My Childhood: Big Mouth Uses One Of His Lives

We had a scraggly-looking orange cat named Tabby, who wasn’t the best tempered of animals. Nonetheless, Belinda and I loved it, and played with it a lot.

Other cats must have liked Tabby in spite of her mean temper, because she had kittens. Four adorable little balls of fur. Our mother allowed us to keep one of them. The others were given away to friends.

This cat cried all the time, so it earned the name "Big Mouth".

I really loved that cat. Out of all of the cats that our family has owned, I liked that one the best. I saw him born, and I was with him right up until his last days upon this earth.

He really annoyed my parents, however, as he had a bad habit of smelling up the furniture. Big Mouth was a male cat, and needed to leave his scent everywhere. For a couple of months of every year the entire house smelled awful.

My parents solved that little problem, though. They brought him to the vet one day, and when Big Mouth returned home he had no desire to pee on the furniture anymore.

Shortly before that, however, Big Mouth managed to get a girlfriend, and she had kittens. One of those kittens was named Midnight (I witnessed her birth also). She lived to a ripe old age, moving with us to Lake Arrowhead. She died a few years ago, and I believe my parents have never bought another cat.

One day we were painting the house. Lots of open cans of paint and thinner were laying around. Accidents just waiting to happen.

Apparently, Big Mouth tasted the liquid in one of these cans. The next time I saw him he had foam all over his mouth, dripping down his chest. He looked awful.

I’d read somewhere that foam from the mouth means rabies. So I yelled, "Big Mouth has rabies!"

Mom and dad ran out of the house and chased the poor cat all over the yard. Eventually, dad caught him and threw him into a wire cage (the same cage we used as a rabbit trap on Little Mountain), and took him to the vet.

I thought Big Mouth was going to be put to sleep. I tried to be brave, but I’ll admit that a tear or two escaped from my eyes. I thought I’d seen the last of my cat.

To my delight, my parents brought Big Mouth back home. The vet sat the cat didn’t have rabies. He explained that Big Mouth had probably just eaten something that didn’t agree with him.

I took the cat out of the cage and gave him a big squeeze. My cat was okay.