The Cat Who Had 14 Tales Read online

  After the unpleasant accident on the Jamisons’ front lawn, the cat retired to the shade of a juniper to ponder the situation, and little Vernon Jamison ran indoors and cried for hours. In time his weeping became dry and unconvincing, but still he raised his voice in a penetrating six-year-old’s wail. Meanwhile, the neighborhood children stood in front of the house and chattered and shrieked and ogled the spot on the lawn—now covered with a bushel basket—where the accident had occurred.

  Mrs. Jamison finally telephoned her husband at the advertising agency where he worked. “Vernon has been crying all afternoon and won’t stop,” she told him. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “What started it?”

  “He pulled the tail off the Drooler.”

  “He pulled the what off the what?”

  “The tail! Off the Drooler!” said Mrs. Jamison, raising her voice. “It’s that gray-and-white cat that hangs around the neighborhood. All the kids tease the poor thing, and Vernon was pulling his tail this afternoon. A piece of the tail came off in his hand, and he’s been crying ever since. Now he’s running a temperature.”

  There was a pause on the line. “Hmmm,” said her husband. “How’s the cat’s temperature?”

  “Oh, the Drooler seems to be okay. He’s just sitting under the junipers with three-quarters of a tail, but all the kids on the block are trampling on your lawn.”

  “My lawn!” Mr. Jamison shouted into the phone. “I’ll be right there!”

  Drummond Street, where the Jamisons lived, was lined with split-level houses, all of them identical except for the quality of their lawns. Some looked like cow pasture, some like country club fairways. Only Mr. Jamison’s grass resembled green velvet.

  Each family owned two cars, three bicycles, a tricycle, a baby stroller, a power mower, and an electric lawn edger, but no one claimed to own the Drooler. He was a large gray-and-white cat with an unattractive habit of driveling. Festoons of saliva continually draped his whiskers and chin, glistened on his breast, and collected in puddles on every doorstep where he elected to doze in the sun. If any resident of Drummond Street sat down in a patio chair and quickly stood up again, it meant that the Drooler had been there, napping and salivating copiously. He played no favorites but gave every household, one after the other, his damp blessing.

  The Drooler had another defect that impaired his prestige. Two years before, a TV repairman had backed his truck over the Drooler’s tail, which afterward drooped forlornly and was apparently insensible to pain. The children rode their trikes over the tip of his tail to prove that it was totally numb, and because of his unappetizing appearance they jeered at him and made faces intended to scare him to death.

  None of this ill-treatment bothered the Drooler, who continued to loiter wherever the youngsters gathered, waiting hopefully for their insults and purring at their abuse.

  “Get outa here, Drooler,” they would yell. “You’re a sloppy old cat,” and the Drooler would rub against their ankles and gaze at them with devotion.

  When the Drooler lost the tip of his tail, he took it calmly, but Vernon—who was left holding the grisly souvenir—gave vent to mixed horror and guilt with a marathon of weeping. Only the reassurance that his father was coming home from the office succeeded in quieting him.

  When Mr. Jamison arrived, he chased the wide-eyed, thumb-sucking spectators from his prize lawn, then called to his wife: “What’s this bushel basket doing on my grass?”

  “That’s covering the Drooler’s tail,” she said. “I didn’t want to touch it. Vernon is in his bedroom, drinking cocoa.”

  At the sight of his father, Vernon opened his mouth in a piercing wail and clung to his parent with renewed anguish.

  “Now that’s enough, young man!” said Mr. Jamison, removing Vernon’s sticky hands from the sleeve of his seersucker coat. “Crying won’t fix the cat’s tail. It was an accident, and there’s nothing you can do about it—except to apologize and promise to be nice to the poor fellow in the future. He’s one of God’s creatures, and we must treat him with respect.”

  “He’s crummy,” said Vernon, sniffling and rubbing his nose. “He slobbers all the time.”

  “He probably has an allergy. Now make up your mind to be kind to him, and he’ll forgive you. Blow your nose.”

  “What’ll we do with the tail?” Vernon whined, clawing his father’s coat sleeve.

  “We’ll dig a hole in the backyard and bury it with a dignified ceremony. And don’t yank my sleeve! How often have I told you to keep your hands off people’s clothing?”

