Story Hour
Dr. McBushy and the Cat
Written by Gene B. Williams
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This is actually a true story – more or less. I had a cat named Nikki who constantly watched the squirrels. He never chased them, just watched. Soon, he spent a lot of his time up in the trees and was better at it than any cat I’ve ever seen.
He spent an entire afternoon learning to come down headfirst. I never have figured out how he did that, or why. A cat’s claws curve the wrong way. They have to back down – or they will fall off. Nikki did, over and over. Finally he did it, and even stopped, just as a squirrel does.
He loved most of all to watch the babies. And yes, he really did take to sleeping in the nests. The mother squirrels hated it, of course, but he never once hurt the babies. And yes, the final solution of the mother squirrel was just as in the story. I hope you enjoy it.
Dr. McBushy and the Cat
Written by Gene B. Williams
Dr. McBushy lived in the tall oak near the southern shore of Lake Edie. From here he could watch over the entire area, in case he was needed. Although he specialized in squirrels, he was interested in all the animals – even those pesky gophers and rabbits.
“They’re not squirrels,” he would explain, “but they are cousins, so to speak.”
He tried to keep an open mind about such things, but like a typical squirrel, if it wasn’t a squirrel, it was somehow just not quite right.
And those birds – the ducks and the geese – “those things with feathers” he called them – they were nothing more than grain stealers. The humans would come by the lake to scatter corn and other things. “Those things with feathers” tried to take it all, and leave nothing for the squirrels, who really owned the woods
Dr. McBushy learned long ago that chattering at them from the branches did no good. Even when he twitched his tail, they pretended that he didn’t exist. They ignored him. What an insult!
“I am a squirrel!” he tried to tell them. They were too stupid to understand. They would continue to honk or quack or chirp, and ignore him entirely.
One day Baron Wigglebottom came up the tall oak to talk with Dr. McBushy. Baron Wigglebottom had several nests in several trees in the woods along the eastern shore of Lake Edie. He wasn’t greedy, but like most squirrels with a feeling of being important, he thought that those woods belonged to him, and he should be served.
Baron Wigglebottom had a problem. He came to Dr. McBushy for advice. That’s not an easy thing for a very important squirrel to do.
“We’ve allowed those big things on two legs to come,” he explained. He meant humans. “That was okay because sometimes they bring nuts and corn and pieces of sandwich. We even let them walk those big furry things.” He meant dogs.
“Now they have gone too far. Last week and twice again today I saw a small furry thing.” He meant a cat.
Dr. McBushy twitched his tail. He’d heard about this terrible invasion.
A dog was one thing. Usually they were on a thick string called a leash. They’d make noise. Those rare times they were loose, the squirrel would be safely up in a tree and giving insults.
Cats, those were another thing. They could do something evil. Something unnatural (at least in the mind of a squirrel). They could climb the trees! They weren’t very good at it. For one, they couldn’t go sideways and around. They couldn’t go upside down. And they couldn’t leap from branch to branch.
Dr. McBushy and Baron Wigglebottom decided to wait and see. It was a good choice, mostly because there was no other choice. Word went out. The other squirrels were told to have some fun. Like drop things on the cats. Acorns, sticks, whatever was at hand. Or chatter to get the cat’s a attention, then scramble to the other side of the tree. They would keep this game going until the cat gave up and left. Or the cat might start up the tree. Then the squirrel would disappear higher into the branches, and chatter at the cat.
A few times a cat would follow. That was the best part of the game. The higher the cat went, the more helpless it was. It had to go very slow. The squirrels could then chatter, and laugh, and tease from a safe distance. Then the squirrels could have fun watching that clumsy cat try to get back down.
Things went along fine, until the game got to be boring. The squirrels almost wished there were more cats. They got their wish.
A new cat came to the woods. It would sit at the bottom of the trees and watch. It never chased, never climbed. It just sat and watched. Then one day, Mrs. Twitch was caring for her babies in her leafy nest high in the tree. And there sitting on the branch a few feet away was that cat. Watching. She jumped up and tried to look and sound threatening. The cat didn’t care at all. After a while, he got up, stretched, turned around and calmly began to go back down the tree. The cat was moving more like a squirrel than a cat. He was even going headfirst, not backward. She asked herself, “Can cats do that?” Well, at least this one could.
The next day he was there again, and the next. He never made a sound. She never heard him coming. He’d just be there, watch for a while, then leave.
One day she had errands to run. She was sure that her babies would be safe alone for a little while. Still, she was very glad to get home. Can you guess what she found?
There inside her nest, sound asleep with her babies, was that cat.
She screamed at him, but both of them knew she could do nothing. He lifted his head, gave her a sleepy look, and laid back down. Now it was her turn to sit on the branch outside the nest and watch. After a while, the cat finally got up, stretched, licked one of the babies, then climbed out of the nest and walked back down the tree.
She sent word to Dr. McBushy and Baron Wigglebottom that she had to talk to them right away!
A squirrel can’t fight a cat, but they can run. And they can go places where a cat can’t follow – not even THIS cat. Dr. McBushy and Baron Wigglebottom decided that Mrs. Twitch should move her nest, babies and all, even higher in the tree. It didn’t take too long. There’s not much to a squirrel nest. From there, she watched the cat that pretended to be a squirrel.
Mrs. Twitch could finally relax. Dr. McBushy and Baron Wigglebottom talked of how very clever they were. They were very happy about this. They talked of how unusual that cat was. They wondered what other strange things he could do.
Then they had a terrible thought. “What if he teaches the other cats how to do that? What if it teaches all the cats how to be … squirrels?”
Dr. McBushy and Baron Wigglebottom had a sleepless night, and dreamed of cats crawling around in THEIR trees.
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