2002-09-06 - 6:53 a.m.

I remember saving a mouse from my cat.


In Alberta, when the spring comes, it comes all at once, fiercely almost. All the piles of snow that fell that winter were melting in the course of hours, and our backyard was transformed into a network of rivers and streams. Naturally my sister and I had on our rubber boots and were playing like mad, jumping from snow island to snow island, making futile attempts to dam up tributaries, and generally splashing about like fools. It was really fun!


And then we saw our cat, Poots, a formidable hunter, playing with a little wet mouse on one of the snow islands in the middle of one of the raging run-off rivers. The mouse could not escape or he would drown. Poots would whack at the mouse with a paw, then watch it run around. He would pick it up in his teeth, toss it up, and casually wait for it to land. It was awful to watch. We immediately felt so sorry for the mouse that we ran to its rescue.


I can't remember if it was me or my sister that scooped up the mouse in our mittened hands and placed it on drier ground. One of us ran to the garage to get some food for Poots so he would still love us.


We felt like we had done something very good that day. We felt like God would be proud of us.