The Kitten Who Came to Our House
One morning on Pleasant Street, a heard a faint mewing at the door. As I checked the back door, I saw a little kitty, seeking for shelter. She had been left behind by her mother who had carried the rest of the litter away. For several days we had watched this family in our garage. Since this was a garage with doors that never closed, it was a perfect place for a mother cat and her kittens. She could come and go as she pleased.
The family consisted of 4 kittens and their mother. For some reason she suddenly decided to leave, and carried three of the kittens away, leaving the fourth to fend for herself. The little kitten was smart enough to come to the door and beg to be let in.
Since it was cold outside, and we felt sorry for her, we brought her into the house, fed her and provided a litter box and a place for her to sleep in the basement. It didn't take her long to adapt to this, and every morning when she was ready to get up, she would come to the basement door and mew.
The kitten became a real pet, sleeping on Mom's lap whenever she could. When she read the paper in the evening, she would bat at it playfully. Mom really enjoyed her. I never had much to do with her, because I was allergic to cats already at that time. Time came though when she was no longer a little kitten, but grew into a cat, causing us problems with her caterwauling. We had a friend, Clara Thorsberg, who lived near Merrill on a 10 acre hobby farm, and she was willing to take the cat along to her house. So the cat left us and went to live at her new home. She turned out to be a very good mouser and a good cat to have around. She seemed to like her new home, for which we were glad, as we had become attached to her.
So it was that we had a pet kitten at our house for awhile, -a thing unheard of in a place where I lived, since I have always been allergic to animals.