The Cat Who Had 14 Tales

Not what you young people mean by that term! We were enjoying an old-fashioned courtship. Flappers were supposed to be cynical about love, but I was a hopeless romantic.

Now I’m losing the thread of my story . . . .

The gray cat was touching noses with the blind kitten.

Yes, such a poignant gesture! It was early October, and the days were getting cool. The leaves were falling, and I had an ominous feeling that it was the end of something. Paul had gone to Chicago on business for a few days, driving his automobile instead of taking the train. I watched him chug away in his Model T, and I felt very lonely.

At the same time it appeared to me that Prince Charming had stopped visiting the Princess. While working at my drawing board I kept glancing out the window, and for several days there was no sign of a meeting between the two. She sat on the concrete ledge, waiting and waiting, and I knew she missed him.

Then one day . . . the Princess herself disappeared! She was not in her accustomed place and nowhere else in sight. My eyes kept straying over to that bleak concrete landscape, searching for that ball of white fluff. She was so very white! After work I walked around and around the Canyon, hoping to catch a glimpse of her—somewhere. What could have happened?

The next morning I kept an eye on the Canyon from my office window until the nurse lumbered off the streetcar with her two large carrying bags. Then I flew down the stairs and across the street, dodging recklessly through the traffic and signaling her to wait for me.

“You know the little white cat,” I cried, all out of breath. The one that’s blind. Where is she? I can’t find her!”

“Oh, that one,” the nurse said, nodding. “She’s dead. I buried her yesterday.”

The tears came to my eyes. “Oh, no, no!” I said. “What happened to her?”

“She ate some of the wrong weeds,” the nurse said. “Some of the weeds are poison, and the cats know enough to leave them alone.”

“But she couldn’t see them,” I wailed. “She couldn’t tell they were poisonous!”

“She knew,” the nurse said. “She knew what they were. They all know. It’s instinct.”

I returned to my office and wept—until the art director told me to go home. Later that evening I was still moping around my apartment when the telephone rang. It was Paul! He had arrived home safely; the trip had been a success; he had missed me very much. Then, before I could report my sad news, he related an amazing incident.

On the day he left for Chicago he had been driving for some time when his automobile boiled over. They were always boiling over, you know. He stopped to pour water in the radiator, and while he was removing the radiator cap he heard some pitiful crying. He lifted the hood, and a gray cat leaped out and ran into some bushes. Paul searched for a while and couldn’t find him, but he was sure it was Prince Charming from the Canyon. He had climbed up under the hood to keep warm when the Model T was parked in front of Paul’s office.

But you couldn’t be sure, could you? There are lots of gray cats.

Wait till you hear the rest of my story, my dear . . . . The next day Paul and I met at the viewing fence at noon. The nurse was making her rounds. Some of the cats were climbing out of the excavation to beg scraps from lunch-boxes. And down below, a gray cat was hobbling across the battlefield.

“There he is!” I shouted. Oh, he was a pathetic sight—skinny and dirty—with one ragged ear, and blood caked on his fur. He walked painfully, stopping every few steps and lifting one sore paw. He was headed for the Motley side of the Canyon.

“He must have walked all the way back downtown!” I said. “Miles and miles! How did he do it? He looks starved, and you can tell he’s had some terrible experiences. Has the nurse noticed him? Could she do anything for him?”

Paul said: “I wonder if he burned his feet under the hood of the automobile . . . . Look at him! Where is he going?”

He was looking for the Princess, of course. The battered animal wandered unsteadily toward the ledge where they used to meet. Then he turned away and started climbing up to street level, with great difficulty. I started toward him.

“Don’t touch him,” Paul said. “He’s going over to the alley behind the restaurants. After he gets some food, he’ll give himself a bath. A cat’s tongue is his best medicine.”

As the injured cat limped into the street behind us, I made an announcement: “I’m not coming to the viewing fence anymore,” I said. “I’m too sentimental. I get emotionally involved. And I’m going to ask the art director to move my drawing board to another—”

I was interrupted by screeching tires on the pavement behind us, then the cries of pedestrians. We turned to look. Someone was running toward the fence, shouting, “Nurse! Nurse!”