Fun fact: A tower in Scotland is named after a cat named Towser that killed 30,000 mice during its lifetime.
My husband rescued our cat, Pete, from the animal shelter and put him in our barn to control the mouse population. Pete stayed there for about fifteen minutes and then walked out of the barn, across the field, under the fence, through the yard and up the steps to our house. He took his place on our front porch, where he would live for the next seventeen years. He would not be told where to sleep or given parameters in which to roam. He could not be contained by the walls of the barn, although my husband tried several times to keep him there.
Pete did not believe he was with us to clear our barn of rodents. Pete had come to reign over our farm from his seat on the welcome mat at our front door.
Being allergic to cats, I kept a distance from Pete. That was fine with him. He was not born to be a lady’s lap-sitter. He was a hunter and a protector. Too proud to eat our packaged cat food, Pete hunted his own food.
To prove to us his hunting prowess, he left the spoils of his nightly raids, the hearts and kidneys of our mice and mole enemies, on the welcome mat for us to find in the mornings. It was his way of saying, “I am on the job. No need to worry about things today. I will be watching over the farm while you are out.”
From the day Pete joined us, the other animals knew he ruled our place. If they questioned his authority, a quick flick of a claw put them in their places. Pete bowed to only one, our four-year-old son, Peter. (I realize that to name a child Peter and an animal Pete may seem odd, but being lovers of good stories, my husband and I named our son for a character in The Chronicles of Narnia and our cat after the barn cat in the Hank the Cowdog books.)
It took Cat Pete about a day and a half to realize that if Human Peter was to live to manhood, he needed more than his father and me looking out for him. We had three older children, and Peter tended to get lost in the shuffle. With commiseration and a bit of pity in his eyes, Pete gave me a nod that said, “You’ve got your hands full. I’ll take care of this one.” And he stepped in to become Peter’s companion.
They developed an unusual friendship. That cat let our young son mistreat him terribly. Any other animal of Pete’s nobility would have fled. But with fortitude and indulgence, Pete allowed himself to be caught when Peter chased him around the yard. After getting his hands on the cat, Peter would carry him around the yard with his front paws dragging on the ground.
Pete never squirmed, fought or clawed his way out of Peter’s arms. He just hung there, wondering, I’m sure, how many years it would be before Peter outgrew the game. Occasionally, the cat would mew a little. It didn’t seem to be a protest aimed at Peter. I felt it was more of a reassurance for me: “It’s okay. Don’t worry about me. I’ve got this. Really, I do.”
One day, a few months after Pete arrived, I returned home from the grocery store to find our two oldest boys playing basketball in the driveway and Peter watching from the yard. I knew without asking that his brothers had said he could not play with them. Peter followed me onto the front porch and slumped into a rocking chair with a sigh that conveyed a magnitude of four-year-old sadness. Pete jumped into his lap to join him.
I left the two of them there and went inside with my groceries. In just a bit, I began to hear sounds coming from the porch. The pounding of small feet scurrying across the porch was followed by little-boy giggles. Peter was happy again.
The front door flew open, and Peter ran in. “Mama, Mama, come watch me play basketball! Pete and I are playing basketball, Mama!” Peter had gone from mournful to merry in two shakes of a cat’s tail. (I feel sure Peter had done the actual tail shaking.) I could have kissed that cat, allergic or not.
I followed Peter out the door, entering into his imaginary basketball game. “Is Pete playing for the other team?” I asked. “Who is winning? You or Pete?”
I expected to see my son chase his cat around the porch with a ball in his hands. Instead, Peter walked to the top of the porch steps, picked up Pete and said, “He isn’t on the other team.”
“Is he on your team?”
“No, he’s not on my team either.”
“Then how are you and Pete playing basketball together?”
Pete gave me an indignant glare that said, “You are going to owe me big time for this one!”
“Pete isn’t a ball player, Mom,” my son said with a big smile. “He’s the ball!” Then, as I watched in amazement, that regal, proud, fierce, wonderful cat closed his eyes and rolled around on the ground with my son, his boy.
~Leigh Ann Northcutt
