A Walk Past 700 Cats

Even usually fresh cool Rockport was steaming Sunday when the wife and I and our boxer Molly took a new course on our Sabbath stroll. We left the four-wheeler in the backyard as we ambled up School Street to cross Broadway. They try to tell us, some businessmen, that fewer folks are in town this summer, but that steady line going both ways didn't say so. We ran out of cuss words waiting for a break in that line to span 30 feet in safety.

Up the street we saw a novel sign advertising Tuck-Inn Lodge with the MacKenzie tartan for a soft background (not that the MacKenzies were soft, mind you) and featuring the Tuck coat-of-arms with its three stars and three mystery animals. The sign directs you to the summer places of Albert Tuck. The tartan is the proud plaid of Albert's father, the dentist who was of the Scottish clan of MacKenzie.

Shooting into High Street, we noted again the arbor that full-leaved tall trees made to arch the highway to provide a setting that made the cozy little homes as well as the more ample dwellings more liveable and fetching. At this juncture old four-footer darted straight ahead like a bolt of lightning. "What did she see?" I pipes.

"Never mind!" pipes the missus, "She goes past here every night."

A second later, a pleasant but surely disturbed settler directed us to a high limb of one of her trees where poor l'il kitty had scooted post haste to escape the brown terror. Some day we look forward to a similar l'il kitty chasing that overgrown moose up the same tall tree. It could happen, you know.

In the yard of Preston Wass, in full bloom was a wealth of rich red color, but don't ask us the name. And who wants to know just so long as they were so glorious. Along the same street someone camouflaged an old well sweep with a growth of brilliant colored flowers.

From here into another of Rockport's alluring lanes, this time High Street Court. We came upon an early 19th century home with four fireplaces, owned and occupied by Miss Berthe LaVigueur, whose enormous and stately weeping willow tree stood guard. An impressive old poplar added to the establishment's glory. For Molly, a fetching little mixed-up dog favoring a Pekingese proved of much more interest than the home and grounds.

A neighbor had smartly put a tree to work. He had encircled the tree with a wooden fence, a low one, and inside it, had a play-pen for his youngsters. It made his place look better as well as keeping the kiddoes happy. Farther along on the meandering court we came across the Eddie Abell home where the wife enhanced the entrance with flowered window boxes and an impressive porch. Then by the snug cottage of Gloucester's retired fire fighter, Joe Vierra and his -- or his wife's - petunia and tomato garden, as friendly a living set-up as you'd ever want to see. Joe is one of the striper champs of the Cape. As we merged onto Pleasant Street, we passed by the House of Hodgkins where a novel hide-out for a cookout setup was a matted fence. Smart idea, it seemed to us

The wife in her sealed orders for this Sunday stroll noted a rich growth near the cemetery, so that's where we headed. She ws right, for there was a wide path of brilliant red foliage which the book later told us were actually purple loosestrife, seen from Maine to Delaware in swamps such as this. Nearby were bright hollyhocks in full glory and bracing that same dull swamp.

The sizzle was getting us down, so back we tracked down Pleasant Street toward our School Street. On the way we noted running Molly stop short all of a sudden and stiffen, ears erect, and start to bark her fool head off. Coming up to her we saw we were in front of the home of Orren Smith. Lined in the windows were fanciful images of all kinds of cats. His wife has over 700 of them. To Molly, the likenesses wee sure confoosin', to say the least. And so to home and the beach.

J.P.C., Jr.