Chapter 4

CHAPTER IV:

Smart Stewardship

CYNTHIA
By Bee O’Malley

Cynthia paced the porch floor. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Her pink cat pads made no sound on the carpeting. She felt restless, bored, frustrated.
“What I really need,” she told herself, “is a nice stroll in the yard and a chance to dig my claws into the poplar tree with the bumpy trunk. But I know ‘they’ don’t want me to go out now. ‘We’ll have to confine Cynthia for the rest of the week. We definitely must NOT let her out.’”
Jason, the six-year-old asked, “Why not, Mom?”
“Well because it’s her ‘time,’ that’s why. I can’t explain now Jason. You’re too young to understand.”
Jason was not the only one who didn’t understand. Cynthia didn’t either. She sat down abruptly to give this a good think. Moistening one white paw, she slowly and methodically cleaned behind her left ear. Washing her beautiful orange and white fur always relaxed Cynthia and helped her to think clearly.
Suddenly, she sat straight as a stick, her great amber eyes round with determination, her whiskers stiff as wire. She had to come to a decision!
“I will get out of this house, one way or the other, as soon as possible. Something inside me compels me to go. In fact, this is my RIGHT as a cat person, not a privilege!
Determined to carry out her impulse, she quickly trotted to the front door. No luck the door was shut.
Just then Cynthia heard Jason come into the house via the back door. “I think I’ll check that out,” she thought, and silently ran through the house to the kitchen. Sure enough, the back door was ajar!
“Three cheers for little boys,” she cried (under her breath of course), and out the door she darted.
The grass felt wonderful – cool and fragrant. “How delightful! How I missed being out here these past three days!” A sweet, muffled purr issued forth.
Cynthia had been outside for only fifteen minutes, when - “MEOWRR,” came a very loud sound. There bounding up onto the fence post was the big black cat from next door. He growled a greeting in his gravelly tomcat voice and jumped down to join her in the grass.
“Tom is a crushing bore,” thought Cynthia, but she was too polite to tell him so. “I do wish he’d go home and let me enjoy my yard. There’s so much I want to do out her…”
“Ouch! Why did you bite me on the neck, Tom?” She sprang up and ran across the yard with Tom in hot pursuit. “What a pest,” she muttered as she tried to keep ahead of him.
Finally after much chasing, running, and scuffling about, he went home. Cynthia continued to check the yard, stopping to snack on a cricket which had jumped right under her nose. It began to get chilly.
“Time to curl up in my rocker for a snooze,” she thought. “But how will I get back in?”
She went to the backdoor first and – happy days! – It was just as she had left it. Into the rocker with the soft squishy cushion she jumped and curled herself into a neat circle.
“Ah! Everyday I shall do the same as today, until they start letting me out again when I want to go.”
Time passed and everything went to normal. Cynthia was let in and out when she asked. She was pleased and happy again.
Being a cat with a good appetite, and possessing a great deal of common sense, Cynthia always sat next to Jason’s chair during meals. He was a good-hearted little boy and of course, he loved his cat. He also knew what food to hand down.
Tonight’s menu was a tiny piece of meat, one pea, a bit of pie crust, and – oh, delight! – a finger dipped in mayonnaise. Cynthia licked that finger thoroughly and started to saunter away from the table, when Mary exploded: “That cat is pregnant again! Just look at her Edmund! The last time she had kittens, I practically had to bribe people to adopt them. Now what are we to do?”
Cynthia stopped dead in her tracks. Was she going to have kittens again? Was Mary right?
She remembered having five tiny babies to take care of once, and she hadn’t really minded looking after them. But she remembered, too, the sadness she felt when they were taken away from her, one by one, to be given to strangers. She never saw them again.
“Mary,” Edmund admonished quietly, “I told you we should have had her spayed when we first adopted her, before she ever had kittens. Not much we can do now except let her have them and try to find them homes. If that doesn’t happen, we’ll have to give them to the pound.”
“Oh!” cried Jennifer, “They put them to sleep at the pound. We can’t let that happen!”
“Well, we’ll see. Daddy understands how you feel, but don’t you see? We can’t keep them all.” Edmund brushed away his daughter’s tears.
“One thing is for sure, though,” he added. “As soon as those kittens are weaned, Cynthia will have a little operation called ‘spaying,’ and she’ll never have kittens again.
“It’s surely better for her not to have litter after litter. In fact, her chances of living a lot longer a re much greater if we have her operated as soon as possible. It won’t hurt her a bit. She will be able to come home the next morning.”
Jennifer stopped crying, seeing the wisdom of her father’s explanation.
“Well,” thought Cynthia, “I really don’t understand all of that conversation, but one thing is for sure: I’m lucky to have a family that cares about me and my feelings. I wish they had listened to Edmund when he first suggested the operation. Certainly, the hurting that goes with surgery can’t compare with what I went through at parting with my own babies! I’ll have to suffer again when these babies are taken away, but that will be the last time. That’s some consolation. I must keep reminding myself of this. After all, I am a most sensible and intelligent cat. Yes, indeed!