I think I've posted about her before, but here she is in my memory again.

Baby is the name of a grey striped tabby cat that used to come around my
parents house when I was a teenager.  I'd sit outside looking at the moon
and the stars and this cat started coming up and demanding to be petted.

Baby was a skinny little girl, maybe 8 or 9 months old.  She wasn't a kitten
anymore but not an adult, either.  She was obviously not owned by anyone.
But she craved human companionship and she found me, sitting outside on the
driveway.

I must explain, across the street from where we lived was a patch of grass,
a small stream and then a strip of woods.  It was (and still is) too small
to be developed into housing tracts but not too small to house some small
(feral) animals.

So Baby spotted me sitting outside when I was about 14 years old and came up
and wanted some attention. <S>  I'd sit out there for hours, petting her and
listening to her purr.  Her fur was short but matted and I picked off a
number of ticks.  She'd crawl onto my lap and settle down for scritches.
When it came around 10PM and I had to go inside and she'd try to trip me up,
running between my legs and in front of me, anything to keep me from going
inside.

No way would my father allow me to have a cat.  Funny; he loves the idea of
Persia but he hates cats in general (no idea why).

This went on for a year.  I wanted to bring her in, get her spayed, etc.  No
way was Dad having a cat in the house.  Then one night Baby came to me again
when I was sitting on the driveway.  Her teats were full; she'd given birth
to kittens.  She came over to me and rubbed up against me and purred, then
she walked off across the street to go back to her kittens.  I never saw her
again. (sigh)

Jill