The private life of the cat who...: tales of Koko and Yum Yum from the journal of James Mackintosh Qwilleran

“Untying shoelaces has become the national feline pastime. This may explain the trend to loafers.”

“The members of our family have lost a total of eleven lipsticks—never found! We think our Tom Tom is operating a black market in cosmetics. Now eye shadow has turned up missing.”

“The vibration from heavy truck traffic, the nearby airport, and abandoned mine shafts used to tilt the pictures on the wall—or so we thought, until we caught our roguish tabby in the act.”

“Don’t let your cats out,” the neighbors warned. “There’s a cat killer stalking the neighborhood. Raccoon, fox, wild dog—we don’t know what it is.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “My cats don’t even go on the screened porch unless I’m in the cabin. If I have to go into town, I lock them up indoors.”

It was our first summer in the seventy-five-year-old log cabin. The nearest neighbors were half a mile down the beach. My two city-bred cats were in heaven—watching the wildlife. From the kitchen porch they could see birds, chipmunks, rabbits, and even garden snakes.

The screened porch on the lakeside was screened on three sides, from floor to ceiling, with a panoramic view of seagulls, grasshoppers, sandpipers—and more chipmunks. Those little striped beasties with twitching noses and flirty tails came right up to the screen to tease Yum Yum.

One afternoon—I’ll never forget that day if I live to be a hundred!—I was typing at the dining table. Koko was on the kitchen porch, scolding the wildlife; and Yum Yum was being unusually quiet on the lakeside porch.

Suddenly there was a wrenching, tearing sound! I rushed out in time to see Yum Yum chasing a chipmunk! A corner of the old screening had torn away! And Yum Yum was chasing a chipmunk down the side of the dune, where they both disappeared in the tall beach grass.

I called her name loudly and thrashed through the tall grasses in vain. There was a flash of movement headed east, and I followed on the sandy shore—calling her and watching for movement in the weeds. Occasionally there would be a glimpse of light-and-dark fur, just ahead. At first I was angry! Where did she think she was going? Why didn’t she answer my stern calls? Then anger gave way to panic as I thought of the “cat killer”! The heat of anger was replaced by cold sweat. She was so young, so small! She would be helpless! Would she know enough to climb a tree?

I was thrashing around in the beach grass like a madman. I was calling her till I was hoarse.

Then my heart sank as I saw a large brown animal running our way.

I was ready to battle him bare-handed. He stopped near a fallen tree, its rotted trunk broken in pieces. He sniffed it. I yelled at him—some kind of thundering curse—and reached for a branch of the fallen tree. He whimpered and lowered his head as he turned and headed back down the beach.

Only then did I hear a small cry: “Now-w-w!” It was coming from inside the rotting log. Down on my hands and knees I could see her squirming to get out of the hollow log.

All I could say was, “Yum Yum . . . Yum Yum” as I stuffed her inside my shirt and jogged home.

The old screens were immediately replaced on both porches and eventually I learned the big brown dog who led me to shivering Yum Yum was a harmless collie belonging to one of the cottagers. I apologized to the collie. His name was Robbie.

I was a precocious fourth-grader when I discovered that rhymed words can be funny, and I started writing slightly naughty couplets about our teachers. Example:

Old Miss Perkins, flat as a pie.

ever had a boyfriend, and we know why.

My chum Arch Riker sold them in the school yard for a penny. Unfortunately, our enterprise was short lived. Now, several decades later, I entertain myself by writing limericks—and encouraging others to do so. “Anyone can write a limerick” is my slogan. And the good folk of Moose County have become writers of rhymed jingles with the traditional five lines in a-a-b-b-a rhyme scheme.

The best limericks focus on a person or a place. The winner of the annual Qwill Pen Limerick Contest celebrated the town of Brrr, coldest in the county, where the lake is said to be frozen ice in winter and melted ice in summer.

There was a young lady from Brrr

Who always went swimming in fur.

One day, on a dare,

She swam in the bare,

And that was the end of her!

Here in the boondocks it’s noticeable that animals, wild and domestic, so often are the stars of our limericks:

A sexy young tomcat named Jet

Loved every lady he met.

One day he got ill

And they gave him a pill,

And now he’s suing the vet.

A black-and-white stray named Toulouse

Found a home in the county of Moose.