stout-hearted and all-sacrificing mother-in-law—"Muddy," as the poet affectionately called her—the roses that grew over the wall, and (let us not forget her) Catterina, the cherished pet. Catterina was very much a member of the family. In April, 1844, when Poe and his wife moved to a boarding house in New York, where they found the table amazingly cheap and plentiful, he wrote to Mrs. Clemm:
"The house is old and looks buggy. The cheapest board I ever knew. I wish Kate could see it—she would faint. Last night, for supper, we had the nicest tea you ever drank, strong and hot—wheat bread and rye bread—cheese—tea cakes (elegant), a great dish (two dishes) of elegant ham and two of cold veal, piled up like a mountain—three dishes of the cakes and everything in the greatest profusion. No fear of starving here."
Poor Catterina (or Kate, as they sometimes called her)! Does not this suggestion of her swooning imply that she may have had to go on rather short commons in the little home on Brandywine street? But after all, there must have been mice in the cellar, unless the ghost of the Black Cat frightened them away.
In the same letter, written from New York the day after the Poes had gone there to look for better fortune, he says "Sissy (his wife) had a hearty cry last night because you and Catterina weren't here."
But it was in the winter of 1846-47, when Mrs.
