Cat hadn’t got me into anymore cellars, but I can’t honestly say he’d been sitting home tending his knitting—not him.
One hot morning I went to pick up the milk outside our door, and Cat was sleeping there on the mat. He didn’t even look up at me. After I scratched his ears and talked to him some, he got up and hobbled into the house.
I put him up on my bed, under the light, for inspection. One front claw was torn off, which is why he was limping, his left ear was ripped, and there was quite a bit of fur missing here and there. He curled up on my bed and didn’t move all day.
I came and looked at him every few hours and wondered if I ought to take him to a vet. But he seemed to be breathing all right, so I went away and thought about it some more. Come night, I pushed him gently to one side, wondering what I better do in the morning.
Well, in the morning Cat wakes up, stretches, yawns, and drops easily down off the bed and walks away. He still limps a little, but otherwise he acts like nothing had happened. He just wants to know what’s for breakfast.
“You better watch out. One day you’ll run into a cat that’s bigger and meaner than you,” I tell him.
Cat continues to wait for breakfast. He is not impressed.
But I’m worried. Suppose some big old cat chews him up and he’s hurt too bad to get home? After breakfast I take him out in the backyard for a bit, and then I shut him in my room and go over to consult Aunt Kate.
She sets me up with the usual iced tea and dish of cottage cheese.