Mochuisle, an excellent mama, left the kittens only to eat, drink, use the box and to get petted by me. No ingrate, she. Here they are at 6 days.

Soon after, perhaps tired of strangers crouching in front of her home to peer in with a flashlight, she moved her family to a less trafficked spot under the packing table in back.  This made it easy for me to set up barriers to confine the kittens so they would not get underfoot in the store.

I decided early on to keep the mama.  For the rest it was “Buy a map, get a free kitten!” Soon I had a waiting list, in case someone changed their mind and did not show up to take theirs.  It was a lot of fun having kittens at the Map Center.

By four weeks they were getting into everything.

The easiest kitten to name was Vincent The Chin, another polydactyl.

I had trouble thinking up a name for Little Cat C, but don’t worry. The person who took him named him Magellan.

Here is their last group portrait.

The calico and the tuxedo with a white nose were adopted by my neighbor who named them Anna and Piano. I still get to see them now and then.

A store cat had seemed like a nice idea, but Mochuisle was so affectionate, she seemed more like a house cat.  When the kittens were gone, I brought her home.   I had planned to give all the kittens away but one of my sons insisted we keep Vincent The Chin.

Good thing. He grew up into a great big Mama’s Boy.

Although he is a scaredy cat who hides when company visits, he can strike a pose with the best of them.

Three years ago, on festive, easy to remember March 17, began the coolest story ever at The Map Center.  It was closing time. I locked up as usual and sat beside my wife who had stopped the car right in front.

“Who is your new occupant?”   I was baffled by the question so she pointed at this grungy little cat looking out of the shop window.

“I’ve never seen him before.”

I got out, unlocked the door, and propped it wide open. First I approached the cat slowly, fingers extended, but it showed no desire to get acquainted. It was a filthy looking stray so I assumed that however it got in it must want to go back out by now. I attempted to shoo him out the door.  He took one look at the raw, cold late afternoon, pivoted, and scooted past me into an inaccessible undercounter gap.

“Biggest leak I ever saw a cat take” I said as I cleaned up a mess near the window. “If he can use a litterbox he can stay.”  I went home and returned with litter, a box and a can of food left over from our late Cullie Cat.

Saturday the food was gone, the box had been used, but there was no other sign of the cat. I left more food. Sunday, I went in, dished out a can of cat food, sat nearby, and waited. In a minute it appeared, gave me a vicious hiss, hunched over the bowl and ate.  When done, it checked me out, consented to be petted once and vanished again. Nothing like a meal to break the ice.  I looked forward to having a Map Center Cat.

Monday, food was again gone, cat absent.  I had yet to look for its hiding place.  There are numberless nooks and crannies in The Map Center.  That afternoon, from deep in a cabinet under a large work table, I heard the kittens.  I instantly realized that was no leak Friday, it was her water breaking.

I contributed a nice towel to replace the old cardboard and junk she had been making do with.

She had cleaned herself up beautifully since Friday.

Under all that fur you could feel nothing but bones. But she was eating several cans of food a day and all six kittens seemed OK.

Look at those paws. A polydactyl! They look like boxing gloves on the little cat, so we named her Mo Chuisle, after Hilary Swank’s character Maggie Fitzgerald in Million Dollar Baby.

To be continued.