When they arrived, the cat walked quietly out of her cage, looked ather old friend the cook, went into another room where she metanother friend, and began forthwith to purr her satisfaction.
Two years afterwards, this family moved again. As soon as the catsaw the preparations making for moving, she showed great uneasiness,and went down into the cellar, where she remained during all theconfusion.
When all else was gone, the cook went to the cellar stairs, andcalled her. The cat came up directly. The cook stroked her, andshowed her a basket just big enough to hold her, and said, “Get in,get in, pussy, and take a pretty ride!” The cat got in, and, withoutthe least resistance, allowed herself to be shut into the basket bya cloth tied over it. As soon as she saw the different members ofthe family in the new house, she manifested her contentment.
In six months the family moved again. The cat again submittedherself, and showed her preference to her friends over their house.
A cat has been known to nurse and bring up a rat with her ownkittens. I once took a little rabbit who was starving to death fromthe neglect of its own mother, and placed it before the same cat whopreferred the people to the house. She had just come from nursingher kittens, and when she saw the little trembling rabbit beforeher, her first thought was, evidently to make a good meal of it. Itook up the little thing and caressed it, and then put it downagain. She now approached it in a motherly way, and looked at it;its ears seemed evidently to puzzle her. After a while, she tried totake it up as she did her kittens, but saw she could not safely;then she went to her nest and mewed, and then came to me and rubbedherself against me; and then went to the rabbit and licked ittenderly; I now ventured to put the rabbit in with her kittens, andshe nursed, and took the best care of it.
A friend of mine who killed a squirrel not knowing that she hadyoung ones, took all the little squirrels, brought them into thehouse, and put them before his pet cat who had lost all her kittensbut one. Pussy looked at them for a while; probably her cattishnature thought a little of eating them; but her better nature soonprevailed, for she took them, one after another, and carried themall to her nest, and proved a faithful nursing mother to them, andere long there was no part of the house in which the old cat and herroguish adopted children were not to be found.
What will not cats submit to from a loving child? I have seen achild lie down with a cat for its pillow, and the cat merely moveherself a little, so as to bear the weight as easily as possible.
A cat can be taught to stand and walk on her hind legs, which seemsat first very disagreeable to her.
I remember, when I was a child, seeing a Maltese cat come in everymorning and wait till my father had finished his breakfast, then, ata certain signal, rise up on her hind legs, and beg for herbreakfast, and take just what was given her with the utmostpropriety, asking for nothing more.
I will tell you a well-authenticated anecdote which I read the otherday. A cat had been brought up in close friendship with a bird. Nowbirds, you know, are the favorite food of cats. One day she was seensuddenly to seize and hold in her claws her feathered companion whohappened to be out of the cage.
The first thought of those who saw her was that, at last, her tigernature had come out, and that she was going to make a meal of herlittle trusting friend; but all the cat did was to hold thetrembling bird still, and, on looking around the room, it wasdiscovered that another cat had come in, and that catching the birdwas only the means the friendly cat used to keep it safe till theintruder should leave the room. As soon as the other cat was gone,she let go the bird, who it was found was not in the least hurt.
A cat who had been petted and always kindly treated by a family ofchildren, was present one day when the mother thought it necessaryto strike one of them for some bad action; the cat flew violently atthe mother and tried to scratch her, and from that time she nevercould strike one of the children with impunity in the presence oftheir faithful, loving friend.
A friend related to me that they had a cat in her father’s familywho was a great favorite, and who was particularly fond of the baby;that one day this child was very fretful, and sat for a long time onthe floor crying, and that nothing would pacify her.
The cat was by her side on the floor, and finding herself notnoticed, and perhaps wearied at the noise, she suddenly stood up onher hind legs and boxed the child’s ears in exactly the same way inwhich she was in the habit of boxing her kitten’s.
It seems that this cat was not so amiable as the other, and did notobject to giving a box on the ear to a naughty child.
I have another story from a good authority which is still more infavor of poor pussy, and puts her upon a par with the most faithfuldog.
During a hard snow storm last winter, a kitten with a broken leg andalmost frozen hopped into the hall door of a gentleman’s house inBrooklyn, New York, and set up a most piteous mewing.
The master of the house ordered the servants to throw the kitteninto the street, when his little daughter, a child eight years ofage, caught up the poor little creature, and begged to be allowed tokeep and nurse it. The father, at first, refused. The child,however, begged so earnestly that he at last allowed her to keep thekitten.
The little girl, whom we will call Emma, nursed her pet until it gotquite well. The kitten returned, in full measure, all the love ofher gentle nurse, and was never quite happy away from little Emma.
Some time afterwards, the loving child was taken severely ill, andwas confined to her bed. Kitty had grown into a cat. It was foundimpossible to keep her away from the bed of her suffering friend.The cat would watch at the door when turned out of the room, dart inagain, and mew, and jump upon the bed where little Emma lay. ThereKitty was quiet.
As the child grew more ill, it was impossible to get the cat out ofthe room; until, at last, when little Emma was dying, pussystretched herself out near the bed, and seemed to be dying too.
The cat was taken into the next room, and put gently upon a rug.