I made a vow to myself that it would never happen again; it had happened two times before and I was determined that it would not happen the third time. It was a story that had its beginning on a pleasant day in the month of October. It was time to prepare for winter and my granddaughter's husband, Hans, was standing by with an offer to help should it be needed.

We were at the front of a nearby garage that had gradually become a storage area for gardening equipment, lawn mowers, rolls of plastic sheeting, various lengths of lumber and plywood, a collection of empty cardboard boxes, pruning equipment, patio furniture, rolls of electrical wire, containers of antifreeze and motor oil and all the other items a person would need who lives in a rural area far removed from convenience stores.

Suddenly we saw the movement of a small ball of fur that was quickly propelled by four tiny feet into the conglomeration of items located inside the former garage. It was a very short look at what Hans described as a small kitten who appeared to have suffered an injury. Our look at this pitiful sight was momentary; as quickly as it appeared, it quickly disappeared.
This was an unexpected event that could not be ignored - a small kitten who appeared to be injured was now hidden away somewhere beyond our sight and sound. We started using kitty talk to attract its attention: "here kitty, here kitty, here kitty." All we received back was silence. It was a silence that moved us to action - not physical but mental. How would we find a stray kitten that was so frightened by humans that it did not want to be found?

Since food and water are essential for the survival of any animal, I decided to leave a bowl of food and a bowl of water, place them in a convenient place and check back later to observe if any of the water or cat food had been devoured. Hours later I silently approached the water and food only to be disappointed to find them untouched.

After a suspenseful night, I hurried out to the garage and discovered that the food was gone and there was less water in the bowl. While this provided some information, it was not sufficient to indicate that it was the poor little kitten who had eaten the food and drank the water - it could have been devoured by a visiting possum, a hungry racoon, or another cat from the neighborhood. The evidence pointed to the fact that some unknown animal had partaken of the food and the water, but was it consumed by the little, frightened kitten? And the answer I came up with was, "Only time will tell. "

The next morning I said to myself, in a voice dripping with self pity, "Enough of this! After all, it’s just a stray cat and by now it has probably moved on to another house where it will find a scrap of food by someone's back door or catch a field mouse unaware that a stray kitten is hungry for its next meal" However, my little introspective speech could not blot out the picture of a little ball of fur that had found a hiding place on my property and was too frightened to make its presence known.

I thought again of the vow I had made that I was not going to allow it to happen again - I was not going to take in another stray cat when I already had given a home to two other stray cats. I justified my reasoning by reminding myself that I was a senior living alone who was experiencing his share of age related issues. So the question now became a matter of whether or not I was going to keep my vow.

In this case, the logic of the mind won out over the sympathy that came from the heart. My mind made a list of my limitations and they overwhelmed the emotions of the heart. With the list in my hand and before I could change my mind, I obtained the phone number of the Alexandria Animal Shelter where I talked to an employee with a pleasant voice who gave me all the information that was needed to transfer a new born kitten from my home to a new location where it would be given shelter, food and water.

After listening to my story, the young lady assured me that the kitten would be given humane treatment, and every effort would be made to find a family who would adopt the young kitten. Those were the reassuring words that I was glad to hear. But then came some other words I did not want to hear. She explained that if an adoptive family could not be found within a set period of time, the kitten would be placed on a list of animals to be euthanized.

That one word, euthanized, brought my well laid plans to a sudden halt. The picture that I had in my mind of the kitten being adopted by a loving family was now clouded by the thought of it being put to death. As these thoughts floated through my mind, I gradually began to realize that these thoughts did not identify the basic problem of the moment - the basic problem of the moment lay in the fact that the kitten was still lost and could not be found.

While food and water were continually made available, there was no evidence to indicate that it was the little kitten who was feeding and drinking from the bowls. This lack of knowledge caused the stress level to be elevated and in answer to questions concerning the future of this little kitten, all I could answer was, "Only time will tell."

It was not until the beginning of the second week that this saga of the stray cat took a turn for the better. That is when I saw something unusual. Standing on my front porch looking out toward the garage I saw Andy, my big, beautiful male cat, standing over something that was not moving. Rushing down the front steps, my eyes could scarcely believe what they saw.

Andy was standing over the lost kitten - not to harm it but to protect it. When I approached the
pair, the kitten, still afraid of humans, broke into a run for the porch with me not far behind. I made an unsuccessful lunge to catch it, but before I could regain my footing it disappeared over the steps where it made a right hand turn into the carport.

Outwitted again by a tiny kitten, I began to suffer from the pangs of defeat, especially when I discovered that the crawlspace underneath the house was open, providing a way of escape for the frightened, fleeing kitten. When I reached the carport I quickly looked into the crawlspace where I saw nothing but darkness and I knew that once again I had been outmaneuvered. Or, had I?

This was a question that caused me to consider the possibility that the kitten had bypassed the carport and was now deep in the woods and out of sight. By now I was ready to consider the possibility that I was dealing with a phantom cat - after all, I had only momentarily observed the kitten on two occasions.

With that curious and bizarre thought resting in the back of my mind, I returned to myoid stand-by plea as I looked into the darkness under the house, "Here kitty, here kitty, here kitty." And again there was only silence. But, not to worry, I had gained some valuable experience when I attempted to rescue the kitten from its hiding place in the garage. So, I filled another bowl with food and another bowl with water and placed them at the entrance to the crawlspace opening and with that action I breathed a prayer which essentially said,"Dear Lord, I've got a problem and I really need your help."

The next day I was elated to find there was less food and less water in each of the bowls. But how could I be certain that it was consumed by my tiny kitten and not by some hungry creature from the woods? It was a question I had dealt with before and the answer was still the same: "Only time will tell."