Elliot Vassi glared at the box on the passenger seat of his truck. He’d have a few choice words with his daughter Libby after he got rid of this mess. Just a few more miles and he’d stop and leave the box in the woods. They’d never be able to find their way back, but at least they’d have a chance to survive.

How Libby managed to hide them was a mystery, but he’d filled in the hole under the porch so no other strays could get in there. There’d be tears when she got home from school, and her momma would probably try to play the peacekeeper, but the girl needed to learn some hard truths. Three mouths to feed were enough.

She knew the rules. No pets. In his head, he practiced what he would say to Libby after he scolded her for not listening to him.

“We’re not on the farm anymore. We don’t need a mouser, and we certainly don’t need three kittens. Maybe someone would come along and ‘rescue’ them. That’s what people did now-a-days. They ‘rescued’ animals the world didn’t need or want.”

He supposed he could take them to one of those shelters, but why put up with all those judgmental looks? City folk didn’t understand that animals weren’t people. They weren’t family. A good mouser, a hunting dog, or a guard dog could earn their keep on a farm, but the farm was history.

His Poppa, Elliot Sr., never let him or his brothers make working animals pets.

Poppa tanned his hide good when he was Libby’s age for sneaking food to the barn cat and giving him a name. Buster, a big orange and white tabby, liked to be scratched behind his ears and under his chin, but Poppa put a stop to that. Feeding and pampering Buster would him lazy and he’d stop catching mice. The mice would scare the horses and eat the chicken feed. The order of things would fall apart.

After Elliot Sr. died, he left his three sons a farm riddled with debt, and not a snowball’s chance in hell of survival. Elliot stayed and tried to save the farm. His brothers, Ben, and Larry went to Searcy and found work. He hung on for six years, but couldn’t recover after an early cold snap damaged most of the crop. His share of the sale gave him and his wife Clara enough for a downpayment on a small house near his brothers and a little extra to get his woodworking business off the ground. Libby hated it at first. She missed the country and the animals, but she was adjusting and making friends.

The frantic meowing from inside the box had stopped. Carefully,  he lifted the lid. Momma Cat and her brood were sleeping. He noticed she and one of the kittens were orange and white tabbies like Buster. The other two kittens were a calico and a grey tiger tabby.

Elliot let the truck drift into the other lane as he thought about Buster. When he heard the loud blare of a horn, he looked up and quickly adjusted the wheel. It jarred the animals awake and scared them. They meowed pitifully. As soon as there was space, he pulled over, stopped his truck, and reached his hand into the box. Momma Cat was frightened, but she allowed him to touch her and the kittens. He scratched behind her ears and under her chin. She purred softly and his heart melted. He lightly rubbed the tops of the kittens’ heads with his finger while they snuggled close to her.

Elliot realized something important. He was not his father, and he didn’t want to deny his daughter the experience of having a pet, even if it meant having four pets. He laughed softly. The man worried about more mouths to feed earlier seemed like a stranger. He prepared for the conversation he would have with Clara about budgeting money to get the cats examined by a vet and spayed or neutered when the time came. A few extra pieces of furniture or custom moldings each month should cover the cost. He and Clara would  figure it out. They always did. Finding names for them all seemed a more pressing issue. Maybe Libby already had that covered.

He started the truck and headed for home stopping at the pet store for a proper bed, food and litter for Momma Cat, and a few toys.

Once he settled the little family into the laundry room, he smiled surprised by how seamlessly they were becoming part of his family.