What’s a feller to do?
Some nights when I’m tired and hungry,
Seems as if each on ’em knew—
They’ll all three cuddle around me,
Till I get cheery, and say;
Well, p’rhaps I’ll have sisters an’ brothers,
An’ money an’ clothes, too, some day.
But if I do get rich, Boss,
(An’ a lecturin’ chap one night
Said newsboys could be Presidents
If only they acted right);
So, if I was President, Mister,
The very first thing I’d do,
I’d buy poor Tom an’ Tabby
A dinner—an’ Mam’s cat, too!
None o’ your scraps an’ leavin’s,
But a good square meal for all three;
If you think I’d skimp my friends, Boss,
That shows you don’t know me.
So, ’ere’s your papers—come, take one,
Gimme a lift, if you can—
For now you’ve heard my story,
You see, I’m a fam’ly man!
_MY PUSSY._
[Music: Tune “Buy a broom.”
1. I like little pussy, her coat is so warm,
And if I don’t hurt her, she’ll do me no harm.
So I’ll not pull her tail, nor drive her away,
But pussy and I very gently will play.
2. She shall sit by my side, and I’ll give her some food,
And she’ll love me, because I am gentle and good.
I’ll pat little pussy, and then she will purr,
And thus show her thanks for my kindness to her.
3. I’ll not pinch her ears, nor tread on her paw,
Lest I should provoke her to use her sharp claw.
I never will vex her, nor make her displeased,
For pussy don’t like to be worried and teased.]
BOYS’ COMPOSITIONS ON CATS.
COMPOSITION I.
Cats is an insect what has no wings and has a long tail. It looks like
fishworms, only fishworms hasn’t got no hair on it like cats has.
Cats is black, and sets on back fentses and buzzes its wings, which
it hasn’t got any. Cats is like locusts ’bout this, ’sept locust es
got wings, an’ cats waves its talze ’bove its head, and don’t set on
trees. Cats was a Namerican invention made by a Mr. Pharaoh, of Egypt,
Illinois, ’bout one thousand years ago or so; I expect it was so or
maybe more so. Anyway this man didn’t get no patent on cats, and they
was copied by some fulish man who carried ’em to New Yorick where they
have ruled things at night with a tight pair o’ strings, fur some daze.
Cats has a hump back with long bristles onto it. It has a pair o’
lungs, which extends clean back to its tail, which is long. It uses all
o’ these yere lungs in singin’ low, sweet melodies to the pail, watery
mune, ’bout 1 o’clock in the morning. Cats sometimes sits on the comb
of a slippery roof, an’ sizen sobs an’ squalls an’ strokes each other’s
whiskers. Cats uses two legs to set on, one to stand on an’ t’other to
fan his partner with. I know two cats what did this on our woodshed. I
guess they did it because they thought they would shed. I know they got
up there to shed, for me an’ Jack found half a hatful of catfur, an’ a
pocketful o’ claws there the next mornin’. Wonder why they don’t shed
in the daytime? Must be mune had something to do with it. Cats, unlike
the insecks, don’t have no stingers. The bumblebee has. I onc’t caught
a bumblebee an’ gave it to a cat. Cats don’t like bees, espeshly them
what hez splinters in ther talez, wich this had. The thing stung all
the way down and half way back again; the cat run about seventeen miles
an’ then dropped down by the shady side of a stay-hack an’ quickly,
without warnin’, he hastily died a sudden death all at once, for want
of breath.
Onc’t when Jack an’ me was playin’ fishin’ in our well with a tom-cat
tied to a string, Jack got hurt. He had the cat down in the well,
waitin’ for a bite, an’ when his back was turned it crawled up the
brick an’ clawed the sap outen him. After that Jack didn’t fule with
cats.
I once knew a man who was wicked enough to throw a stove-lid through
a big tom-cat at night, an’ the very next day he heard that his
grandmother had broke her leg in New Orleans and several other places,
which prove how wicked and sinful it is to disturb the critters; an’
that’s all I know about cats.
COMPOSITION II.
The cat which we had afor we got Mose was yeller, and didn’t have no
ears, and not eny tail, too, cos they were cut off to make it go way
from where it lived, for it was so ugly so it come to our house. One
day my mother she sed wudent my father drown it, cos she knew where she
cud get a nicer looking one. So my father he put it in a bag, and a
brick in the bag, too, and threw it in the pond and went to his office,
my father did. But the cat busted the bag string, and wen my father cum
home it was lying under the sofa, but cum out to look at him. So they
looked at one another for a long wile, and bime by my father sed to my
mother: “Well, you are a mity poor hand to go shoppin’ for cats. Thisn
is a site uglier than the other.”
COMPOSITION III.
Cats don’t like to swim, and never do except it’s an old cat that you
want to get rid of and you do her up in a bag with some bricks and
throw her into a mill-pond off the bridge, and then she’ll burst the
bag and swim ashore and kite for home, so’s to be there to welcome you
there, so’s you won’t feel lonesome.
Our cat lives in the house what times she don’t live over to Jones’s
barn. She is real handy to throw stones at and to pull her tail and
make her squawk. I make her squawk ten or six times a day, and the
backs of my hands is drawed out in lines like a map, where her toe
nails has got hitched.