  The interment of the Drooler’s tail was observed by hordes of preschool mourners, and the cat himself made his moist presence felt as he rubbed against any ankle that would permit it. The accident that had shortened his tail had not curtailed his affection for his tormentors.

  By the end of the week Drummond Street had forgotten about the tail; there was excitement of another sort. A new row of split-level houses was being added to the subdivision, and trucks and backhoes were swarming over the site.

  One afternoon when all residents under ten years of age were supervising the sewer excavations, Vernon rushed home for his third chocolate-chip cookie and said to his mother: “The Drooler’s smelling at our grass in the front. I think he found an animal down a hole.”

  “Oh, heavens! I hope the moles aren’t burrowing in your father’s lawn,” Mrs. Jamison said. “He’ll have a fit.”

  An hour later Vernon raced home for a can of pop. “Hey, Mom, the Drooler’s still smelling around. Gimme something to poke down the hole.”

  “Don’t you dare touch your father’s lawn. I’ll go out and look at it.”

  The Drooler, Mrs. Jamison agreed, was performing a strange ritual, sniffing the grass eagerly, then retreating and twitching his nose. In a few seconds he was back at the same spot, repeating the performance with evident distaste, sneezing and baring his teeth.

  Vernon shooed the cat away, and Mrs. Jamison examined a crack in the soil. “Why it’s gas! I smell gas!” she cried. “I’ll phone your father. Keep everyone away from it, Vernon. If it’s a gas leak, there could be an explosion!”

  Vernon ran back to the crowd around the backhoes. “Hey, I found a gas leak!” he said. “The whole street’s gonna blow up. My mother’s calling the cops.”

  Within a matter of minutes two emergency trucks rumbled into Drummond Street, and a service crew descended on the Jamisons’ front lawn with testing apparatus and excavating equipment. Two men hurried from house to house, shutting off the gas lines.

  Vernon, bounding with excitement, followed one of the men on his rounds. “Hey, I’m the one that found the gas leak,” he shouted, as he clung to the man’s jacket.

  “You’re a hero,” the man said, smiling stiffly and shaking free of Vernon’s clutch. “You probably saved the whole neighborhood from some bad trouble.”

  “I’m a hero!” Vernon proclaimed some minutes later when his father came home.

  Mr. Jamison only groaned. “They’ve wrecked my lawn! There won’t be two blades of grass left.”

  “I had a cake in the oven, and it’s ruined,” his wife complained as she paced the floor, trying to quiet the baby, whose feeding was overdue.

  The doorbell rang, and there on the front step stood a young woman with a tape recorder. Behind her was a man with a camera.

  “We’re from the Daily Times,” she said. “I understand your little boy saved the neighborhood from a disaster.”

  “Hey, that’s me!” yelled Vernon. “I’m a hero!” and he grabbed the reporter’s wrist.

  “Vernon!” his father snapped. “Keep your hands off the lady.”

  “We’d like to take his picture,” she said.

  “I don’t think I want my son’s picture in the paper,” Mr. Jamison said. “He would be—”

  “Yeh yeh yeh, I want my picture in the paper,” Vernon squealed. He tugged at the camera. “Take my picture!”

  “Down, Junior,” said the photogr
apher.

  “Honey,” Mrs. Jamison whispered to her husband, “let them take his picture. It won’t do any harm.” So the entire family trooped to the hill of earth that had once been a lawn, Vernon clinging to the photographer’s arm and Mrs. Jamison jiggling the fretful baby and talking to the woman from the newspaper.

  “Exactly how did it happen?” the reporter asked.

  “Well,” said Mrs. Jamison, “Vernon came running in and said the Drooler was sniffing at our front lawn.”

  “Who was sniffing?”

  “The Drooler. He’s just a cat that hangs around . . . . See! There he is under the junipers. He’s a mess, but he loves the children.”

  “He’s got a tail like a sheep.”

  “That’s a weird story,” said Vernon’s mother, rolling her eyes. “A couple of weeks ago my son pulled the cat’s tail off.”

  “Really? Do they come off easily?”

  “The Drooler’s did. He didn’t seem to mind.”

  “And what happened today?”

