Mark Twain lost his cat in 1905. Bambino was black and velvety, and Twain wanted him back. So he put an ad in the New York American. Over the next few days hundreds of strangers showed up at his Manhattan house with cats, hoping to meet the author. Bambino wasn't among them. He strolled home on his own, with no idea of the fuss.
That story opens Donna Sanders's review of three cat books in the Weekend Journal. The first is Great Writers and the Cats Who Owned Them by Susannah Fullerton, a literary historian. One cat, Mysouff I, walked Alexandre Dumas to work each morning. Margaret Mitchell's Lowpatia could salute. Muriel Spark, famous for sharp novels, wrote poems about a kitten named Bluebell. Spark also reviewed cat books and had a rule for them. "Sensible cat books are devoted to praising the cat for its catness." Ms. Sanders thinks this one would pass.
The second book is softer. In Ulysses S. Cat and Other Animals I Have Known, NPR host Scott Simon writes about Gato Blanco, a round foster cat. Gato presses his pink nose into the microphone foam during interviews with politicians. He writes about Chula, a small gray cat who sheltered with her owners through the siege of Sarajevo. And he writes about Ulysses, his mother's cat, who "kept vigil" at his stepfather's bedside when he fell ill. Pets, Mr. Simon argues, are companions in sorrow as much as in play.
Only 200 years a pet
Rod Phillips, a history professor at Carleton University, supplies the long view in Cats: A History. The nonworking housecat is at most 200 years old. Before that, cats earned their keep. Every housecat descends from the Middle Eastern wildcat. It moved in once farmers had grain stores to guard, and the story with people runs nearly 12 millennia. By 3000 B.C. Egypt treated cats as go-betweens with the gods. Ships carried them around the world as mousers. The Middle Ages turned on them, and from the 13th century the church cast them as agents of evil. They came back. They always do.
Our read
This is a Pets story, and the planning line is Estate. The cat in Mr. Simon's book kept vigil by a sick man. Turn that around. Most readers who own a pet have thought hard about the vet bill and never once about the pet's next owner. A will or trust can name who takes the animal and set aside a small sum for its food and care. Many owners never write that line. The review has no number on it, but the gap is easy to miss.
So here's the check. Pull up your will or living trust this week and look for the pet. If there's no line, add one. Name the person, ask them first, and leave a little money attached so the favor doesn't become a burden. Bambino found his way home alone. Yours shouldn't have to. You pick the umbrella before the clouds roll in, and you pick the cat's next home before anyone's sick.