Barn Cat

We found our cat, Nicholas, on one of those dazzling blue sky days of autumn. Flies buzzed a soft symphony at the horse farm where we had gone for my son John’s riding lesson. Not wanting to fall asleep in the car while I waited for the lesson to finish, I put Hercule Poirot aside and walked along the fence toward the horse barns. The farm teemed with animals of every kind: geese, sheep, an odd-looking goat, chickens, two Great Danes and a border collie, and an endless stream of cats. The owners seemed to find stray cats everywhere. They named them for the places they were found — Road Ditch, East Pasture, Mailbox.

I discovered a new litter of kittens in one of the barns. Risking their delicate necks as they pounced dangerously near the edge of the hayloft, they stalked each other’s tails among the hay bales, over the heads of the enormous, warm stallions. The farm owners planned to catch each kitten and keep it inside the farm house. There, it would endure hard time as it was fed, petted, and allowed to adjust to the near presence of people so it could eventually be adopted. My son had asked for my opinion of the present prisoner. We had two new kittens, but he wanted permission to have one from the farm.

In the farm house, an orange and white blur ignored me as it frisked around the room, climbing drapes, scratching furniture, and exploring the kitchen counters. He had been declared ready for a new home.

A second kitten had been caught the night before. Curled next to the resident house cat in a corner of the couch, he greeted me with a soft high mew. He was smaller and softer than his brother, with a subdued gray and white coat. This one had diarrhea, and wasn’t drinking his milk well. Also, he needed so much attention that the house cat was his designated baby-sitter. I pictured the stronger brother shredding my drapes and furniture — a blur of a clown, never still, seldom cuddly. Then, I took the sweet, sick baby home.

After a consultation with my vet, I had to isolate and contain him for a week, until his little tummy settled down. Then, we named him Nicholas, after the passage in the movie, The Sure Thing, which described the name “Nick” as a basic name for a basic kind of guy. However, Nicholas turned out to be special.

From the first, he followed me everywhere. He couldn’t stand being alone. Making beds was an especially challenging event. He liked to crawl up the sheets as I shook them, a bump hiding under the spread. When I was in a particular hurry, I would, in self-defense, find one of my other cats to watch him for me. I would tuck Nick alongside the older cat, where he would nap, content with the warmth, while I finished whatever I needed to finish. Then, I could again hold this new tiny baby in my lap while I read or wrote. He greeted me each time I picked him up by climbing high on my chest and gently touching his soft pink nose to my lips.

Special in other ways, too, he still will drink from his bowl by gently sticking a small paw into the water and then licking off the drops that stick. His mother must have taught him this polite technique. If his bowl is empty, he prowls the house, looking for half-full glasses the children have forgotten to take to the sink. Then, pushing the glass over, he spills a puddle into which he can dip his paw. The children are much more careful now about leaving their glasses around.
He prefers napping in the middle of the floor, flat on his back, his four feet up in the air, his rabbit-soft white tummy flashing, in perfect ease. If he hears a car or footsteps outside, he becomes my watch-cat. He bristles, growling like a dog, and skulks off to find a safe, hidden place until the threat of a stranger is past.

He has become mainly my cat, tolerating the rest of the family, and totally avoiding strangers, He is my friend.