Buttons

This is the story of an adult cat that started out as someone’s pet, but then became a stray. He lived for a while on a college campus where many students took pity on him and fed him. At that same college, one of my older sisters was attending, while I was still in high school. She hid him in the closet of her dorm room for two weeks before she was told to find another home for him. At which time, she bought him home to my brother and I, on our hill.

I named the cat ‘Buttons’ because he was white with lots of small round areas of brown, black and gray; with tiny dots of white in the center of each. I’ve found that ‘calico’ is a type of fur pattern not the name of a breed, like with Persian or Siamese. The difference between ‘calico’ and ‘tortoise shell’ is ‘calico’ cats are mostly white with patches of black, brown, gray and sometimes orange. ‘Tortoise shell’ is a mixture of all those colors with very little white, according to various cat websites.

Because Buttons lived as a stray for a while, he became an indoor/outdoor cat with us. I believe he stayed with us because we loved him and gave him a safe place to live. At the same time, Daddy was raising and selling hunting beagles. One puppy didn’t learn fast enough, so he became my brother’s pet. He named the puppy, ‘Tippy’ because he had a white tip on his tail. Tippy was a bit ‘slow’ or ‘simple’ in the head.

Being a beagle, he had long floppy ears, but when he focused on eating, he would get so excited, his ears would flop into his bowl and he would bite them! ‘Yipping’ in surprise and pain for a moment, he would then go back to eating, doing it repeatedly. He never figured out that he was biting his own ears or maybe he thought his ears were trying to eat his food before he could. So, one morning I used a spring clothespin to ‘clip’ his ears up on top of his head, to keep them out of harm’s way. We laughed at how he looked, and my brother fussed, but it did keep Tippy from biting his ears.

Buttons and Tippy got along because Tippy feared Buttons. He never attacked Tippy, but Buttons did stare at him a lot. Buttons was a nice cat and often would bring his prey home to show off. Our wooden front door had three windows slanting down from the upper left-hand corner toward the doorknob on the right. The top half of the storm door is a removeable screen and the bottom has aluminum scroll work on it, Buttons would climb the storm door until he can look in one of the windows and call out until someone, usually me, comes to the door. With a smile, I open the wooden door, and Buttons jumps down to stand next to his ‘trophy’s’, grinning, so to speak. Most of the time it is mice and voles, but occasionally there is a bird. After complimenting him on his catch, I would say, “Buttons, you can’t bring them inside, so as soon you eat them, you can come in.” He begins to eat and minutes later I let him in the house.

Once, Buttons went missing for two days, and I was worried that he might not come back. I have lost way too many cats on the road near our house, I was afraid that Buttons had gotten hit. When he did return, he was dragging his right front paw. Daddy and I took Buttons to the Vet. He said, ‘Buttons had most likely gotten into a tray long enough for circulation to be cut off from the paw. Since he was in no pain, the easiest and best thing to do is to cut the dead paw off.’ Which is what the Vet did. Since, Buttons wasn’t thin, someone must have been feeding him, until he found his way home. Buttons bounced back quickly, being short one paw didn’t stop his ability to hunt. It was several years before Buttons left and didn’t come back again. I just hope he went quickly and not painfully. I will miss him forever.

The End.