Cats can climb telegraph poles and set on the ridgepoles of four-story
houses without being dizzy headed, and they can sleep with one eye open
and lay awake with both eyes shut.
I’d rather have a dog than a cat, any day. Dogs can race cats, they can
race other dogs, they can race boys, or anything. Nobody ain’t scared
of a cat. A mouse is; but not if it ain’t somewheres that it can’t get
out of, or a rat, either. A dog can make a cat dead if he bites her
enough. When he comes in the yard he can make her tail look like a
Christmas tree. He can make her fix her back up like a camel. I ain’t
afraid of thieves, but thieves are afraid of dogs. If a thief comes
where a dog can get at him he’ll run like the deust; but the dog won’t
run. A dog can watch a house better than a policeman. He won’t let the
man that owns it come in the back yard in the middle of the night; but
a cat would. If a man or any other thief was to sneak in, would a cat
care? She’d go over the fence like lightning. That’s what! A dog knows
when your home from school. He ain’t sleepy then. He has fun with old
hats, if you give him one. You’ve got to pay for keeping him; but you
don’t a cat; because a dog’s some good and a cat ain’t. I’d rather have
a dog.
COMPOSITION IV.
If I had invented a cat, I should have made her without nails. Cats is
full of music. They have concerts every night in our wood-shed, and no
tickets to pay for. The rich and the poor alike are welcome to hear ’em.
Cats live on mice, and what cream and beefsteak they can steal out of
the pantry. Sometimes they catch chickens, and that makes the old hen
mad, and the old woman that owns the chickens madder. And she goes for
the cat with a broom, and the cat climbs a tree and sits there and lafs
at her, and goes to sleep and dreams she is in a kitchen again till it
comes night, and then she climbs down back end fust and goes off to a
concert to see the other cats. Thomas cats has the best voices and can
sing bass and tenor both at once. It is nice to hear ’em, but when you
sleep alone and wake suddenly by hearing of ’em, there is something or
ruther that makes a feller’s flesh creep and the cold shivers run down
his backbone.
Cats like to get on the spare bed among the shams and things, and paw
’em all down into a nest, and they like to go to sleep in your best
coat. I expect they enjoy the fun of hearing you swear the next day
when you brush it. I should if I was a cat.
Kittens is cats when they are first born, and there is an awful sight
of ’em. They keep coming right along without regard to wind or weather.
They are dreadful cute, and can unwind more thread and tear up more
fancy gimcracks that the girls make than any other known animal.
It ain’t lucky to kill a cat. I don’t know why. It is good luck to have
one come to you if you keep her. You get rich right away, or poor, I
forget which. Every cat has nine lives, and they don’t never die if
let alone unless they have fits, which most of ’em has. A cat in a fit
will beat a whole circus all to nothing, and the first thing you know
she’ll come right out of it and go to eating milk just as if nothing
had happened.
DOG AND CAT.
There were once a dog and a cat,
Who out on the door-step sat.
The dog said “Bow,” and the cat “Mieuw!”
Then they both ran after a rat, rat, rat;
Then they both ran after a rat.
The cat caught the rat in a trice;
Said she: “Don’t you think it is nice?”
The dog said “Bow,” and the cat “Mieuw!”
Then they wiped their whiskers twice, twice, twice;
Then they wiped their whiskers twice.
PUSSY WILLOWS.
O Mabel! O Fannie! Come out for fun!
Old winter is going! Now, now, there’ll be fun!
The boys, with their marbles, are down on their knees,
And wee willow pussies are climbing the trees.
The dandelion blossoms will show us their gold,
The pansies their droll little faces unfold,
The blue-birds will come and the robins and bees,
For wee willow pussies are climbing the trees.
The ants will creep up from their holes in the ground,
The blundering beetles will come bumping ’round,
The frogs will be singing in all sorts of keys,
For wee willow pussies are climbing the trees.
I love them! I love them—those sweet little cats!
They’re not much for frolic nor catching of rats;
But don’t the spring goodies come back by degrees
When they are seen climbing the old willow tree?
Oh, ar’n’t they just lovely—all clinging so tight—
Their whiskers and scratchers tucked clear out of sight
A-swinging and swaying in every light breeze?
They turn to pure silver, the ugly old trees!
HAD TO EAT IT.
Little Flossie had been presented with a small candy cat by her aunt,
and it furnished amusement for nearly a week. One day it was missing,
however, and her mother asked her if she had lost it.
“No, mamma, me didn’t losed it,” replied Flossie. “Me des’ played wif
it till it dot so dirty, me des’ had to eat it.”
KITTY’S LESSON.
C. GRACE JEROLAMEN.
_Written expressly for this book._
Let’s play school, kitty, you and I,
Right here in papa’s study;
You can sit there in papa’s chair,
If your feet aren’t muddy.
First, you must say your morning prayers,
Now bow your head, like I do.
And now we’ll sing the little song,
“Good morning, sunshine to you.”
