The Legacy of C. S. Lewis' Cat

The Legacy of C. S. Lewis’ Cat

As Told to Jim Morse

By Leia the Cat

Text Copyright 2012 James O. Morse

Smashwords Edition All Rights

Cover design: Dunn+Associates, www.dunn-design.com

Illustrator: Steve Ferchaud

License Notes:

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 1

What a wonderful day it was when I, along with my brother and sisters, first set foot on solid ground. Up until then we had been confined to the loft of a drafty old garage and had only been able to get a glimpse of the outside world when someone would come out of the house to open the big doors and wake up the mechanical monster that rested on the floor below us. As best we could tell, one or both of those people would actually get inside the beast and induce it to move. This would usually cause it to make loud noises and spew out foul smelling gases. When it returned, however, it would usually be more subdued and would soon cease making any noises at all.

Fortunately, on that special day when we were to explore the outside world for the first time, the car, as my mother called it, was sitting quietly in its place as our mother picked us up one by one by the nape of the neck and climbed down the ladder on the back wall of the garage to set us on the floor. She had already had us practice climbing up the roof supports in the loft and, although we weren't very good at climbing down, I think she knew by then that if some danger appeared, we would be able to get back up the ladder quickly by ourselves. She had recently begun supplementing our milk diet with a few mice, and we were growing stronger.

We sat huddled together at the foot of the ladder until the last kitten was down. Although the weather had been growing warmer in recent days, the garage floor was definitely colder than the loft floor we were accustomed to. Mother then led us out a small doorway and into the yard. I had already been impressed by how high the garage ceiling was, but it was nothing like the ceiling that met us outside. For one thing, it was all blue and stretched out farther than I had thought possible. I turned around and around but could see no end to the expanse, just more houses and what mother said were trees. I knew right then that I was a much smaller and insignificant kitten than I had ever imagined. Part of me wanted to rush back up the ladder and hide in our bed of rags, but the other part was curious to see what else that huge world held.

Come on, said Mother as she led us to the back door of the house and cried out repeatedly with loud meows until a woman opened the door then turned back to call, John, come see what Frisky's brought us! We four kittens huddled close to our mother and, frankly, were quite frightened to see a human being so close. Looking down on them from above, as we did when they were getting into the car, we hadn’t been able to appreciate how absolutely huge he and the woman were until we were standing on a level with them. It didn't help that the man was speaking with a gruff voice and complaining about their not needing anymore cats around. One's enough! he insisted. The woman seemed nicer, especially when she brought out a bowl of milk and set it on the ground. Our mother immediately began lapping it up and motioned for us to do the same. I really didn't like it very much. It was cold, and it just didn't taste like mother's. Still, there was lots of it, and I quickly learned to use my tongue to get some into my mouth and swallow it. I had to admit that for several days now, mother's breasts had just not produced enough milk to satisfy all of us growing kittens and the bowl, at least, offered all we could drink.

Before we climbed back up into the loft, Mama led us around to the front of the house and warned us never, ever to step out into the street. If you leave the yard, you could very easily get run over by a car or a truck and be killed, she said. Hearing that word killed sent shivers up my back. Whatever it meant, it didn't sound good, and I resolved to follow her advice.

We were soon distracted from that worry, however, by the odd sensation in our paws and feet as we walked over the soft ground cover beneath us. I didn’t know what color it was exactly. Mama had been teaching us the names of the colors of some of the rags in our bed such as black, white, gray, and blue, and I could tell that what was on the ground and hanging on the trees was something else. Why do they cover the ground over here with this soft pretty stuff and leave the street all hard and black? one of my sisters asked.

My mother had to pause for a moment to think how to answer that question. Well, they don’t exactly put this soft, pretty stuff here. It just grows out of the ground by itself when the weather gets warm enough and the rain gives it enough water. It’s called ‘grass,’ and the man sometimes runs a noisy machine over it to keep it from getting too tall.

Then I asked, Do the trees get their green color the same way?

Yes, said Mama, and they’ll lose it the same way when the weather turns cold again.

