“Now what on earth are we going to do with that?” mom’s voice blared from the kitchen.
We all quickly crowded into the kitchen of our home on the second floor over a tiny grocery store and the downstairs flat; me and my brother Noel, sister Linda Sue, Mom, Dad, our Cocker Spaniel Rusty, and our adolescent Siamese cat Tam-Malacha; Tam and Tammy are her nicknames.
Dad held something high in his gloved hands as he continually turned trying to keep Tam from getting too close – which was nearly impossible as she jumped from the table to the kitchen counter and back hungrily eying dad’s hand.
Dad said, “Noel, take Tammy out of here and get an empty shoebox from the hall closet.”
With Tam squirming, Noel carried her out and closed the kitchen door behind him.
Dad then lowered his prize for us to see: a pink and grey squirming something with a big head and spindly legs. It did not come close to filling dad’s large gloved hand.
“It’s a squirrel,” dad proudly proclaimed.
Mom countered, “Well, take that squirrel out of here before we get fleas and mites and who knows what else it’s got.”
Ignoring her, dad continued, “The mother squirrel dropped it crossing over a roof in the alley.”
Noel came back into the kitchen carrying the requested shoebox.
Looking at Noel, dad said, “Get that dish towel hanging next to the stove and put it in the box.”
“Not one of my good towels!” mom protested. “Take that back outside and let its mother raise it.”
“Not sure she’ll take it back now that it’s been handled. Prob’ly wouldn’t.”
Linda Sue said, “Please, Mom. I’ll take good care of it.”
Silence.
Then mom turned to Linda Sue, “You promise you won’t let it get smelly or forget to feed it?”
Linda Sue nodded.
Mom said, “Well, you probably will forget, and then who’s going to take care of it? And how are you going to keep Tam-Malacha from going after it?”
“I promise, mom. I won’t forget. I’ll take good care of it.”
More silence.
Mom pulled open a drawer and dug into it.
Mom said, “Here’s one that’s a bit tattered, but i wish you’d just take it back outside.”
Linda Sue took the tattered white towel from mom and laid it in the shoebox on the table. A moment later, dad peeled the baby squirrel off his glove and put in on the towel. Finally, i got a good close look. It just kept squirming but never opened its eyes.
I asked, “What’ll we gonna feed it?”
Mom answered, “It can only drink milk at this age. Linda Sue, get your doll’s milk bottle. We might be able to get that to work.”
Wordlessly, dad left the kitchen with Rusty. As Linda Sue went through the kitchen door, Tam scampered back in. Noel scooped her up and again took her out again.
Kneeling on a kitchen chair, i intently watched the squirming baby squirrel.
I asked, “Can i pet him, Mom?”
“No, Dave. It can bite and we don’t know what diseases it’s got.”
Linda Sue came back in with the miniature white baby bottle, and the two of them fussed over warming up some milk from the icebox and getting the right size hole in the bottle’s tip. Finally, mom and Linda Sue approached the shoebox with another but smaller rag, and the doll-size baby bottle. I got shushed away as they presented the squirrel with the prepared meal.
I said, “I wanna see.”
“You’ll get your chance,” mom said.
Rather than wait, i stood up on the chair and watched the baby squirrel eagerly slurping up milk seeping from the toy baby bottle.
At dinner that evening, i said, “The squirrel’s gotta have a name.”
Linda Sue said, “We gave him a name already. His name’s Buster.”
“You dint ask me,” i pouted.
“You weren’t there,” Linda Sue replied.
Try as i might, i could not find fault with that logic, so i acquiesced. Buster it was.
Buster opened his eyes the very next morning. He grew fast with Linda Sue and mom feeding him umpteen times every day. In a couple of days, his pink parts were soon all covered with grey fuzz, and soon he was walking around on his own.
Every time Tam stalked too close to Buster’s box, one of us would give her a little finger flick on the nose. Sometimes Tam simply sat back and watched him.
Everyone in the family took a little time each day to take Buster out of his much bigger box and play with him. I had to be careful, though. As he climbed up my clothes, his claws pricked kinda bad; not enough to bleed though.
Buster was curious about everything. The critical moment came when he walked right up to Tam to check her out. I was about to grab up Buster before Tam attacked, but Tam twisted around and retreated. From then on, Tam mostly pretended that Buster did not exist, except to get away when Buster approached.
I don’t remember just how it happened, but Buster quickly decided that he only liked to poop and pee in Tam’s kitty litter box. So from then on, we allowed him to roam our flat at will, but at night he jumped back into his big cardboard box to sleep in his little cloth bed in the same shoebox.
