Snuff and Nonsense

Miss Nelda was a collector.

She lived with her invalid husband in a small house up island, grew vegetables and tobacco, and acted as part time postmistress. She collected shells, driftwood which her husband turned into lamps for sale on the mainland, and though unintentionally, cats.

It had begun with a small infestation of mice. Saw me a mouse in the outhouse, her husband told her casually one morning over breakfast, might want to set out a trap. But Miss Nelda believed in the sanctity of life and one mouse in the outhouse didn't merit much notice on her part. When, however, the mouse multiplied and set up housekeeping in the attic, things rapidly spiraled out of control. The scratching and gnawing kept her awake at night, she began finding tiny mouse droppings on the window sills and in the kitchen cabinets and stirring a pot of greens early one morning, she noticed a hole in the ceiling above the old wood stove and with no advance warning, down tumbled a mouse, directly into her greens. This, in Miss Nelda's opinion, crossed the line and constituted a declaration of war, so she pulled on her muddy snake boots and armed with a broom and her old scatter gun, she mounted the stairs to the attic, determined to dispatch the mouse menace once and for all. So,

my grandmother said, trying to hide a smile, how did it turn out? Miss Nelda shook her head and added sugar to her iced coffee, Mice are tricky creatures, Alice, she said sorrowfully, but it's not over by a long shot.

In the following weeks, Miss Nelda set traps and poison, she left lanterns burning all through the nights, she scoured every room in the small house with her scatter gun cocked and ready but succeeded only in blowing a few holes in the walls and setting her husband's teeth on edge. One fine August morning, she harnessed up her pony and trap and went to see her sister, Miss Rowena, who gratefully gave her the loan of two barncats called Stuff and Nonsense, but Miss Nelda had become slightly hard of hearing - One too many shotgun blasts will do that, my grandmother allowed to me - and the cats became Snuff and Nonsense from that day on. Miss Nelda set them loose among the mouse infested house and in record time she was mouse-free. Cats being cats though, she was soon overrun with kittens and kittens who had more kittens until the little house was awash in felines. Cats in the attic, cats in the barn, cats on the porch and under the bed, she told my grandmother, why, I could line them up end to end the very length of this island! Nana patted her shoulder and refilled their coffee cups, surreptitiously adding a capful of brandy to Miss Nelda's cup. There, there, dear, she said calmly in a comforting tone, cats are far more noble creatures than mice, drink up. And she winked at me.

The following weekend my grandmother rounded up a posse of island men and boys and they descended upon Miss Nelda's and after several hours managed to capture and contain every last cat. Snuff and Nonsense were allowed to remain after what Nana called a "mind changing" surgery on the mainland, the rest were relocated, some to farms, some back to Miss Rowena's, some to an animal shelter in Yarmouth for adoption. Peace and quiet were restored once again.