Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Yesterday, as I was going down the steps from my studio to the house, I saw a neighbor's cat, Toby, who likes to visit our yard. He was on plants right next to a squirrel, which I figured he had killed, but the squirrel moved, and shooed Toby away, then I went and got my husband. We decided to call animal control and they told us to wait twenty minutes then call back because the officier was rescuing two kittens out of a hole. Soon a crow got very interested, and I had to yell at it to keep it from looming over the poor squirrel. My husband and I took turns watching out for predators, and when my husband called the control again they said to put a box over the squirrel. It would be curled up then go in a circle but couldn't seem to walk get up or down a step. Generally, we're exasperated with squirrels who dig up our plants, mess in our gutters and make a lot of noise, but we didn't want to watch one die. Two hours later, with the officier still not out, I went inside to start dinner and after a few minutes my husband rushed in saying the squirrel had pushed the box away, run down the steps, and zipped up a nearby tree. So Toby had not chomped on the squirrel, and probably the critter had knocked himself out playing Tarzan in the trees, and it took hours to recover. We were proud of ourselves for caring about an animal grabbing and disposing of the squirrel. We had twarthed a cat and two crows, and whatever else was lurking around waiting for a juicy morsel. Our day was shot, but we'd saved a tiny creature.