A Celebrity Cat

Skitter Cat (1925) was Youmans's first novel, launching a series of four tomes about the feisty white Persian kitty, three of which were reissued in The Skitter Cat Book (1947). The characters are: Aunt Maud (based on Maud Mead, wife of Eleanor's husband's nephew), who owns Fluff, a pedigreed Persian. Fluff is mama to four kittens. Three are timid, brothers Jack Frost and Snow Ball, and their sister Snow Baby. The fourth, more adventuresome brother cat they name Skitter (because of the sound his claws make when he runs across the floor, like a skittering dry leaf). Mother, Father, and Little Boy (based on Eleanor, her husband Brigg, and son William) adopt Skitter, who joins Major, their Airedale. Other supporting characters include husband and wife neighbors who own the chickens Skitter loves to chase, a friend in the city who is willing to house Skitter until he outgrows his kitten-aged urge to frighten chickens, a "big girl" and her father who live across the Pike and help return Skitter to his family after he escapes a moving car, and Minnie, the live-in maid. [A 1910 Census record lists Sadie R. Givner [Gieseck] born about 1888 (age 22) living with the Youmans family as a servant—perhaps she is the real life model for Minnie].

The hero of the story, Skitter, of course, is based on his real life namesake:

Photo of Skitter courtesy of Charles O. Davis.

The inscription Eleanor wrote in my mother's copy reads, "Skitter lived to be almost sixteen, and Major lived to be twelve. Little Boy was my son William. Eleanor Youmans, Pataskala, Ohio. Dec. 20 1944."

Pics of my very beat-up dust-jacketed edition:

Text of Front Flap (apparently aimed at the child reader):

Skitter Cat's big adventure was getting lost for five months in the woods, and that's some adventure for a home-keeping Persian kitten.

Here were dangers the little thing had never dreamed of, but he had a lot of courage and he made up his mind that he was going to live and get back home to his warm firs and his saucer of cream.

Instinct—the head of the family can tell you what that means—comes to his rescue. He learns to hunt for his food, to know the birds and the wild animals, and all about woodcraft; the fact is, he becomes a sort of kitten Boy Scout.

Text of Back Flap (presumably aimed at the adult reader / parent buyer):

If you are unfortunate enough to dislike cats don't take this little volume into your family circle. For this is the intimate life story of a Persian kitten, a new kind of biography which you can't read without seeing Skitter Cat before the fire, without hearing his plaintive voice, without feeling his silky coat as he curls himself up in your lap.

This warning is addressed to the head of the family, for of course there isn't any child who dislikes cats, and Skitter Cat is by first intention a story for children. But you, head of the family, may have to read it aloud six nights out of seven and so we tell you it is biography of a new kind; that you won't find any nature faking in it, but animal life as it really is along with a lot of fun and some interesting information.

What I really enjoy about the story, however, is that it gives insight into early twentieth-century small town life. The location of the story is based on Pataskala, Ohio, Eleanor's hometown. Geographic clues fit the village's profile. There is the pike on which Skitter escapes the moving vehicle that sounds a bit like the viaduct just outside of town on West Broad Street crossing into Summit Station (although he is supposed to have gotten lost twelve miles from town, not two, so maybe this is just imaginative thinking on my part). The city Skitter is in transit to is presumably Columbus. Father comes home for lunch and a nap from his downtown business, an easy feat in real life, as Brigg and Eleanor lived just two blocks away from Brigg's store; and Father in the story spent his youth trapping with his brothers in the rural landscape surrounding the village—and landscape that is quickly eroding today, but nevertheless still exists.

Downtown Pataskala, circa 1910, looking North toward railroad tracks. The two story brick building with the flat front and three windows across the top is the Standard building. The building just north of it is the Youmans' Store, which burned down in 1914.

I also love that Youmans isn't afraid to "tell it like it is." She doesn't hold back from presenting cats as carnivores in her honest portrayal of survival in the woods, nor does she refrain from showing child readers the harsh realities of neglected animals. Stray cats are routinely dropped off in the alleyway beside the family’s house because, "Mother was convinced, people knew she’d see to them being put to sleep painlessly." (In other texts she is even more up front about animal life and death—and the violence inflicted on them by humans).

The best story about Skitter, though? That he was a celebrity among his child readers, receiving hundreds of requests for "Skitter-graphs," prints from Skitter's paw dipped in ink. One summer when Eleanor took an extended trip to California and Skitter stayed behind with a friend, she kept up with demand by forging skitter-graphs by borrowing a neighbor's cat and some purple ink. Skitter didn't mind too much, as he didn't like ink anyway.