One mile from where the pavement ends stands the old homestead where my durn cat tale begins
One mile from where the pavement ends stands the old homestead where my durn cat tale begins
My father was not a man who cursed or used fowl language much at all. I've seen him get his hand cut or otherwise hurt himself and about the worst thing he'd say is "Durn it" or "Dad burn that thing!"
Thus the name for this old dirt road tale.
Dad had no use for cats. Heck, he didn't care for dogs much better, but he didn't like cats at all, so it was a huge surprise to everybody on that old dirt road when Dad came home one day all scratched up from a little black and white kitten he was trying to hold on to. That thing was WILD ! It was scratching and hissing and making some awful noises trying to get away from him. "What on earth are you doin with that cat?" Mom asked him.
"Ahh, the durn thing was up in a grapefruit tree lookin like it was scared to come down, so I climbed up and got it." Dad said.
"And I didn't see any other cats around so I just brought it on home with me."
"John Senters," Mom said as she started laughing. "Do you mean to stand there and tell me you let that little ol' kitten put all them scratches on you?"
"Nah," Dad said, "Not all of em, I got some of em from climbing around in that grapefruit tree tryin to catch the durn thing."
"Well, you never liked cats before, what in the world made you decide to rescue one out of a tree all of a sudden?"
"I don't know Kate, the durn thing looked kinda pitiful stranded up in the tree like that, so I just went up and got it."
"Can we keep it?" My little sister asked.
"I don't know if it'll stay around here," Dad said. "But if it does, I guess you can.
Dad put it in an old empty rabbit cage and us kids fed it milk and table scraps and petted it till it calmed down some, and after a few days we let it out to see whether it would stay around or run off....It stayed, then of course we had to come up with a name for it.
Nobody seemed to be able to think of an appropriate name till Mom said "Why not call it Grapefruit? After all your dad said he found it in a grapefruit tree."
So Grapefruit is what we called "That durn cat" from that day on.
