maneuvered ‘Princess’ Indigo up into the light of day and then into her arms where she began sobbing with relief as she held her cat, who everyone knew was of royal birth because she was so well loved by her subjects.
Thus ends the tale of ‘Princess’ Indigo who once was lost OUTSIDE but now is found much to the delight of all who love her and who hope the lesson has been well learned as she is rapidly losing lives even if she is of royal blood.
Written this 2nd day of September in the year of our Lord, two thousand six, in the land of Cedar by my hand.
Joanne Andrus, scribe
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