At the same time it appeared to me that Prince Charming had stopped visiting the Princess. While working at my drawing board I kept glancing out the window, and for several days there was no sign of a meeting between the two. She sat on the concrete ledge, waiting and waiting, and I knew she missed him.
Then one day … the Princess herself disappeared! She was not in her accustomed place and nowhere else in sight. My eyes kept straying over to that bleak concrete landscape, searching for that ball of white fluff. She was sovery white! After work I walked around and around the Canyon, hoping to catch a glimpse of her—somewhere. What could have happened?
The next morning I kept an eye on the Canyon from my office window until the nurse lumbered off the streetcar with her two large carrying bags. Then Iflew down the stairs and across the street, dodging recklessly through the traffic and signaling her to wait for me.
“You know the little white cat,” I cried, all out of breath. The one that’s blind. Where is she? I can’t find her!”
“Oh,that one,” the nurse said, nodding. “She’s dead. I buried her yesterday.”
The tears came to my eyes.“Oh, no, no!” I said. “What happened to her?”
“She ate some of the wrong weeds,” the nurse said. “Some of the weeds are poison, and the cats know enough to leave them alone.”
“But she couldn’tsee them,” I wailed. “She couldn’t tell they were poisonous!”
“She knew,” the nurse said. “She knew what they were. They all know. It’s instinct.”
I returned to my office and wept—until the art director told me to go home. Later that evening I was still moping around my apartment when the telephone rang. It was Paul! He had arrived home safely; the trip had been a success; he had missed me very much. Then, before I could report my sad news, he related an amazing incident.
On the day he left for Chicago he had been driving for some time when his automobile boiled over. They werealways boiling over, you know. He stopped to pour water in the radiator, and while he was removing the radiator cap he heard some pitiful crying. He lifted the hood, and a gray cat leaped out and ran into some bushes. Paul searched for a while and couldn’t find him, but he was sure it was Prince Charming from the Canyon. He had climbed up under the hood to keep warm when the Model T was parked in front of Paul’s office.
But you couldn’t be sure, could you? There are lots of gray cats.
Wait till you hear the rest of my story, my dear … . The next day Paul and I met at the viewing fence at noon. The nurse was making her rounds. Some of the cats were climbing out of the excavation to beg scraps from lunch-boxes. And down below, a gray cat was hobbling across the battlefield.
“There he is!” I shouted. Oh, he was a pathetic sight—skinny and dirty—with one ragged ear, and blood caked on his fur. He walked painfully, stopping every few steps and lifting one sore paw. He was headed for the Motley side of the Canyon.
“He must have walked all the way back downtown!” I said. “Miles and miles! How did he do it? He looks starved, and you can tell he’s had some terrible experiences. Has the nurse noticed him? Could she do anything for him?”
Paul said:“I wonder if he burned his feet under the hood of the automobile … . Look at him! Where is he going?”
He was looking for the Princess, of course. The battered animal wandered unsteadily toward the ledge where they used to meet. Then he turned away and started climbing up to street level, with great difficulty. I started toward him.
“Don’t touch him,” Paul said. “He’s going over to the alley behind the restaurants. After he gets some food, he’ll give himself a bath. A cat’s tongue is his best medicine.”
As the injured cat limped into the street behind us, I made an announcement:“I’m not coming to the viewing fence anymore,” I said. “I’m too sentimental. I get emotionally involved. And I’m going to ask the art director to move my drawing board to another—”
I was interrupted by screeching tires on the pavement behind us, then the cries of pedestrians. We turned to look. Someone was running toward the fence, shouting,“Nurse! Nurse!”
Paul started toward the scene of the accident and abruptly returned.“Come away,” he said, leading me in the opposite direction. “Don’t look.”
That was sixty years ago, and I’ve never forgotten.
It’s a sad story.
Yes, my dear, a very sad story. But there is an epilogue.
I married my young architect, and do you know what he gave me for a wedding present? Two kittens. One was gray, and one was white and fluffy. I named them Romeo and Juliet.
TIPSY AND THE BOARD OF HEALTH
(The following interview with Mr. C. W. was taped at the Old Sailors’ Home in November 1985, for the Oral History Project of Gattville Community College.)
Sure, I’m old enough to remember the Depression. Herbert Hoover, Prohibition, bread lines, soup kitchens, FDR, Repeal. I remember all that. If you wanna know, things was tough then, boy. I washed dishes, did street sweepin’—whatever I could get. Worked on the boats when I could. That was before theytore down the waterfront and built them fancy skyscrapers with fountains and trees and stuff like that.
What was the waterfront like in the thirties?
On Front Street it was all docks and warehouses. Behind that was tenements, meat markets, candy stores, a coupla beaneries, two churches, a school. Blind pigs, too, but that was before Repeal. It was a nice neighborhood. Everybody knowed everybody. The school had one of them fire-escape chutes from the second floor. Looked like a big tin sewer pipe. That’s all gone now.
Fella come to see me last week. Used to be a butcher at Nick’s Market on the waterfront. “Porky” is what we called him. He’s still fat as a pig and smokin’ them stinko cigars. We talked about the old days. Hamburger, thirteen cents a pound. Trolley cars, a nickel a ride. Porky says to me: “Betcha you don’t remember Tipsy and the Board of Health.”
I says:“Betcha two bits I do. I told my grandkids about Tipsy. They’ll be talkin’ about her long after you and me cash in our chips.”
What did you tell your grandchildren?
Tell‘em? How Tipsy made us laugh when there wasn’t much to laugh about. No jobs. No unemployment insurance. Couldn’t pay the rent. Some folks would starve before they’d go on welfare in them days. That was what the Depression was like, boy. But Tipsy made us laugh.
Who was Tipsy?
Funniest cat you ever laid eyes on! She hung around Nick’s Market, huntin’ for mice. They didn’t have fancy pet foods then, I don’t think. Folks had a hard time feedin’ themselves. Cats and dogs, they had to rustle up their own grub.
How was Tipsy involved with the Board of Health?
Well, now, that’s a tale! I was there when the inspector first seen Tipsy. I went over to Nick’s Market to get a chaw on credit and shoot the breeze with Porky. Mrs. Nick was behind the cash register, scowlin’ like a bulldog. Nick, he was still in the hoosegow doin’ time for boot-leggin’. And Tipsy, shewas in the front window, smack between the carrots and cabbages, givin’ herself a bath. Cleanest thing in the whole store, if you wanna know.
So, in walked this fella in a brown suit and white shirt and tie, lookin’ like City Hall. Carried a big thick book with black covers. He stuck his nose in the meat cooler, sniffed in the backroom, and wrote somethin’ in his book. He gave Tipsy a sour look, but she gave him no mind—just scratched her ear.
Then the man says to Mrs. Nick:“Two weeks to clean up the store and dispose of the animal.”
Mrs. Nick give him a fierce look.“Animal? You tell mewhat about animal?” Her English wasn’t so good.
“Get rid of the cat!” the inspector says loud and clear. “The cat! The cat in the window!”
Mrs. Nick stands there with her arms folded, like a reg’lar battle-ax. “I not get rid of no cat.”
The man says:“City ordinance, ma’am. No cats allowed in food stores.”