It was difficult to see the kitten in the dark interior but when I spotted him I put out my hand and touched him and he turned his head towards me.
Hes coming round, I said. That hour in there has worked wonders.
Doesnt often fail. The farmers wife lifted him out. I think hes a little tough un. She began to spoon warm milk into the tiny mouth.
I reckon well have him lapping in a day or two.
Youre going to keep him, then?
Too true we are. Im going to call him Moses.
Moses?
Aye, you found him among the rushes, didnt you?
I laughed. Thats right. Its a good name.
I was on the Butler farm about a fortnight later and I kept looking around for Moses. Farmers rarely have their cats indoors and I thought that if the black kitten had survived he would have joined the feline colony around the buildings. Farm cats have a pretty good time. They may not be petted or cosseted but it has always seemed to me that they lead a free, natural life. They are expected to catch mice but if they are not so inclined there is abundant food at hand; bowls of milk here and there and the dogs dishes to be raided if anything interesting is left over. I had seen plenty of cats around today, some flitting nervously away, others friendly and purring.
There was a tabby loping gracefully across the cobbles and a big tortoiseshell was curled on a bed of straw at the warm end of the byre; cats are connoisseurs of comfort. When Mr. Butler went to fetch the hot water I had a quick look in the bullock house and a white tom regarded me placidly from between the bars of a hay rack where he had been taking a siesta. But there was no sign of Moses.
I finished drying my arms and was about to make a casual reference to the kitten when Mr. Butler handed me my jacket.
Come round here with me if youve got a minute, he said, Ive got summat to show you.
I followed him through the door at the end and across a passage into the long, low-roofed piggery.
He stopped at a pen about halfway down and pointed inside. Look ere, he said.
I leaned over the wall and my face must have shown my astonishment because the farmer burst into a shout of laughter. Thats summat new for you, isnt it?
I stared unbelievingly down at a large sow stretched comfortably on her side, suckling a litter of about twelve piglets, and right in the middle of the long pink row, furry black and incongruous, was Moses. He had a teat in his mouth and was absorbing his nourishment with the same rapt enjoyment as his smooth-skinned fellows on either side.
What the devil ? I gasped.
Mr. Butler was still laughing. I thought youd never have seen anything like that before; I never have, any road.
But how did it happen? I still couldnt drag my eyes away.
It was the missuss idea, he replied. When shed got the little youth lapping milk she took him out to find a right warm spot for him in the buildings. She settled on this pen because the sow, Bertha, had just had a litter and I had a heater in and it was grand and cosy.
I nodded. Sounds just right.
Well, she put Moses and a bowl of milk in here, the farmer went on, but the little feller didnt stay by the heater very long-next time I looked in he was round at tmilk bar.
I shrugged my shoulders. They say you see something new every day at this game, but this is something Ive never even heard of. Anyway, he looks well on itdoes he actually live on the sows milk or does he still drink from his bowl?
A bit of both, I reckon. Its hard to say.
Anyway, whatever mixture Moses was getting he grew rapidly into a sleek, handsome animal with an unusually high gloss to his coat which may or may not have been due to the porcine element of his diet.
I never went to the Butlers without having a look in the pig pen.
Bertha, his foster mother, seemed to find nothing unusual in this hairy intruder and pushed him around casually with pleased grunts just as she did the rest of her brood. Moses for his part appeared to find the society of the pigs very congenial. When the piglets curled up together and settled down for a sleep Moses would be somewhere in the heap, and when his young colleagues were weaned at eight weeks he showed his attachment to Bertha by spending most of his time with her. And it stayed that way over the years. Often he would be right inside the pen, rubbing himself happily along the comforting bulk of the sow, but I remember him best in his favourite place; crouching on the wall looking down perhaps meditatively on what had been his first warm home.
Frisk: The Cat with Many Lives
Sometimes, when our dog and cat patients died, the owners brought them in for us to dispose of them. It was always a sad occasion and I had a sense of foreboding when I saw old Dick Fawcetts face. He put the improvised cat box on the surgery table and looked at me with unhappy eyes.
Its Frisk, he said. His lips trembled as though he was unable to say more.
I didnt ask any questions, but began to undo the strings on the cardboard container.
Dick couldnt afford a proper cat box, but he had used this one before, a homemade affair with holes punched in the sides.