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Show THE MOST UNUSUAL PETS "What a rotten way to treat an animal!" Mother said angrily to no one in particular. She stood there peering into the depths of the fifty-gallon barrel lodged against the porch. Her voice softened, "You poor creature." Then with an air of defiance she grasped the rim of the barrel and with a determined shove laid it over on its side. There was a wild scramble of long claws against steel as the freed animal took advantage of his chance to escape. His short, powerful legs propelled his flat, wide body across the lawn and out through the barnyard, the silver spears in his thick, yellow-grizzled-gray fur standing straight up like the hairs on the back of one's neck when terribly frightened. Mother stood silently watching until he disappeared into the fields. "Goodbye, Pal," she said softly. It was just another cold winter morning on our farm in Idaho, when we children piled out of bed, grabbed our clothes and made a hurried dash from the frosty bedroom to the kitchen where a fire was crackling in the old wood-burning range and where a pot of thick mush bubbled on the back lid. We were never surprised to find a half-frozen new-born lamb or a sick piglet snuggled in a box behind the warm stove. But we were surprised this particular morning to find wrapped in a blanket and tucked in the box two little, round, golden balls of fur. "Are they kittens?" I asked in an incredulous voice as I knew Mother never allowed pets in the house. |
