The Big Cat Nap

tell you if you intend to sell your sunflower seeds this fall, you ought to getdown to the health-food store right away. Yancy Hampton is buying now.”
    “Yancy is what? Why on earth now? The crop’s not nearly ready.”
    “She didn’t say. Oops, call on the other line, and it looks like Big Mim. See you tonight, darlin’.”
    Harry hung up with the thought that he’d be late for supper, as one of Big Mim’s best mares suffered from lactation problems and the foal needed that milk. If the mare couldn’t produce, Fair would need to find a surrogate. Since the stud fee had been $75,000 for this particular breeding and the foal was correct, it was imperative to keep the little guy healthy as well as get Mama back right.
    Harry flipped shut her cellphone. She neither liked nor disliked Yancy Hampton, but, for Harry, neutrality bordered on suspicion. Still, money was money. She’d think on it.

T he triple-sash windows, wide open, allowed a fresh breeze to fill the comfortable room at St. Luke’s Church, where the vestry-board meeting was now in progress. The administrative offices were connected to the church itself by an old stone arcade, so one could walk without getting soaked in those sudden hard Virginia rains. The St. Luke’s complex was built around a lovely symmetrical inner quad, and parts of the church were some two hundred thirty years old. The entire site radiated calm and encouraged contemplation.
    The early parishioners and pastor rested in a large rectangular cemetery behind the huge quad at a lower level. This lower large square was surrounded by a row of eighty red oaks, in front of which a border of climbing roses cascaded over the stone retaining wall. The current pastor’s living quarters anchored the far southern side of the large outer quad. The Very Reverend Jones’s fishing gear could be seen leaning against the garage. It was a hopeful sight.
    Also attending the vestry-board meeting were the Lutheran cats, Elocution, Lucy Fur, and Cazenovia. As the humans—Harry being one—discussed and occasionally argued about funds or the social calendar, the feline parishioners languidly sprawled on the windowsills. Their kind were once gods in ancient Egypt, but all had the good sense to keep that to themselves. Then, too, they loved their reverend. Why upset him with a competing theological view? Humans couldunderstand so little of cat communication. So all felines—not just Elocution, Lucy Fur, and Cazenovia—recognized that the feline–human relationship was often one-way. They pitied the two-legged creatures, but when that tin of Fancy Feast was opened, they utterly adored them.
    “The riding mower needs a new air filter, and the blades must be sharpened.” Susan Tucker, Harry’s childhood friend, now in charge of buildings and grounds, read from her monthly report. “This isn’t terribly expensive. Jimmy Carter is excellent and more than reasonable, but because of that there’s a long, long wait time.”
    “We can’t let the grass grow. It will look awful.” BoomBoom Craycroft, a smashing beauty, knew people would grumble about unkempt grounds, and not just parishioners.
    “Can’t we borrow a mower?” Harry sensibly inquired.
    Craig Newby, in his first year on the board, replied, “In theory, yes, but everyone is mowing. It’s been a wet spring. Some people are mowing three times a week.”
    Herb’s gray eyebrows shot upward. “Three times?”
    “Martha Stewart, maybe,” BoomBoom quipped, and all laughed.
    As the problems of mowing the large expanse of church lawns and the cemetery occupied the board, Elocution looked out the window. “Brown
creeper
.”
    The creeper was a small bird, rather large chested, with a slightly curving slender bill. It worked its way up a locust tree.
    “Bet we could catch it.”
Lucy Fur’s eyes widened.
    “They’re pretty quick,”
Cazenovia remarked.
    Lucy Fur murmured her agreement, then wondered,
“They’re so social, always hanging out with woodpeckers and chickadees. The chickadees you can sometimes distract and nail, but the woodpeckers, never. Doesn’t matter what kind of woodpecker.”
    “I wouldn’t want to eat a woodpecker,”
Elocution declared.
“Now, a fat little mole—tasty.”
    As to the mowing problem, Harry agreed to haul in her zero-turn mower until the church’s old John Deere was repaired. The discussion moved on to moles.
    “Put poison down the holes.” Craig shrugged his shoulders.
    “All creatures