Then Where’s the Cat?
The cat in Khaim the melamed’s house was a rotten pest. One day Khaim’s wife bought a kilo of butter and left it on the table, and the cat ate it up. The wife made a terrible racket and threatened to kill the cat.
The melamed said in the cat’s defense, “But you didn’t actually see what happened, so how do you know it was the cat that ate it?”
Then he had an idea. “I’ll weigh the cat,” he said, “and we’ll see if it ate the butter.” So they weighed the cat and it weighed precisely one kilo.
“Then it’s true,” said Khaim’s wife. “The damn thing ate the butter.”
“Hmm,” said Khaim. “It’s true, the butter’s there all right. But then where’s the cat?”
* * *
Glossary
melamed: A teacher of young children in “kheyder” (q.v.).* * *
Annotations
TELLER/COLLECTOR: Mikhl Zaydelov, Kamenets-Podolsk (Kamenets-Podolski), U.S.S.R., (no date recorded)SOURCE: V.A. 159:14.




