I promised to tell you about my first "Tom". He was my first pet when I was six years old. My parents got me the nearest
color to a white cat I wanted with a light yellow young cat -- no kitten but not fully grown. He was a foundling. My father had recently bought a business which was a feed mill with machinery to grind and store grain. He also sold all
kinds of feeds to farmers. Not only 100# sacks of feed, but salt blocks for cattle and oyster shell for chickens. Yes,
this is what they need. With all that grain in the place you can imagine how that would attract the mice and rats. So he
always kept a couple of cats in residence there, and they tended to wander into the place. He also fed them additional
cans of horsemeat and canned milk from the milk condensery across the road.

So my parents presented Tom to me (duly named). Cats were not so big when I was little; nor were males altered. So he was
a wanderer. Very soon he knew he was useful at the mill, but was brought home to be the pet, otherwise. Then, he learned
he didn't have to wait to be brought home. He arrived on his own. When my mother shooed him out of the kitchen with a
broom, he showed up at the mill in disgust. But he soon returned home. My dad taught him to sit on the kitchen stool and
stay out of trouble. He also taught him to shake hands, and the cat would extend his right paw. He became very mannerly.

I'll tell you more next time. In the meantime, my current "Tom" continues to check on everything I do.