Ginger (Cats 2)

Ginger was orange, and was a purebred Persian. My mother's thought was not so much to replace Tubby as to raise kittens for sale. She could have gotten official registration papers for Ginger, which would have allowed her to get higher prices for the kittens, but she decided that the cost of doing this would outweigh the benefits. 1

Ginger came from a family who decided that they liked birds better than cats. She had knocked over a parrot cage, extracted the parrot, and made a deep gouge in its back with one of her claws. The lady of the house put salve on the wound and put Ginger up for sale.2

Ginger looked like nothing so much as an orange version of Tubby, which pleased me, but I was disappointed that she didn't seem interested in chasing dogs. She did have kittens--four of them. I called them "streetlight kitties" because their heads, with eyes closed and ears folded back, looked like the acorn-shaped street lights which were then used in Birmingham. They were all orange like their mother. Ginger decided that the closet in my room was the perfect place to have them, so we put a box there. When the time came for the kittens to be weaned, we mixed up powdered milk and put it in jar lids for them. They had a hard time with it at first, whiffling and sneezing, but after a couple of days they got the hang of it.3

We didn't get much of a chance to sell the kittens, though. My Grandpa Becker in Asheville had a heart attack and died. My parents said that he was up in heaven watching us, and I thought about that for a long time afterwards. Grandpa Becker had a bookstore in the building that he owned, and in the back there was a complete printing operation: typesetting machine, opaquing table, press, darkroom, and arc light (it was scary to watch the noisy arc light, which was used to make printing plates, because I knew it could make me blind). The store was called the Victory Book Room, and the printing equipment was for the Victory Tract League, making Christian leaflets to send all over the world. My parents felt that God was calling them to take over the work of printing the tracts (the book store was sold to someone else), so it was time to move again. Before we left, we sold the kitten with the longest fur--it looked exactly like Ginger. There was no cat box on this trip--Ginger curled up with the kittens among the blankets and pillows in the back seat of the car (I rode in the cab of the moving van).4

There was more than one move going on. Because the Commerce Building was also sold, the printing equipment had to find a new home. The press, paper cutter, arc light, and tract room were moved into Grandma Becker's basement on Flint Street. The darkroom was moved into our basement, and the typesetting machine and opaquing table into our breakfast nook, where breakfast was never served.5

Ginger and the rest of her kittens stayed in the basement, too, right next to the furnace, where they could be warm. It was a good place for them, but not perfect. One day a dog got in and attacked the kittens. Ginger fought back, and her fur was covered with blood, but the kittens were all killed except for one. My mother decided that it was not going to work to keep her any longer, so as soon as we found her a new home, my dad and I took her and the kitten for their last ride with us. When we arrived at the place, there was a large dog standing in the yard. Ginger immediately flew at the dog, clawing him all over. He ran away, yelping like a puppy. At last Ginger had learned to chase dogs.6