COVER STORY

Cat’s Fancy

Smitten rules the roost at McMillan Memorial Librar y in Over ton.

BY STELLA WIESER | swieser@panolawatchman.com PHOTOS BY LES HASSELL

It was April 2020 when he joined the library team, McMillan's branch manager Jenn Freeman said. They were closed to the public due to COVID, but were still doing curbside service and virtual story times. "I was the only one that was opening that morning, and I was in our children's' area, and there had been a really bad storm that came through the night before, and it was just this awful 'rarhrhr' noise," she said. "It sounded like a hurt adult cat. And I thought 'what is that?' So I walked around to the patio and looked out, and it was this teeny tiny little kitten at the back of the patio."

Freeman waited an hour or so for the kitten's mother to show up, and then she propped the door open and set out some tuna when the mother didn't show. "I'd just sit there and talk to him," she said. "The more I talked, the less he yowled, and I noticed the phone would ring, so I'd get up and come over here and answer the phone, and I'd talk to the patron and do whatever, and he would start getting louder again, and I'd go back to the door, and I'd sit there and talk to him, and he got quiet."

Eventually, the kitten came inside and took off running toward the library's young adult room. "I thought 'oh no, there's a cat in the library, what am I gonna do now?' So I finally caught him. He tried to hide in between the tops of the books and the bottom of the next shelf up, and his fat rear end got stuck, and so it was just these little back legs that were sticking out from the books," Freeman said. "So I was able to snatch him up, and he has been with us ever since."

The original plan had been for somebody to adopt him. Freeman took the kitten home with her the first night and her aunt was planning to take him, but then her uncle had to have cataract surgery. "It was probably three weeks before, and at that point I was like 'no ma'am I'm sorry. He's mine now,' and the staff was like

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1. Smitten the Kitten roams the McMillan Memorial Library. 2. Smitten the Kitten gets lots of playtime at the library. 3. Assistant Branch manager Jasmin Owens offers Smitten the Kitten and Waban, a foster kitten from Rusk County Pets Alive, a treat at the McMillan Memorial Library in Overton. 4. Smitten the Kitten found his foreverhome with the McMillan Memorial Library. 5. Rusk County Library Sytem director Jenn Freeman plays with Smitten the Kitten. 6. Waban, a foster kitten from Rusk County Pets Alive, plays in the stacks at the McMillan Memorial Library.

'we need to keep him; we need to keep him. Can't we keep him?' And I said 'well I think we will.' The plan was for him to actually live here, but we've got motion sensors, and we've had to confine him to kind of a small space, so I was like 'y'know what, forget it, he'll just come home with me on nights and weekends.' So he travels a lot; he's a traveling cat. But it's been a lot of fun having him here. We post a lot about him on Facebook. He's part of our advertising team now, I'm not kidding. He takes such great pictures; he's so photogenic."

The library staff took a little while to pick a name for their feline staff member. "We couldn't decide on a name, and actually I think Carmen was the one who said 'he just looks like a Smitten to me,' and we all liked it, and at the time because he was so sweet as a kitten, we were all very smitten with him," Freeman said. "As he's gotten older he's gotten a little cranky, but we were all so smitten with him... When we first started posting stuff it was Smitten the kitten, just cause it rhymed, it was nice and catchy, and so now it's 'not so kitten.'"

Smitten brought a lot of cheer to the lonely library staff when they were closed to the public. "With patrons not being able to come in back then — we all love so much to see people. We've got patrons who come in on a regular basis, and when we don't get to see them it's disheartening I guess," Freeman said. "So we were all really sad when we were closed because we weren't getting our normal interaction with people; kids weren't able to come in, and he really helped brighten everybody's spirits, and it was really — he was kind of our saving grace during that time."

Smitten is popular with the library patrons too, and he often gets visitors. "We actually have patrons, who when they have items and they don't actually need to check anything out, they'll literally come in and say hi, like, 'is Smitten here today?' 'Oh yeah, he is.' So they'll come back and say hi or give him a treat or something else, and then they're like ‘OK, I don't need anything today, I'll see y'all next week. I just wanted to come say hi to Smitten.'"

Smitten has a big personality. Freeman says if he could talk, Smitten “would be really snarky.”

“He has such an attitude, but it's still a lot of fun to have him around, and it's just been — going back to people coming in just to see him has been a lot of fun, and it's been really nice to add to him to all of our marketing and our advertising and things like that," Freeman said. "It's just a nice, fun little extra element. People love seeing his pictures. We did have a spike in our Facebook following after we got him."

Smitten has been the source of a lot of laughs, especially during Christmas time. "I think Christmas is his favorite time of year because there are all those trees. If you walk around and look, the tree skirts are all going to be askew because he loves to tunnel and get up under things, and he loves it," Freeman said. "Last year my mom came and helped us decorate, and she was in the children's room working on the tree, and he took off running, and ran and jumped on her back and used her as a springboard to jump into the tree. It was awesome."

He gets himself into trouble too. Freeman recalled one storytime when, all of a sudden, they heard meowing while Carmen was reading and she was filming. "I opened the closet door and he just came walking out like 'hey guys, what's going on?' He snuck in before story time, and then I shut the door and locked him up in there and I had no clue he was in there, and he came out and he went over and actually said hi to about two or three of the kids and they reached out and pet him,” Freeman said.

Smitten can be a little shy sometimes, especially around men, Freeman said. "It's very strange, we'll hear the doorbells and all of a sudden he takes off running, and we're like 'how do you even know?' Cause he'll be back here, and it'll be one of our maintenance

guys or the exterminator, and for whatever reason, all three of those guys are the nicest guys, and they're all cat people and they want to pet and love on him, and he's like 'nope.' But yeah, he has some patrons that he hears them and he'll run up to the front and wanna say hi,” Freeman said. “It's kind of a small list for those though."

Smitten seems to have an affinity for teenagers. This summer during a teen art program, he decided to come investigate a group of 20 teens in the program room. "He comes sneaking around and he looks, and it was all of a sudden like 'these are my people, they're my age' because we swear he acts like a little teenager," Freeman said. "So he took off running into the room and jumped in the chair and was just sitting there looking at one of the tables, and they all turned and were like 'there's a cat in here,' 'Oh yeah, that's Smitten the library cat.' 'What?' And he stayed in that room with them for two hours just having a blast with these kids, running around with these teenagers. We drug some of his toys in there, and if they were in between they would play and he had a great time. So he tends to like teenagers a little bit more."

Smitten has a cat tree set up inside Freeman's office so he can see out of the windows. "So when we have school groups in, we usually put him up in there,” she said. “He gets really interested in them, and he likes that because he can interact and see them and he doesn't have to worry about them trying to touch him because he gets a little overstimulated easily," she said. "We've got some pictures too where this summer we had a camp and he was sitting up at the front desk on top of the printer watching everybody like 'I see you guys.'"

To meet Smitten or check out a book, visit the McMillan Memorial Library at 401 S. Commerce St. in Overton. They're open Monday through Friday. Monday-Wednesday and Fridays they're open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Thursdays they are open 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Smitten the Kitten hangs out on Rusk County Library Sytem director Jenn Freeman's desk at the McMillan Memorial Library in Overton.