  “Well, the Drooler was sniffing a crack in the ground, so I investigated and smelled gas—that’s all.”

  The photographer, meanwhile, had pried Vernon loose from his camera and was posing the boy in front of the junipers. “Now stoop down,” he said, “as if you were examining the place where you smelled gas.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Mrs. Jamison. “Let me comb his hair and put him in a clean shirt. It won’t take a second.”

  The photographer drew an impatient breath and looked up at the sky, and the reporter told him in a low voice: “It wasn’t the kid who found the leak. It was the cat.”

  “That’s even better. Let’s shoot the cat.” He aimed the camera at the Drooler and clicked off a whole roll of film.

  When Vernon reappeared with damp hair and clean shirt, the photographer said: “Now stand where I told you and hold your cat so he’s facing the camera.”

  “He’s not my cat!” shouted Vernon. “I don’t want my picture taken with that sloppy old Drooler.”

  “Sure you do,” said the man. “He’s a celebrity. He smelled gas and saved the whole neighborhood.”

  “No, he didn’t!” Vernon screamed, pounding the photographer in the ribs. “I saved the neighborhood! Get outa here, Drooler!” and he pitched a pebble at the cat, who blinked with pleasure and purred loudly.

  “Vernon!” Mr. Jamison said sharply. “Do what the man says, or go in the house.”

  “That’s all right,” said the photographer, suddenly agreeable. “Let him have his own way,” and he aimed his camera at Vernon and clicked the shutter—without, however, putting a new roll of film in the camera. To the reporter he added under his breath: “Let’s get out of here. I can’t stand a kid pawing me and grabbing my camera. Let’s see the TV crew cope with the brat. Here comes their van.”

  So it was the Drooler’s picture that appeared on the six o’clock news and in the Daily Times on the following morning. The story read: “A suburban cat with three-quarters of a tail averted an explosion yesterday when he sniffed out a break in a gas main, caused by sewer excavations nearby.”

  The photograph, which appeared on page one, was a good likeness of the Drooler, wet-chinned and congenial, and both the wire services and the national networks picked up the story. Almost overnight the Drooler became the media cat of the moment.

  He is now receiving so much attention and so many offers that Mr. Jamison is acting as his personal manager. Since no family can lay undisputed claim to the Drooler, he has been incorporated, all shares being held equally by residents of Drummond Street. At the first shareholders’ meeting a proposal to change the name of the street was hotly debated before being tabled.

  Vernon has been sent away to school, and the Drooler is now occupying his room. He no longer drivels. After two visits to the veterinary clinic and a new diet of nutritionally balanced catfood, he has lost his unattractive habit. Nevertheless, T-shirts and bumper stickers still proclaim him as the Drooler, and his story will soon be made into a major motion picture. Meanwhile, news has been leaked to the press that the Hero of Drummond Street will be pictured on the cover of a national magazine, nude.

  The Mad Museum Mouser

  A police car was cruising down the street as I parked at the gate of the Lockmaster Museum, and the officer at the wheel appeared to be scrutinizing my license plate. It was the first hint that something unusual was happening in that sleepy town. Security is the first consideration in museum management, but small communities rarely provide such noticeable police protection.

  I removed my sunglasses, fixed my lipstick, found the Historical Society brochure in the glove compartment, and retrieved the little black box from under the seat. In doing research for my book, Minor Museums of Northeast Central United States, I have found a tape recorder more convenient than a notebook for collecting information.

  The police cruiser made a second appearance as I slung the recorder strap over my shoulder, scanned the brochure, and recited the basic facts on the place I was about to visit:

  “Lockmaster Museum, built in 1850 by Frederick Lockmaster, wealthy lumberman, shipbuilder, and railroad promoter. Victorian mansion with original furnishings. In family for five generations. Donated to the Historical Society for use as museum.”

  Then I walked up the curving brick sidewalk to the house, dictating as I went: “Three-story frame construction with turrets, gables, balconies, bay windows, and verandahs. Set in spacious grounds surrounded by ornamental iron fence.”

  The museum was open to the public only in the afternoon, but I had arranged for private admittance at 11:00 a.m. A tasteful sign on the door said CLOSED, but I rang the bell. While waiting I noted: “Magnificent carved entrance doors with stained glass fanlight and etched glass sidelights.”

