Tales Of Twinkletoes

My recent post about the cat quilt has sparked some interesting memories from Daisy's mother, Robin, and two of her sisters -- Pam and Murphy (nee Crouch).

Most involve Twinkletoes, who it turned out had a pretty adventurous life. (I'm hoping for a real photo of Twinkletoes to emerge.)

There are some very serious asthma sufferers in this group, but their memories of their childhood cats are very loving and sweet:

Murphy: Hmmm, I wonder why Twinkletoes originally got that name. She was a beautiful graceful grey cat, with long legs. But in her adventurous life, she lost a leg to a jagged trap set by our across-the-street neighbor who thought the cats were killing the birds she loved.

Twinkletoes had her leg amputated and forever more moved on three legs as swiftly as she had on four. She was known to jump on the back of big dogs, brushing them back in fear (or pain maybe).

I don't think there were ever 25 cats at 1 S. Main Street [their address]; I believe that is a Crouch legend. What say the rest of you???

Pam: I will add that, although my sisters may dispute this, I always thought of Twinkletoes as being my cat, although I have no idea why that might have been true. I may have named her, but again have no idea why that name. And yes, she was a feisty cat on her three legs.

I agree that I do not think there were ever 25 cats at one time either in Pine Plains or on the farm.

Robin: I also remember Twinkletoes as being a feisty cat who lived a long life. I thought she had lost the leg due to a car mishap on Main Street. As for the cat population reaching 25, I'm pretty sure that it did. As I recall, three cats had kittens kind of around the same time. One litter was in the closet that was by the stairs, another was in a pile of stuff by the railing and the third batch was somewhere else. We already had several cats, of course. I wonder what Jennifer remembers.

Murphy: Yes, I was the one who found Twinkletoes in the trap, so it is a vivid image in my memory. In fact now I am having a hard time pushing it away. It was a big heavy nasty trap. I remember running to get Mom -- it was so confusing that it could be so. I didn't understand it. (Editor's note: Mrs. Holden apparently got an earful.)

Sputnik was a dear to me. Nice solid big head (he was black) you could really set your hand on. And attached by name to that blinking light we would go out in the night to spot in the sky. It's true that we all loved cats, and a shame that two of us can't live with them.