The Mostly True Story of Pudding Tat, Adventuring Cat
1 WELLAND COUNTY ONTARIO CANADA 1901
THIS IS THE mostly true story of Pudding Tat much-traveled cat whose adventuring life began in the first year of a new and promising century Not ours but one long ago Pudding was born in a hayloft where the heat from the horses and cows rose and warmed the night To the lullaby of laughing whinnies and quiet sweet-breathed moos his mother added her contented purring Mother Tat was so pleased with her latest batch of kittens Two black one gray one tabby and the curious white one she called Pudding Pudding Tat Through the years he would stand out in many ways but most obviously for being the color of the dessert he was named after milk boiled with sugar and a pinch of salt with cornstarch to thicken it The special treat that Farmer Willoughby brought to the barn on Christmas Day every year For more than a week Mother Tat’s helpless kittens wriggled beside her blind
deaf and toothless their mews silent Then at last they opened their watery eyes and looked around the dim old barn on the Willoughby farm In this Pudding was different too His eyes didn’t open Even so he was the first of the squirming nuzzling kittens to attempt to stand No sooner had he got up on all fours than one leg trembled and gave way and he toppled back into the hay He didn’t give up He tried again on his four white wobbly legs Eventually he succeeded They all did and grew sturdy He could open them now but preferred Soon they were tumbling over each other taking a few daring steps away from Mother Tat before rushing back They were not very brave except for Pudding Despite his closed eyes Pudding would wander away from Mother Tat and just stand there listening to the captivating sounds of the world The buzz-huff-hum twitter-thrum-scratch-squeak Open your eyes Pudding Mother Tat urged
not to which was strange They were beautiful eyes as pink as his tongue His brothers and sisters eyes meanwhile had changed from blue to green or amber During the day the sun would beam through the cracks around the hayloft doors revealing the dust and spider tapestries and long hammocks of cobwebs Then Pudding would blink violently and shrink back At night he was more comfortable but he still couldn’t see well He recognized the black void that marked the edge of the hayloft but he couldn’t tell how far away it was How would he ever catch mice Mother Tat worried when the kittens were ready to learn She was an excellent mouser An excellent teacher too While she’d been nursing her kittens the mice had taken advantage of the peace and produced their own babies Mice that were just peaking in plumpness and overrunning the barn This was how Mother Tat went about their lessons First she killed a mouse herself and divided it into five equal parts to give the kittens a taste of fresh mouse meat Other
