BARN CATS

by bartermn

3/7/97
   Some of my earliest memories are of Grandpa's farm and chasing his barn
cats.Once in a while I even caught one and calmed it down enough to carry
around the rest of the day.
   A farm just doesn't seem complete without some barn cats; half-wild,
rat-catching, stand-up-for-a-squirt-of-milk-barn cats. This is the story
of ours.
   Tiger left her home for many reasons. She decided that my barn was a
better place to live than with a four-year-old boy who pulled her tail, a
man who threw her outdoors in the rain, and a woman who payed her no
attention at all.
   My barn had a pile of sweet smelling hay in the loft and even sweeter
smells downstairs. There was a bowl of warm milk in the mornings and our
house cats would visit her during the daytime. Her owners came and took
her home once but she was back in the barn the next morning and has been
since.
   Tiger found herself a mate one day. I know it wasn't our neutered house
cats, she might have met him on one of her long walks to the lake, four
miles away, or down the hill at a neighbor's farm. I noticed that she was
getting fat but attributed it to the milk.
   The first sign I had of kittens was a soft meow while doing chores.
After putting the cows out to pasture, I investigated. The noise came from
under the barn floor. I couldn't see anything when I looked through a
crack but set a bowl of milk nearby and called, "Here kitty, kitty, kitty."
   A tiny white spot grew larger until it became a kitten and squeezed
through the crack to find the dish. It's eyes were all matted shut so
while it gulped the milk I ran to the cabin for some cotton swabs and warm
water.
   The kitten's eyes were almost glued shut and it took three days of care
by my wife, Gin to be certain that it would be alright. In that amount of
time, I'd lost a barn cat and gained a forth house cat. We named the
kitten Silver for it's shiny white fur, quite unlike it's mother.
   A month went by and again, while doing chores I heard a meow. I turned
toward the sound and saw a flash of grey diving under the back door. That
evening I caught another glimpse of a grey striped kitten. Tiger was at
her water dish so I knew it wasn't her.
   Our neighbor's son visits to help with chores now and then. He showed
up the following Saturday and I told him about the sightings. He proceded
to search the barn until he found two kittens, Silver's brothers. As the
weeks went by, Kris made friends with the kittens and named them, even
bringing his buddies to see "his" cats.
   Later, I found that Tiger had given birth to five kittens that day. She
had abandoned Silver to care for the others who weren't different.
   The two latest finds don't like humans at all, even Kris can't tame
them. the only mice I've seen in the barn since Tiger moved in have been
dead ones. I feel like a real farmer at last.