Buster’s grey fuzz turned into luxuriant fur with reds, blacks, browns, and gold. He even had white around his eyes. The squirrels outside could not compare to Buster’s beauty; i suppose because they got dirty running through the trees outside and they did not have such a clean bed to sleep in.
And one of those outside squirrels was Buster’s mom. She was easy to spot; she was bigger than the others that visited the oak tree in our backyard. And she was territorial. Whenever she saw Tam below her oak tree, she chastened Tam with loud chattering. Tam, however, figured the oak tree was in her backyard and it was Buster’s mom who was trespassing. This led to several fierce altercations high in the oak tree that we witnessed. The two of them fought furiously and made so much noise, you could hear them from anywhere.
One time i came running around to the back yard drawn by one of their cacophonous battles just in time to see Tammy fall out of the tree from as high as our two-story house. She hit the ground in an explosion of dust, and immediately loped off unsteadily around the other side of the house. Noel and i followed, certain that she broke a few bones, but she was gone. We called her only to hear our own voices echo vacuously up the street. We left the front ground level door open a bit so she could get into the stairway that led up to our front door. Finally, just before dinner, we heard her scratching at the door. I let her in and mom picked her up to check her out. She had a bloody gash on the side of her neck but her bones seemed OK.
That was not the only time Buster’s mom hurt Tam. Dad had to take Tammy to the vet more than once to treat abscesses that developed from her wounds. Dad was not happy with how much money we were spending to patch up our pugnacious Siamese pet.
Meanwhile, Buster was pretty good company. He liked riding on our shoulders and observing everything that happened with curiosity. Sometimes he forgot and clawed his way up my clothes to get on my shoulder, but he seemed to learn from the sound of my “ouches” that something was wrong with getting up that way. Instead, he learned to pat at my leg and wait for me to lift him up to my shoulder. And then sometimes he would forget and dig in his claws to stay on my shoulder, But he was a good learner and used his claws sparingly.
I tried to get Tam to sit on my shoulder but she wouldn’t stay there more than a second.
Having a dog, a cat, and a squirrel became normal; the way things are.
One evening at dinner – after responding to Tammy’s scratching at the front door and letting her in – mom warned us not to touch the things she had in a bag on the counter. She was saving those for entertaining guests the next afternoon.
“You gonna sing for them?” i asked since mom’s singing was real good.
“Not that kind of entertaining. We are just going to have some tea and things while we talk.”
I was still puzzling over what entertaining means if you’re not going to do something fun, when mom said, “Eat the rest of your green beans, Dave.”
At lunch the next day it was just mom and me; Dad was at the Ford plant and Noel and Linda Sue were at school. After we cleared the table, mom ushered me over to the closet, picked out a clean shirt and helped me put it on. Then she herded me into the bathroom where she used a wet comb to part my hair and get it looking neat.
“Now, Dave,” she said. “I want you to play quietly in your room when my guests come.”
I said, “But why then did you put me in a clean shirt and comb my hair if they aren’t gonna see me?”
“That’s just in case they ask to see you. Now try not to get in my way as i get things ready.”
Mom went about clearing off the coffee table, moving it to the middle of the room, arranging chairs, putting plates of cookies, silverware, cups, saucers, and a vase with flowers on the coffee table, and putting on water to heat before she went to her room to get ready. She came out looking like she belonged on the front of a magazine.
The doorbell rang a while later.
“Dave, into your room now, close the door, and stay quiet.”
I did as i was told but a little irked that i was not going to be entertained.
I could hear voices. Then the doorbell rang again and there were more voices. I built a fort out of blocks and shoes and then staged battles with figurines of soldiers, farmers, and Indians while occasionally noticing voices, and laughter, and dishes clinking in the front room.
Screams! Crash! THUMP! Shouts!
I dashed through my bedroom door to a chaotic scene. A large woman in a flowery dress and wearing a hat askew on her head was on the floor with most of her white slip and fat legs showing. Another woman in a sleek shiny grey dress was trying to help the large woman back on her feet. Mom rushed over and also helped. I didn’t see the third woman right away; she was standing up against the wall. There were plates and cookies and cups scattered on the rug and water from the vase was dripping off the coffee table onto the rug.
After they got the woman back on her feet, mom gestured toward me saying, “That’s my son Dave. Now dear you can go back in your room now.”
I went back in wondering what had happened. In only a minute’s time, the voices faded down the stairs and the bottom door closed noisily. I waited a minute before peeking out. Mom was soaking up wet spots on the rug and gathering up all the stuff on the floor. She had tears on her face.
“What happened, Mom?”
