The cat’s finally out of the bag. Perhaps we should say, the cat’s off the warm car engine. A recent Reuters story told about a six-week-old kitten that stowed away next to a car engine in Germany. By the end of the day it had traveled for 275 miles with an unsuspecting couple from Eggenfelden, Elisabeth and Dieter Gesehl. All ended well, however. After the Gesehls reached their destination, they heard a mewing noise under the car hood and discovered the unharmed kitten, which they adopted and named "Pussy." Although the story from Germany might be described as charming with its storybook ending, it is a guilt-filled reminder for many of us who have lived on farms or acreages in the country. We have had similar experiences with countless farm felines, often referred to as "mousers." Mousers live in machines, barns and other outbuildings on farms. They thrive well on friendly handouts at the kitchen door and, of course, mice. There are often too many mousers to name and they certainly don’t live inside the house. They frolic as kittens and hunt as adults. They breed and they multiply to the extent that it’s sometimes difficult to keep track of them. What matters is that they do their work and they keep country yards from resembling movie sets for rodent terror flicks such as "Ben" and "Willard." During the summer of 1977, our four young daughters attempted to name all of our cats and kittens. It was almost an endless process with some older cats wandering off, never to be seen again, and new batches of kittens appearing on a regular basis. At least four of the cats were named Rusty. Of course, the christenings all took place before that summer’s Great Distemper Plague, which cruelly reduced our farm’s feline population. The four girls officiated, prayed and sang at countless cat funerals and burials. The act of burying a cat in our grove beneath a cross made from Popsicle sticks became a daily ritual. It was a somber summer as the girls and, of course, the cats had their first experiences with mortality. Unfortunately, those weren’t the only cat casualties. Like the kitten in Germany, our cats were fond of crawling under the hoods of pickup trucks and cars parked in our farmyard. The warm engine of a recently parked vehicle must have seemed particularly inviting to the cats on cold days. The trick for the cats was to know when to jump down and run for safety. One day I loaded our daughters into the backseat of the car for what promised to be a fairly routine trip to the grocery store in town. However, as I turned the key in the ignition, a loud "thunk-a-thunk, whump-whump" sound could be heard under the car’s hood. "What was that?" asked the girls, almost in perfect unison. "Nothing, I’m sure." I eased the car out the driveway and onto the road, taking great care to avoid a backseat glimpse of the furry black-and-white lifeless clump lying near the kitchen door. I hoped the grisly evidence would be removed before our return from town, and thankfully it was. At another time, my husband unknowingly transported a full-sized tomcat to town under the hood of his pickup truck. As he parked on Main Street, the half-crazed cat, obviously suffering from pickup lag, jumped down and fled for several of its nine lives. It vanished from sight between store buildings as quickly as it had appeared. Unlike the Reuters story, there wasn’t enough time for my husband to either adopt or name the wild-eyed cat. Real life doesn’t always have charming, storybook endings.