I was fascinated by that prediction—that our mother could actually know what was going to happen in the future. I had one more question, however, before we went back inside. What gives the house and the building we live in their brown color? They certainly don’t look as pretty as the grass and the trees.

I think you’ll find that most of the buildings you see got their color from something the people call ‘paint,’ Mama said. It comes in cans, and men use brushes to smear it on. If you’ll notice, all the other houses around us have been covered with white paint. I guess the man here just wanted to be different and really didn’t care how it looked. I had to admit that like his choice of paint color, he did seem to be an unpleasant sort of person.

That evening after we had nursed, my mother stepped out of the nest and lay down facing the closed big doors. She wasn’t purring and somehow seemed troubled. I went over to sit beside her and asked, Mama, what's wrong?

Oh, nothing. Well, nothing that you kittens need worry about anyway. Go back to bed.

I still wasn't satisfied and asked, Was it something we kittens did or didn't do while we were down on the ground?

No, it was nothing you did or didn't do. If you must know, it was something the man said. You remember how he growled and said, 'One's enough'? I'm not sure what he meant by that.

Oh, I see, I said and crawled away. As I look back now, I think she was considering moving us away from that place. But where could she take us? And who would feed us? It was dawning on me that life may not be so simple. There was more to it than just nursing and sleeping.

We cats begin our lives with at least one advantage over most other pet animals--and over humans too for that matter. While the newborns of those other species must immediately confront their environment with all their senses functioning, we kittens are spared some of the more abrupt shocks of birth by being allowed to come into the world with our ears partially stopped and our eyes completely closed. Consequently, there’s little to distract us from our primary business which is, or course, to find a breast and gulp down milk. Only after we’ve learned to do that efficiently and have begun to gain weight, do we have to deal with our innate curiosity and begin to explore the world around us.

It must have been about a week after I was born when I discovered that I could open my eyes and gaze at the beautiful face of my mother. Although I didn’t know yet what to call her, I realized immediately that she was the creature who had been using her tongue to clean and brush my fur. More importantly, I recognized that it was she who possessed the breasts that had been providing me with such a delicious warm liquid. In fact, I had just finished refilling my stomach with more of that marvelous stuff, and if I had been still blind, I would probably have rolled over and gone back to sleep for nothing is as contented as a kitten full of milk. Nevertheless, now that I could see, curiosity kept me awake.

I was anxious to learn something about those low-pitched rumbles which seemed to come from my mother’s face. How did she make them? What did they mean? I crawled up close to her face where the sound was loudest, but as yet I didn’t know how to ask her to open her mouth and let me see how she was making the sound. (I’m still not sure how I do it myself.)

Suddenly, my mother stopped her licking and purring and made a series of different sounds, which, I learned later, were words directed to me. When I grew older and learned to speak, I asked her what she had said to me that morning. Oh, I believe I said about the same thing I say to all my kittens when they first open their eyes: 'Hello, Number Three. I'm your mother.' Don't you remember?

No, I answered, but I did remember the first word I said. It was the same one my brother had already learned--Mama! Of course, we all came to say, Mama very frequently because we learned that she was the most important person in our lives. She fed us, she licked us, and she kept us warm. It was sometime later before I realized she was also protecting us from the many hazards of our dangerous world. It was very much later before I came to understand and appreciate how she had carried us inside her body as our little bodies were being formed and how she had given us birth. I don't believe it was until I had kittens of my own, however, that I understood how she had done it. By then, of course, I didn't have to ask why.

Keeping us warm was very important during those first few weeks. Our nest in the loft of that old garage was exposed to drafts whenever the big doors were opened, and some cold air always found its way in through the small door which was left ajar so mother could get in or out. Someone had been thoughtful enough to leave a bunch of old rags in the loft, and our mother used them to make us a bed; however, it provided little warmth whenever she left us to take care of her own needs. We must have been born near the end of the year, for I remember my mother explaining that the bangs and shouts that had awakened us one night were due to New Years.

As we grew stronger and were able to crawl around by ourselves, Mama warned us severely about the need to stay away from The Edge. If we got too close, she said, we might fall out of the loft and be killed. I wasn't sure what killed meant, but