The Tale Of The Cat With The Crooked Tail.
Agamemnon was a small non-descript female cat.
But she held a strong allure to all of the local males and was to all intents and purposes our one woman (as it were) breeding farm.
All of our cats be they male or female were non-spayed and led their own lives once the were put out for the night.
Dot and Jack seemed to keep together and lived apparently celibate lives as brother and sister.
Cleopatra was queenly and as arrogant as her name implied. She seemed never to succumb to the seductions of the neighborhood males. And therefore kept her shape and all of her fur.
Buster lived up to his name and eventually was lost in some midnight quarrel.
Grey was a large and slinky male. He liked to climb on furniture and look at himself in mirrors. He lived long and never came home with any signs of fights. My aunt thought he was gay. I just thought he was to lazy for fight for anything but his place by the fire and the food found every morning in a dish.
But Agamemnon made up for them all. Out she went every night and back she came each day, looking beat-up and self satisfied. Another notch in the ear. Another patch of missing fur. And every three months or so, she delivered a healthy batch of kittens.
Every three months for about ten years.
The entire extended family came to view her progeny and chose a kitten. Six weeks later, Agamemnon having been relieved of her offspring, went happily into the night to start again.
One day, however she came home without her usual satisfied look.
She came home with a crick in the last inch of her tail. It was bent completely sideways and it seemed for a while, no surprise, to hurt her. The family speculated endlessly on Aggie's accident. But as she was unusually non-verbal, we never found out how it happened.
One day Aggie was in a mood and when she came into the house and joined her siblings she got into a fight with Grey the greedy.
The two of them went at each other. Grey showing surprising energy and Aggie showing surprising rage. My aunt was so surprised that she just watched and though the fight only lasted a few minutes, it was intense. Very intense.
Because when the fur fight was over, Aggie had taken Grey's place by the fire, and Grey had slunk away to sulk in a corner, my aunt found the on inch tip of old Aggie's tail lying on the floor and as Aggie sat licking herself quite contentedly she seemed not either notice or to care.
Little Aggie the assembly line of kittens was one inch smaller by size. But if Grey's future actions of giving her first choice in the place by the fire was anything to go on. She was a lot larger in presence.