When we first came to Moncton,or shortly thereafter,we had a pet.Not a dog,but a cat.I don't recall the cat's name,or even if she had one,but I recall the cat very clearly.She was a long, slender thing,with a long,high tail and one eyes was yellow,the other blue.
As far as cats go,this one was gentle and calm and I don't ever remember being scratched or bitten by her.Occasionally a dog would come into the yard when she was outside,and she would arch her back and hiss at the dog.Once she went running up a tree because there was a dog chasing her.I ran inside and asked my mother if she was going to call the firemen to rescue her.I'd seen that in one of the books that she had read to us,so I just kind of thought that's what you needed to do.But my mother just said"no,she can get down out of the tree by herself.I was rather disappointed,because I really wanted the firemen to come. But my mother was right.It wasn't long until the cat was safely on the ground.
Sometimes our cat would bring us things that she had dragged in from outside.Like mice.Usually when she did that it was only some part of the mouse.Never the whole thing.Sometimes she brought in birds,usually sparrows.Once,though she caught a robin,and my mother called her a bad cat,and took the dead robin away from her and put it outside with the garbage.I would have guessed that this was because our mother didn't want us seeing dead things,only she never objected to dead mice.Dead mice brought about praise.Dead birds brought about a "Bad cat!" I was out in the yard one time when I saw our cat moving quietly and slowly through the garden.The,all of a sudden,she took off like a streak and jumped,right at a robin that was near the foot of the maple trees that used to be in the yard.There were a lot of nasty sounding noises,and a big cloud of brown and gray feathers,but the robin ended up getting away.When the cat came inside,she still had feathers stuck to her fur.
The cat stayed outside a lot if it wasn't cold.My mother would usually put it out at night,and it would stay there until morning.So it wasn't long until it was having kittens.When the cat was inside,she used to like to hide out under he basement steps.She could get way in there,under the last step where nobody could reach her and she could get some peaceful rest from a house full of kids.I think she likely found mice in there as well.So one day my mother called us to come down to the basement,and showed us this cardboard box she'd put under the stairwell.Inside was or cat,and a whole bunch of tiny,furry kittens,mostly white,but some yellow and gray ones too.They were not much bigger than my five year old fist,they were all curled up under our cat,and their eyes were closed.And they were making these really tiny meowing sounds,without stop.We never kept any of those kittens.I don't recall what happened to them.They were there,then they were gone.A few years later my father was saying the way to get rid of kittens was to tie them up in a sack and toss the sack in the river.You couldn't keep kittens because soon there would be dozens of them all over the place.But I'm not certain he was saying that he had done that to these particular kittens.
One early morning our cat was struck by a car.I didn't see her,but my mother told me she was dead,that a car had run over her.But I think she must have come inside at some point,and crawled in under the stairs.I tried to look under there to see what might have been there to see,but my mother kept herding me away and saying something about her back legs being all crushed,and she couldn't walk,could only drag them behind her.She must have been really upset,trying to figure out what to do with the cat,and how to keep us from seeing it.To the best of my knowledge,that was the first time I recall seeing my normally calm mother in distress.I never did see the cat.Somehow my mother must have gotten it out of the house and cleaned up whatever mess was down in the basement.She never did say much else about the cat,like what she did with it or where it went.When I asked,she seemed to be avoiding the use of words like "Dead" or "Died",not to mention crushed or mangled or bloody,or any like word.Eventually she settled on telling us that our cat had "Gone to Heaven."
As far as cats go,this one was gentle and calm and I don't ever remember being scratched or bitten by her.Occasionally a dog would come into the yard when she was outside,and she would arch her back and hiss at the dog.Once she went running up a tree because there was a dog chasing her.I ran inside and asked my mother if she was going to call the firemen to rescue her.I'd seen that in one of the books that she had read to us,so I just kind of thought that's what you needed to do.But my mother just said"no,she can get down out of the tree by herself.I was rather disappointed,because I really wanted the firemen to come. But my mother was right.It wasn't long until the cat was safely on the ground.
Sometimes our cat would bring us things that she had dragged in from outside.Like mice.Usually when she did that it was only some part of the mouse.Never the whole thing.Sometimes she brought in birds,usually sparrows.Once,though she caught a robin,and my mother called her a bad cat,and took the dead robin away from her and put it outside with the garbage.I would have guessed that this was because our mother didn't want us seeing dead things,only she never objected to dead mice.Dead mice brought about praise.Dead birds brought about a "Bad cat!" I was out in the yard one time when I saw our cat moving quietly and slowly through the garden.The,all of a sudden,she took off like a streak and jumped,right at a robin that was near the foot of the maple trees that used to be in the yard.There were a lot of nasty sounding noises,and a big cloud of brown and gray feathers,but the robin ended up getting away.When the cat came inside,she still had feathers stuck to her fur.
The cat stayed outside a lot if it wasn't cold.My mother would usually put it out at night,and it would stay there until morning.So it wasn't long until it was having kittens.When the cat was inside,she used to like to hide out under he basement steps.She could get way in there,under the last step where nobody could reach her and she could get some peaceful rest from a house full of kids.I think she likely found mice in there as well.So one day my mother called us to come down to the basement,and showed us this cardboard box she'd put under the stairwell.Inside was or cat,and a whole bunch of tiny,furry kittens,mostly white,but some yellow and gray ones too.They were not much bigger than my five year old fist,they were all curled up under our cat,and their eyes were closed.And they were making these really tiny meowing sounds,without stop.We never kept any of those kittens.I don't recall what happened to them.They were there,then they were gone.A few years later my father was saying the way to get rid of kittens was to tie them up in a sack and toss the sack in the river.You couldn't keep kittens because soon there would be dozens of them all over the place.But I'm not certain he was saying that he had done that to these particular kittens.
One early morning our cat was struck by a car.I didn't see her,but my mother told me she was dead,that a car had run over her.But I think she must have come inside at some point,and crawled in under the stairs.I tried to look under there to see what might have been there to see,but my mother kept herding me away and saying something about her back legs being all crushed,and she couldn't walk,could only drag them behind her.She must have been really upset,trying to figure out what to do with the cat,and how to keep us from seeing it.To the best of my knowledge,that was the first time I recall seeing my normally calm mother in distress.I never did see the cat.Somehow my mother must have gotten it out of the house and cleaned up whatever mess was down in the basement.She never did say much else about the cat,like what she did with it or where it went.When I asked,she seemed to be avoiding the use of words like "Dead" or "Died",not to mention crushed or mangled or bloody,or any like word.Eventually she settled on telling us that our cat had "Gone to Heaven."
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