THE CHINA MAIL THURSDAY SUPPLEMENT, MARCH 11, 1937.
THE TOM CAT
ERE. Sit right here. No,
Hat. Wait'l I get Tom off
that chair. He sits around all day as if he was stuffed. I guess he is from all he eats. Weighs close to thirty pounds and getting fatter all the time And lazier.
A while back I wouldn't have dared to pick him up like that. He would have had the hand off But sometimes I feel kind
me.
of sorry for him now.
I've never told anybody about it. Made me feel too queer. Still does, for that matter when I run across him all of a sudden around the house like one of those Suki- yaki prints or whatever that Jap's
name was.
1j
You know my wife, don't you? Never met her? That's right, didn't. Well, she'll be in you soon, but don't let on about this. It'll do me good to get it unload- ed, and as long as you don't know her, that's all the better. wouldn't dare tell any of the peo- ple we mix around with out here.
The Cat Became A Symbol To The
Wife And For A While It was All Right
thought it was making strange because of mistreatment.
“Well,” I said to Fran, "what are you going to do with it? We haven't got much room in the. apartment and we're both away. all day. We can't keep a cat. Better let me call up the SPCA.”
Say, do you know, her eyes fill- ed right up with tears and she said No! She almost yelled it. Scared me. She grabbed. up the -cat and held him I
to her breast and rubbed her face on that mangy black fur.
Well you know I'm her second husband, or don't you? Her first husband died about eight years ago. Pneumonia. That's him over there in the silver frame. Good-looking devil, especially in that picture. I knew him years
but I never 280,
knew Fran. Funny, isn't it: In fact, I knew him before they were married. Tall man with black hair and a fine set of teeth he liked to flash at the girls. Good dancer, too, and a regular heller in those days.
Anyway, after he died, Fran and I met, and sooner or later it was bound to happen. I've never regretted it. She's a great little girl and nobody could get along better than we do and we've been going along for six, pretty near seven, years.
We'd been married I about four months when
guess
oneTMTM
night she works, too, you know; she's in a real estate office across -town; been there for years --- one night she came in a little after me and she had a black kitten with her. She'd found it, or it found her, on the way home. Ran along in front of her until she noticed it and then she couldn't bear to leave it. She brought it along in. She fed it out in the kitchen and it purred all around, rubbing up against her ankles. It was about six or eight months old, I suppose. Just past the fuzzy stage and beginning to string out a little. It was all bony and ragged looking, as if it had never had a home.
She made a great fuss over it. Gave it cream and went out to the delicatessen for some of the best salmon. The cat nearly went crazy over that. Swarned all over- the place while she was opening the can.
Now, I like dogs, but I don't care much about cats. Can't stand them, as a matter of fact, except when they're kittens and they II chase a string or something. But ordinary cats, no. And do you know, right from the first that: cat wouldn't let me come near him. Stiffened up and hissed as soon as I reached out a finger. Of course, I tried right away to be nice to the animal because she seemed to like it so. But when I tried to rub its back it scrooched away and made a pass at me. So I snatched my hand back
"No!" she said, and she looked at me as if I'd struck her I've never hit a woman in my life. "No!" she said. "Tommy is go- ing to stay here.”
Tommy, mind you. She had a name for him already. And I can't even tell what a cat's sex is
course, I knew very well he'd wolf it down the minute her back was turned. Cats are opportun- ists that way. They never save a thing for the next meal. They know somebody will be fool enough to provide it for them. And did she provide! And did he gobble .it! He's eaten some of the damndest messes of food I've ever seen, even at a woman's bridge lunch.
So, as I said, it was all right for a while, until Tommy began to get used to the place and had himself pretty well established. He filled out nicely and got sleek and shiny and fat
Then, one night I came in be- fore she did and Tommy was in my chair. That's my chair you're in now. No, stay right where you are. I only mention
By Gregory Hartswick
until it has kittens. Tommy. I was sort of taken aback. I didn't know what to say. But I hem- med and hawed around and finally said that if she felt that strongly about it, why all right, keep the damn cat.
or
*
So she did, and there he is to prove it. It was all right for a while. He didn't make any trou ble around the house. No messes anything, and that sort of surprised me, he being a street cat and all. But he seemed to be housebroken, even though we had -to leave him alone in the apart-
ment all day.
She would put out some fish in a dish for him last thing before she left in the morning and tell him that was for lunch. Of
it to give you the picture. Well, he was in it.
across the living room. thought Til get you. Scaring me like that. So I went back and reach- ed for him again. This time he didn't make a sound. Just flash- ed out one paw and laid open the back of my hand. I bied like a stuck pig. I was still doctoring myself in the bathroom when she came in.
"You've got to get rid of that damn cat," I said
could be. He like to kiffed me just now when I wanted to get him out of my chair
Well, she broke right down and sobbed until pretty soon I began to feel like a fool
"You must have done something to him," she said. "He never
would have scratched you if you hadn't And nothing I could say would convince her I hadn't been swinging him around by the tail. or something. So nothing came of it after all, except I grumped around a little bit. But I saw she really was fond of that cat, so I shut up. It really wasn't much of a scratch.
That was only the first. He'd
"Out," I said while I was tak sit in that chair every day. He
ing off my coat. He just looked at me and I noticed for the first time that he had a mean eye. When I came in I only turned on the reading lamp at the chair and the room was pretty dim You could hardly see him against that dark brown stuff, but his eyes were glittering in the shadow. Sort of creepy.
"Come on," I said. "Get out. Fm ready for that chair.”
And I reached out my hand for him. He didn't move a hair but when my hand was about six inches away from him he let out a shriek that went through me like a knife. I landed
new fashions. bring us
must have spent all his time there in the daytime while we were working. There were black cat hairs all over it. I was getting so that some of the people I sat next to in the subway were miffing at me.
She had to lift the cat out of the chair every night for me to sit down. He didn't mind her, but I didn't dare. And after I got settled with my book or magazine, he'd sit somewhere else and look at me. Every once in a while he'd take a patrol around and make it a point to walk near the chair. I could feel the hairs on my legs crinkling when he came near But he never (Continued on Page 8)
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