Socksie

 

SOCKSIE

By:  Lester Ann Hyde Jensen

 

Photo taken in Taber when I was about 10 years old

I was five years old when I was introduced to Socksie.  I don’t remember why we went to Lethbridge that day but on our way home we stopped in Raymond to visit with Jim and Alice Still.   Aunt Alice had a cat with a batch of kittens who were ready to leave their mother.  Aunt Alice offered to let me pick any one I wanted.   To convince Dad, we should take a kitten she told him the mother cat was the best cat she ever had. She said she was clean, a great mouser, a good mother  who kept her kittens spotlessly clean, trained them well and taught them to hunt.   

Dad agreed and the one I picked had many different colors, kind of a calico/tabby cross.  I fell in love with her instantly and because she had four white feet, I named her Socksie.    She proved to be every bit as good a cat as Aunt Alice had promised.  Every six months she had a new batch of kittens and she trained and cared for them just like her mother did.  She let me and my little sister play with her and her babies. We had a grand time dressing them in our doll clothes and pushing her around in our doll buggy.  

Word of Socksie’s talents and habits spread among our friends and neighbours and we never had any trouble finding homes for her kittens. 

One day while cutting hay, Dad made a horrible discovery.  There was a rabbit’s nest hidden in the grass and the mower blades cut right through it.  The tiny babies were not hurt but the bigger mother was killed.   Very tenderly, Daddy picked up the orphaned bunnies and brought them home to Socksie who just happened to be caring for a new batch of kittens.  Her motherly instincts took over and she nursed them along with her kittens. She had plenty of milk for all of them and she protected them like they were no different.    She cleaned them like she did her own babies and even tried to teach them to hunt.  She led them, along with her kittens to the tall grass behind the ranch house and could not figure out why they weren’t interested in mice like the kittens were.  It was great fun to watch the bunnies interact and play with Socksie’s kittens.  The bunnies hopped everywhere they went, and the kittens could barely keep up with them but just like children who laugh and play with other children no matter what differences existed between them, they loved playing together. 

Socksie took care of them until they were old enough to go back to the wild. I remember well the day we turned them loose.  They seemed a bit confused and could not figure out what they were to do but they were no more confused than Socksie was. Finally, after much effort on our parts, the bunnies hopped away, and they were gone.  I was heartbroken.   For weeks after Socksie would wander down to the spot where we left them and just lay in the grass for a while, then come back to the ranch house.  It was obvious she missed them and wondered where they had gone.  Dad explained why wild animals needed to live in the wild and domestic animals could stay with us.  I understood but I worried and wondered about whether Socksie or the bunnies did. 

Shirley and Lester Ann Playing with Socksie and her kittens

It was Dad’s habit to feed Socksie some milk when he milked the cows.  In the fall of about 1962, Socksie was 13 years old.    At this time of the year, between the factory and the farm, Dad was terribly busy.  Socksie looked like she did not feel well, and Dad was concerned about her.  He was concerned that she might have missed her milk too often and maybe she had mouse poisoning from eating too many mice that were so plentiful in the fields.  She had yet another batch of kittens and Dad was concerned they were too much drain on her health, so he got rid of them. 

Unfortunately, a few days later he found her lying in a puddle in the barnyard, dead.  The whole family was devastated to lose our beloved Socksie.  In her effort to cheer us up, mom quipped, “She probably found out she was pregnant again and she committed suicide. “

Dad said he was sorry he had gotten rid of all the kittens.  He would have liked to have one of her kittens so her legacy would live on.