"Daddy, how about the bottom wardrobe drawer?"
"Perfect! Pile everything on a bunk. Pad it. Use my hunting jacket. Duke, rig a frame to support a blanket; she'll want a little cave she'll feel safe in. You know."
"Of course we know," Karen chided. "Quit jittering, Daddy. This isn't our first litter."
"Sorry, baby. We are about to have a kitten. See that, Joe?" Fur rippled from the cat's middle down toward the tail, then did so again.
Karen hurriedly threw everything out of the lowest wardrobe drawer, placed it against the wall and put the hunting jacket in it, rushed back. "Did I miss it?"
"No," Hugh assured her. "But right now!"
Doe stopped panting to give one wail and was delivered of a kitten in two quick convulsions.
"Why, it's wrapped in cellophane," Barbara said wonderingly.
"Didn't you know?" asked Karen. "Daddy, it's gray! Doe, where have you been? Though maybe I shouldn't bring that up."
Neither Hugh nor Dr. Livingstone answered. The mother cat started vigorously licking her offspring, broke the covering, and tiny ratlike arms and legs waved helplessly. A squeak so thin and high as to be almost inaudible announced its opinion of the world. Doe bit the cord and went on licking, cleaning off blood and mucus and purring loudly at the same time. The baby didn't like it and again vented almost silent protest.
"Boss," demanded Joe, "what's wrong with it? It's so skinny and little."
"Its a fine kitten. It's a pretty baby, Doe. He's a bachelor, he doesn't know." Hugh spoke cooingly and rubbed the eat between her ears. He went on in normal tones, "And the worst ease of bar sinister I ever saw-smooth-haired, tiger-striped, and gray."
Doe looked up reprovingly, gave a shudder and delivered the afterbirth, began chewing the bloody mass. Barbara gulped and rushed to the door, fumbled at a bolt. Karen went after her, opened it and steadied her while she threw up.
"Duke!" Hugh snapped. "Bear guard!"
Duke followed them, stuck his head out. Karen said, "Go 'way! We're safe. Bright moonlight."
"Well... leave the door open." He withdrew.
Karen said, "I thought you weren't having morning sickness?"
"I'm not. Oh!" Retching again hit her. "It was what Doe did."
"Oh, that. Cats always do that. Let me wipe your mouth, dear."
"It's awful."
"It's normal. Good for them. Hormones, or something; you can ask Hugh. All right now?"
"I think so. Karen! We don't have to do that? Do we? I won't, I won't!"
"Huh? Oh! Never thought of it. Oh, I know we don't-or they would have told us in Smut One."
"Lots of things they don't mention in Smut One," Barbara said darkly. "When I had to take it, it was taught by an old maid. But I won't. I'll resign first, not have this baby."
"Comrade," Karen said grimly, "that's something we both should have thought of earlier. Stand aside, it's my turn to heave."
Presently they went inside, pale but steady. Dr. Livingstone had three more kittens and Barbara managed to watch without further rushes for the door. Of the other birthings only the third was notable: a tiny tomcat but large in its tininess. He was a breech presentation, the skull did not pass easily, and Doe in her pain clamped down.
Hugh was busy at once, pulling gently on the little body with his whole hand and sweating like a surgeon. Doe wailed and bit his thumb. He did not let it stop him nor hurry him.
Suddenly the kitten came free; he bent over and blew in its mouth, was rewarded with a thin, indignant squeak. He put the baby down, let Dr. Livingstone clean it. "That was close," he said shakily.
"Old Doe didn't mean to," Joe said softly.
"Of course not. Which of you girls feels like fixing this for me?"
Barbara dressed the wound, while telling herself that she must not, must not, bite when her own time came.
The kittens were, in order, smooth-haired gray, fluffy white, midnight black with white jabot and mittens, and calico. After much argument between Karen and Joe, they were named: Happy New Year, Snow Princess Magnificent, Dr. Ebony Midnight, and Patchwork Girl of Oz-Happy, Maggie, Midnight, and Patches.
By midnight mother and children were bedded in the drawer with food, water, and sandbox near, and everyone went to bed. Joe slept on the floor with his head by the kitten nest.
When everyone was quiet, he raised up, used the flash to look in. Dr. Livingstone had one kitten in her arms, three more at suck; she stopped cleaning Maggie and looked inquiringly at him.
"They're beautiful kittens, Doe," he told her. "The best babies."
She spread her royal whiskers and purred agreement.
Chapter 8
Hugh leaned on his shovel. "That does it, Joe."
"Let me tidy up around the gate." They were at the upper end of their ditch where the stream had been dammed against the dry season. It had been on them for weeks; the forest was sere, the heat oppressive. They were extremely careful about fire.
But no longer so careful about bears. It was still standard practice to be armed, but Duke had killed so many carnivores, ursine and feline, they seldom saw one.
The water spilling over the dam was only a trickle but there was water for irrigation and for household needs. Without the ditch they would have lost their garden.
It was necessary every day or so to adjust the flow. Hugh had not built a water gate; paucity of tools, scarcity of metal, and a total lack of lumber had baffled him. Instead he had devised an expedient. The point where water was taken from the pond had been faced with brick and a spillway set of half-round tile. To increase the flow this was taken out, the spill cut deeper, bricks adjusted, and tiles replaced. It was clumsy; it worked.
The bottom of the ditch was tiled all the way to house and garden; a minimum of water was lost. Their kiln had worked day and night; most of their capital gain had come out of the clay bank below the house and it was becoming difficult to dig good clay.
This did not worry Hugh; they had almost everything they needed.
Their bathroom was no longer a joke. Water flowed in a two-stall trough toilet partitioned with deerhide; tile drainpipe "leaded" with clay ran down the manhole, out the tunnel, and to a cesspool.
Forming drainpipe Hugh had found very difficult. After many failures he had whittled a male form in three parts-in parts, because it was necessary to shape the clay over it, let it dry enough to take out the form before it cracked from shrinking over the form.
With practice he cut his failures to about 25 percent in forming, 25 percent in firing.
The damaged water tank he had cut painfully, mallet and chisel, lengthwise into tubs, a bathtub indoors and a washtub outdoors. The seams he had calked with shaved hide; the tubs did not leak-much.
A brick fireplace-oven filled one corner of the bath-kitchen. It was not in use; days were long and hot; they cooked outdoors and ate under an awning of empty bears-but it was ready against the next rainy season.
Their house now had two stories. Hugh had concluded that an addition strong enough to stop bears and tight enough to discourage snakes would have to be of stone, and solidly roofed. That he could do-but how about windows and doors? Glass he would make someday if he solved the problems of soda and lime. But not soon. A stout door and tight shutters he could manage, but such a cabin would be stuffy.
So they had built a shed on the roof, a grass shack. With the ladder up, a bear faced a twelve-foot wall. Unsure that a wall would stop all their neighbors, Hugh had arranged trip lines around the edge so that disturbing them would cause an oxygen bottle to fall over. Their alarm was tripped the first week, scaring off the intruder. It had also, Hugh admitted, scared the bejasus out of him.