Free Prelude to Heaven by Laura Lee Guhrke

a faint cry stopped her. She paused, unmoving, and when the cry was repeated, she stepped forward and peered into the next stall. There, sitting in one corner, was a kitten. At the sight of her, it meowed piteously.
    She entered the stall and dropped to her knees beside the small orange ball of fur. It looked to be about two months old. “Oh, poor baby,” she breathed, lifting the kitten gently in her hands. “Where's your mama?”
    The kitten answered with another meow.
    “All alone, hmm?” She checked the animal for injuries, and was able to verify with some certainty that it was a male before setting it down and commencing a search, but a thorough perusal of the barn and stable revealed no other kittens and no sign of the mother cat.
    Her new-found friend cradled in her hands, she returned to the house, but before going inside, she paused beside the well and drew up the bucket. She knew Dumond had put the milk remaining from breakfast in a sealed jar and lowered it into the well before departing that morning, and the kitten was probably hungry.
    Her guess proved correct, for it only took the animal a few minutes to lap up an entire bowl of milk. Afterward, he ambled across the room, found a place right in the center of the kitchen that suited him, and laid down, seeming right at home.
    “I think I shall call you Augustus,” she told him, but the kitten didn’t seem impressed. He simply yawned, curled into a ball, and went to sleep.
    Tess was still watching him, and still smiling, a few minutes later when Dumond returned. She stood up as he entered the kitchen, but the cat did not move.
    “Stop!” Tess cried out at the inexorable direction of Dumond’s steps. “You'll tread on Augustus!”
    “What?” He came to an immediate halt and looked down. The orange fur ball at his feet was still asleep, oblivious to the boot that had almost flattened him.
    “A cat,” Dumond muttered, his lip curling, giving Tess a belligerent look. “I hate cats.”
    Her eyes widened with deliberate innocence. “He's only a baby.”
    As if to prove it, Augustus gave a faint, pitiful-sounding meow.
    “I found him in the barn,” Tess added as she picked up the empty bowl from the floor. “Foxes probably got his brothers and sisters. I don't know what could have happened to his mother.” She looked at Dumond, who was once again staring at the cat with obvious distaste. “You have mice,” she said, even though she had seen no evidence of that fact.
    “I also have traps,” he said, not falling for that particular ploy.
    “He’s all alone,” she added, changing tactics. “With no one to take care of him but us.”
    “I hate cats,” he repeated.
    They stared at each other across the kitchen for a long moment, then Dumond gave an impatient sigh, raked a hand through his hair, and stepped over the kitten. He strode across the room and through the door to the corridor beyond. His boot heels thudded on the wooden floor as he walked away, and his muttered words floated back to her. “I hate cats.”
    Tess smiled and glanced at Augustus, who meowed again. “Don’t worry,” she said as she scooped up the tiny animal and rubbed his nose with her own. “I think he's going to let you stay, too.”
     
    ***
     
    The following day, Dumond sent Tess out to milk the goat and feed the chickens on her own. She wrinkled her nose with distaste at the thought of the smelly hen house, but she took the pails and went without complaint. The chickens, as Dumond had told her yesterday, were her responsibility now.
    She milked the goat first, and she found her task much easier than she had the first time. Sophie seemed to appreciate the difference too, and didn't shy impatiently away or complain with indignant bleats.
    Afterward, she put Sophie out to graze and hoped she wouldn’t be chasing the stubborn goat again this afternoon. She made a mental note to see what could be done to reinforce the fence around the pasture, then she went to the