“That squirrel ran in here and hopped up on the coffee table, that’s what.”
“Did Buster knock all that stuff off the table?”
“No dear. He startled the women; they knocked stuff over.”
“Why? Don’t they like squirrels? And where is Buster now?”
“Dear, they just weren’t expecting a squirrel to come running up, and i have no idea where Buster is. With all the commotion he’s likely off hiding somewhere.”
“Well, it was kind of entertaining, don’t you think?”
“No, not at all. Now help me get this stuff back into the kitchen.”
Mom was real quiet after that – and sad, but we shared some of the cookies together. When Linda Sue got home, i overheard mom telling her that Buster had to go. Linda Sue went and found where Buster was hiding and the two of them comforted each other. Mom repeated her pronouncement when Noel got home and again when dad got home from work.
At the dinner table, mom told all of us how mortified she was. In tears she explained what a setback it was for her position in the community; although i didn’t understand much of what she said. It was kind of a relief when i heard Tam scratching at our second floor front door. I enjoyed a short break from mom’s bitterness as i let Tammy in. But it was settled – Buster will be put outside first thing in the morning, with no food, no water, and no litter box.
As soon as i got out of bed, got the little bits of ‘sleep’ from my eyes, and got dressed, i went to find mom. I found her in her sewing room.
“Mom, is Buster gone?”
“Yes he is, Dave.”
“Mom, i don’t think Buster knows how to climb trees; and what’s he gonna eat?”
“I’m sure he can climb trees and he’ll eat the things that squirrels eat. Go get yourself some breakfast.”
I fixed up my corn flakes, sugar, and milk and thought about Buster as i ate. After putting my bowl and spoon on the counter next to the sink, i headed down the back stairs calling for Buster. Instead, Tammy heard my voice and came over for me to give her a brief petting. Buster didn’t seem to be anywhere, so i joined a couple of neighbor friends and we kicked around a ball for a while and other stuff.
At dinner that evening, we were all kind of quiet, probably wondering how well Buster was adjusting to living outdoors and where he was going to find a place to sleep for the night. When i heard Tam scratching at our second floor front door, i got down off my chair, went to the door and opened it to find Tam and Buster side by side. They calmly came in together. I closed the door and returned to the dinner table.
I said, “Tam and Buster came in when i opened the door.”
Nobody said anything as they looked at me, then we all looked at mom. Without a word, mom went back to eating. We all stayed quiet for the rest of the dinner, afraid that if we asked whether Buster could stay the night, mom might say ‘no.’
So every morning before i got up, someone would let Tam and Buster out the back door. And every evening, at the sound of scratching, one of us would let either Tam, or Buster, or the two of them together in through the front door.
On most days, Buster would come over to visit when one of us was outside, and we would let him perch on a shoulder for a while. Some of the other kids also let Buster ride on their shoulders.
Some time after, we packed up the Ford with a couple of suitcases, ourselves, and Tam-Malacha. When i asked whether Buster was coming with us, Mom told me that squirrels don’t like riding in cars and that Buster would be fine sleeping outside in these warm evenings. Dad drove us for hours until we reached aunts and uncles and cousins in Sioux City.
Days later, we started the drive back. I woke up in bed the next morning with no memory of getting back home or going to bed. Mom told me that Noel carried me up the stairs while i slept. I hurried through breakfast and went outside to find Buster but he was nowhere around. After lunch, Buster chattered from up in the oak and then ran and leaped down through the tree and over to tap on my leg. I picked him up and he rode on my shoulder for a while before he jumped off and zoomed back up into the oak tree.
That night, Linda Sue was first to the front door when we heard the sound of scratching. Tammy came in, but no Buster. After the dishes were done, i opened the front door even though there was no scratching. No Buster, but i could see the downstairs front door was open enough. Again, after brushing my teeth and before getting into bed, i opened the front door. No Buster.
Buster never again came inside but he was always the prettiest squirrel around. He came down some days to get a shoulder ride, and Tammy continued to fight with Buster’s mom, and dad had to sometimes take Tammy to the vet for abscessed gashes from those fights. And life continued normally on our normal street.
I’d always heard there was a pet squirrel in the family. This was such a wonderful story to read. All the details of the people bright you all alive as youngsters to me. The fact that grumpy Grampa George is the one that brought Buster home is amazing to me. You just never know the truth about people.
Mom always suspected that dad hassled the mother squirrel until she dropped Buster. Apparently he liked a variety animals as pets. We had a dog, cat, horse, raccoon, skunk, margay, squirrel, ducks, chickens, and rabbits, but never a repeat – never a second dog, cat, etc.