Page 55 of Soldier's Chrismas Hope
There was a hole in the back corner that he’d been meaning to patch up. Maybe someone’s cat had gotten in to have her babies.
Sure enough, when he reached that corner, there was a pile of little kittens curled up and crying. But there was no mother to be seen.
“Hey, guys,” he said, lowering the light immediately.
Their eyes were open, but their ears were still folded over.
“Where’s your mama?” he asked them softly.
It was cold in here, too cold for the babies. He headed over to where he kept the tack and grabbed a horse blanket.
They seemed almost too scared to move when he came close to spread the blanket on the floor. But they allowed him to lift them up one by one and place them gently on the warm blanket. Once they were all deposited, he curled it around them and went back to find his human companions.
Nora’s eyes held the same question that worried him.
“Five healthy kittens,” he told her. “But their mama isn’t around.”
“She could have gone to hunt,” Nora suggested.
“True enough,” he told her. “I put one of the horse blankets down for them for now, just to keep them a little warmer.”
“We can check on them again once the horses are taken care of,” she said. “Hopefully, their mama will be back by then.”
“I want to see,” John-John said again.
“I’d like that too,” Nora said to him, crouching down to his eye level like she sometimes did. “But for right now, we don’t want to frighten them. It will be better to see them once their mom is back. Okay?”
John-John nodded, but still looked a little sad about it.
“Good boy,” she told him, patting his head throughhis woolen hat. “Shall we say good morning to Peter and Tinkerbell now?”
That brought an instant smile to John-John as they headed off to visit with the horses and tend to them.
Two hours later,both horses had nice clean stalls, and were fed, groomed, and released in the pasture, to the cheers of the children.
River had been afraid the work would take forever with the kids along, but they had actually helped out a lot. Pixie was a quick learner, John-John did his best to do exactly as he was told, and of course Nora was wonderful with the big animals. It had turned out to be a very enjoyable early morning.
On the way back to the barn, he remembered the kittens. Hopefully, the mama cat was with them and all would be well. His heart tugged at the memory of the whisper-light little babies, crying as he snuggled them into the blanket.
“We can check on the kittens together now,” he told everyone. “But we have to stay back a little, so we don’t make the mama nervous, okay?”
The kids nodded solemnly.
Once again, River headed to the back corner of the barn with his phone flashlight on low. When he reached the kittens, he found them still on their own.
“Where’s their mama?” John-John asked worriedly.
“I guess she’s still not back yet,” River said.
“If she left when we first got here, then she’s beengone about two hours,” Nora reasoned, moving a little closer and crouching to get a better look at the babies. “I’d say they’re about four weeks old, so they can’t make it without her for more than a few more hours.”
“What do we do?” River asked.
“You’re thinking that hole is how she’s getting in and out?” Nora asked.
River nodded.
“Hang on,” Nora said. “Kids, stay with River.”
