A door knob behind Rog turned, and the door squeaked open. His mother said, "Roger, I thought I told you to take that cat out into the garage. I can't have that mess in here." Rog turned around. "Aw Mom," he pleaded, "it won't be a mess. Besides it was raining outside. Just look at 'er, Mom. She's so sick. Hey Mom, look! She's a havin' 'em!" As the baby kitten came, the mother cat whimpered softly. She licked it, and Rog could hear her purring loudly as she ran her tongue over its shiny belly. She started to whine again. Rog stroked her head. "Poor thing," he said. As Rog leaned close to the cat, the smell of the box made him sick. It was somewhere between wet wool and the smell down by the swamp, he decided. Rog's little sister, Pat, came running in. She stopped, tiptoed over to the box, and peered inside. She opened her eyes wide and wrinkled up her nose. "Oooo!" she said, and her mother pulled her out of the room. "Aw, Mom," Rog yelled over his shoulder, "let her stay." But the door had already been slammed. "Geez," Rog muttered under his breath. In the next few minutes three more kittens were born. Rog watched the mother cat busily washing herself and her kittens. Two hours passed, and the last kitten was born. "Roger," his mother said sternly from the other room, "get away from there. You don't have to watch all that." "Aw, Mom," Rog said, and he looked down at his hands. He looked down at the kittens. He thought they looked like the lizards he had caught up in the canyon a few weeks ago. Now he stood by the open window remembering this day, he smiled at how the kittens had changed since then. A few days after their birth they had begun to fill out, later their eyes had opened, and their fur had grown long. When Rog petted them he thought of the texture of Pat's angora hat. Rog turned away from the window where he had watched Dick glide down the street on his English racer. 10 His mother came into the kitchen from the other room. When she saw Rog, she said, "Roger, haven't you done anything about those cats yet?" Rog put his hands in his pockets and looked down at the polished linoleum. "I will," he said. "What about old Mrs. McCleod?" she said. "I'm sure she'd want one." Roger remembered how lonely Mrs. McCleod had been since she had lost her own cat, the one that Dick had drowned in the ditch. "Hey!" he said suddenly. "I'll go over and ask her right now." Rog went out through the back porch and into the garage. He walked past the green flies that chased each other in circles to the kittens' box. He picked up two kittens which were wrestling with each other and held them against his chest. He ran down the driveway and crossed the street to Mrs. McCleod's house. Her house was shaded with sycamore trees that reached up into the sky twice as far as the house did. Her son had just painted the house white last spring, and Rog thought it looked nice with the yellow ruffled curtains at the windows. Rog walked up the steps onto the porch. He petted the kittens' fur and put them in the cushioned rocker by the door. He shaded his eyes with his hands and looked in the full length window of the door. He rang the doorbell. He couldn't see Mrs. McCleod coming yet. While he waited, he stared at his reflection in the door window. His curly hair, the color of his mother's, was matted and stuck up in the air. His mother always got mad at him when he didn't comb his hair. He reached up and pressed it down hard. The door opened, and he couldn't see himself any more. "Hello there, Rog," Mrs. McCleod said. She smiled. Her white hair hung around her face in curls. She was wiping her hands on her red-checkered apron. Rog thought she must have been doing the dishes. Rog picked up the kittens out of the rocker. "Well, what do we have here?" she said, as she opened the screen door and came out on the porch. She held one of the kittens close to her face and talked to it. Rog couldn't hear what she said because she just mumbled softly. "How'd ya like ta have it?" Rog asked. He looked hard at Mrs. McCleod. "Oh, could I?" Mrs. McCleod asked. "Sure," Rog said. "Hey, do you know who I can give the others to?" "How many ya got?" she asked. "Four more," Roger said. He hoped Mrs. McCleod would tell him what to do. "That's just perfect. We'll give 'em to my grandkids," she said. 11