Paul felt a strangling fear. He had waited all night and half the morning to see Misty. Now in sight of the house, he couldn't wait another moment. He started to jump out.
Grandpa put a restraining arm across his chest. "Ye're jerky as a fish on a hot griddle, son. Simmer down. Ponies can't abide fidgety folk."
After what seemed an eternity but was only a minute, the DUKW jolted to a stop and Paul and Grandpa were out and up the steps.
Breathless, Paul opened the door a crack, and all in a split second his worry fell away. Misty was whinkering as if she too had waited overlong for this moment, and she started toward him, but stepping very carefully, lifting her feet high, avoiding something dark and moving in the straw.
"My soul and body!" Grandpa clucked, looking over Paul's shoulder. "Ee-magine that!"
Then he and Paul were on their knees, and Paul was laughing weakly as he stroked Wait-a-Minute and admired her litter of four squirming, coal-black kittens.
"Ee-magine that!" Grandpa repeated. "Misty's postponed hers, but Wait-a-Minute couldn't!"
"A whole mess of kittens in Grandma's kitchen!" Paul said. Disappointed as he was, he couldn't help laughing.