  There was no answer from within. I rang again and waited, turning to admire the landscaping. The police car was circling the block slowly for the third time.

  The Lockmaster was the fifteenth small-town museum I had researched, and I knew what to expect. The interior would be embalmed in a solemn hush. The staff would consist of two genteel ladies over seventy-five who would say, “Please sign the guestbook,” when I arrived and, “Thank you for coming,” when I left, meanwhile conversing in whispers about the latest local funeral.

  Such was not the case at the Lockmaster, however. As I was about to ring for the third time I heard the click of a lock being turned and the clank of a heavy bolt being drawn. Then the door was opened cautiously by a wild-eyed and fragile little woman with wispy white hair. She appeared flustered and kept one hand behind her back, while the other grasped a knobby stick, midway between a cane and a club. She was accompanied by an overfed animal with bristling orange fur and a hostile glint in its squinting yellow eyes.

  I identified myself, at the same time turning on the tape recorder. The cat—if that’s what it was—replied with a deep rumbling growl that ended in an explosive snarl.

  “Marmalade! Stop it!” gasped the little woman, breathless from some recent exertion. “Please come in,” she said to me. “This is Marmalade, our resident mouser. He is usually quite friendly, but he has had a traumatic experience of some mysterious kind. I hope you will forgive him.”

  As I stepped into the large formal entrance hall the orange cat arched his back and fluffed his tail, swelling to twice his size, then bared his long yellow fangs and flattened his ears to attack position.

  “Has this cat been watching horror films?” I asked.

  “Go away, Marmalade. You are not needed.” The woman nudged him with the stick, which he grabbed in his teeth. “Nice kitty, nice kitty,” she said as she wrestled with him for possession of the shillelagh. I noticed that her left hand was wrapped in a bloodstained handkerchief.

  “What happened to you?” I asked in surprise.

  “I do hope you didn’t wait long,” she said, still breathing heavily. “I didn’t hear the bell. My hearing aid seems to be out of order. I think the batte
ry is weak. But Marmalade let me know you had arrived. You must pardon us. We’re a little disorganized this morning. I’m substituting for Mrs. Sheffield. The ambulance took her away just half an hour ago. I hurried over as fast as I could to let you in.”

  From the entrance hall I could see the drawing room—huge and lavishly furnished, but with tables and chairs knocked over and broken china on the floor.

  “What happened here?” I asked in a louder voice.

  “I’m Rhoda Finney. Mrs. Sheffield is the real authority on the collection, but I shall do my best. Let me get rid of this handkerchief. The bleeding seems to have stopped. It’s nothing serious.” She turned to the cat, who had assumed a bulldog stance and was eyeing both of us with suspicion. “We had a little misunderstanding, didn’t we, kitty?”

  He started licking his claws. I looked at him with speculation, and he took time out to hiss in a nasty way before resuming his chore.

  “I’m afraid the drawing room is a sorry mess,” Ms. Finney went on, “but we have been told not to touch anything. Mrs. Sheffield discovered it an hour ago and had a heart attack. Fortunately Mr. Tibbitt arrived and found her. He’s our volunteer custodian. A dear sweet man. Ninety years old.”

  “Is this the work of vandals?” I shouted. Marmalade gave me a mean look, and Ms. Finney continued as if I had not said a word.

  “To appreciate this house you must understand the five generations of Lockmasters. Frederick was the founder of the family fortune. Being a lumber baron he used only the finest hardwoods in the house, and the construction was done by ship’s carpenters. Notice the superb woodwork in the grand staircase.” Her manner became coy. “Frederick was a handsome bearded man and had mistresses by the dozen! We’re not supposed to mention personal details, but I think it adds to the interest, don’t you? And I know you won’t print it . . . . Now let us step into the drawing room. Be careful of the broken porcelain.”

  The walls were hung with oil paintings and tapestries, while the far end of the room was dominated by an elaborate organ on a dais, above which were four portraits. Besides the bearded Frederick there were a Civil War officer, a dapper Edwardian chap, and a contemporary businessman in banker’s gray, double-breasted.