Smidgen

Smidgen was our first cat. Barely married six months, my wife and I wandered the seashore near Joppa Flats in Newburyport. We decided to stroll down Neptune Street, and there she was with her mother. Mom was carefully cleaning her kitten, and we stopped to admire how lovely both the black cats were. Soon, they were close, and Mom carefully evaluated us while we gushed over the pretty kitten.

The house resident came out and informed us that the kitten was the last of the litter and was available for adoption. By this time, the Mom cat was rubbing against us; we had passed her evaluations. The tenant was moving, and if we wanted the kitten, we’d have to take her soon. We scooped right up, and my wife instantly became a mother.

What about Smidgen? She was all black with just a hint of a very tiny white spot on her chest. She was double-pawed, and we soon learned she had a sweet but imperious nature. Neptune St is one of the old neighborhoods along the shore that had formerly been the home of seamen. With her double paws, we suspected that she might be the descendant of the ship’s cats that came ashore for easier living on the foreshore.

She was imperious from the start. On the way home, she faked a fainting spell that had her off the side of the road, worried that our new daughter was having a medical emergency. No. She just told us that long car trips were not her thing. She spent the entire trip wrapped in my wife’s arms, occasionally fussing about the rude treatment.

On getting to our home, she wasted no time establishing her kingdom. And she ruled it with those elegant, dangerous claws in her wide double paws. The radiator shelves were hers to bask on in winter, and lord helps you if dinner was late. She’d snag you and haul you in for chastisement. Yes, she was vocal and could scold loudly.
One of the stories about Smidgen in the family was that as my wife’s hearing problems increased, Smidgie increased the volume of her lecturing, going so far as to gesture at my wife with her paw to punctuate her points.

As with all our cats since Smidgen had a back story, she was from one of Newburyport’s finest “old” families. Her ancestors had come ashore at Joppa long before those upstart buffoons at Plymouth- Pilgrims indeed! Her family were ship’s cats as far back as Sir Francis Drake!

What about our human children? They were in awe of this elegant creature, who ignored them until the day they were old enough to pull the tab on a can of cat food. Thereafter, she carefully groomed and educated them. After all, the cat knows best, Dear!

Smidgen lived to be twenty-one and planned to vote in upcoming elections to fool politicians into thinking what was wrong and how to invigorate the political process by electing cats to high offices. After all, she supervised all activities around our house, from my morning shave to seeing the children fed. I could almost see the billboard on the highway: ” Vote for a cat! Could she be worse than what you have!?

When she died, there was a void around the house for almost a year.