Of course, you must learn how to write,
Then you can write to Rover,
A is like this, and B like that,
Oh, dear! the ink’s tipped over!
We’ll have the reading-lesson next,
Out of this book so pretty.
I’ll read you ’bout a little mouse—
You’ve torn the book,—bad kitty!
You want to play just all the time,
You lazy little sinner!
There goes the bell now, run away,
I guess it’s time for dinner!
* * * * *
_Ques._—What is the difference between a cat and a camel?
_Ans._—When a cat gets mad she gets her back up, but the camel simply
humps himself.
_Ques._—Why is a cat going up three pairs of stairs like a high hill?
_Ans._—Because she’s a-mountin’.
THE SCARUM CAT.
MARY ELIZABETH STONE.
Precious dolly Dorothy,
I’ve been having trouble,
And the weight of anxiousness
Nearly bent me double;
For I saw the Scarum cat,
In the slumber pillows,
Creeping, creeping toward me
Through the bending willows.
Oh, my dolly Dorothy,
I was frightened, frightened!
For the clouds were very dark,
And it lightened, lightened!
And the creeping Scarum cat,
Coming through the willows,
Made my heart go pit-a-pat,
In the slumber pillows.
And I wanted to cry out,
But, oh dear, I couldn’t!
And I hoped the cat would turn,
But, oh dear, it wouldn’t!
And I tried to run away,
But could not leave the willows,
And the creeping Scarum cat,
In the slumber pillows.
Then, my dolly Dorothy,
I was nearly frantic,
When a foamy wave came up
From the big Atlantic—
Caught me from the Scarum cat,
Among the bending willows,
And dropped me in my little bed,
And woke me—on the pillows.
Mamma said, though dreams are dread
They vanish like a bubble;
“But,” said she, “a simple tea
Would save you such a trouble.
If you eat just bread and milk,
You will not see the willows,
And the creeping Scarum cat,
In the slumber pillows.”
THE TROLL CAT.
[The cat appears in many of the weird tales and popular
songs of the Northern nations. A characteristic legend is
the following.]
_Hor du Plat
Sag til den Kat
At Knurremurre er dod._
Knurremurre rules with a will
All the trolls in Brondhoi Hill;
Throughout all Zealand has it rung—
The fame of Knurremurre’s tongue.
One young troll got tired of the worry.
“I’ll away,” said he,
“To company
More pleasant than Knurremurre.”
* * * * *
“Wife, what’s scratching at the door
On this cold winter night?”
The gales through the snow-heaped forests roar,
And the hut-fire is burning bright.
“Open the door, good wife,” says Plat.
In walks a stately, whiskered cat.
He sits by the fire and dries his fur,
And purrs his thanks with a loud, long purr,
And eats his grout, and washes his face,
And makes himself at home in the place.
Weeks pass on, a good cat he;
He is quite one of the family;
For the kindly wife of Plat,
In her wooden hut by the northern sea,
Has a poet’s love for a cat.
* * * * *
’Tis night; the cat by the hearth-fire lies,
Purring and dozing, with blinking eyes;
When Plat comes in and says,—
“Good wife!
What strange things happen in one’s life!
I saw a sight
As I came to-night
By Brondhoi Hill,
Where all was still,
Save the trolls who hammered below with a will.
Out jumps in my way
A man old and gray,
And squeaking he said,—
‘Hearken, Plat!
Tell your cat
That Knurremurre is dead.’”
* * * * *
Up jumped the cat from the hearth-fire side—
“Ho! Knurremurre dead!” he cried.
“Now I may go home, I ween.”
And out he scampered with a will,
Out through the night to Brondhoi Hill,
And nevermore was seen.
CATS.
_Essay or Address._
STANLEY SCHELL.
In all the varied world of animals, three only are universally the
inmates of our homes, the companions of our firesides—the cat, the
bird, and the dog. The cat, especially, is the friend of our early
childhood; the purr of the cat blends with the voices of the children
and the ticking of the clock; it is the music of repose, the veritable
“Home, Sweet Home” that haunts the wanderer on far-off shores.
A tenderness toward the animal creation is always characteristic of
noble, generous and intellectual souls; and it is well known that our
most intellectual people are most tender-hearted toward beings helpless
and inferior to themselves, and they love with a child-like love the
cat, whose image is associated with the sweetness and tenderness of the
child’s world of happiness—the home.
The most noted persons in every profession have been domestic cat
lovers, particularly authors and poets. Such men as Pope Gregory,
Mahomet, Petrarch, Tasso, Cardinal Woolsey, Admiral Doria, Gladstone,
Montaigne, Swinburne, Watson, Matthew Arnold, Dickens, Southey, Cooper,
Hugo, Mérimée, Sainte Beuve, Baudelaire, Gauthier, Pierre Loti,
Hoffmann, Scheffel, Lord Chesterfield, Jeremy Bentham, Doctor Johnson,
Fielding, Lincoln, etc., were all cat lovers and worshippers, and many
of them immortalized the cat in rhyme or in prose.
The Cat Family is a large one, and to it belong:
Tiger,
Lion,
Leopard,
Ounce,
Puma,
Jaguar,
Clouded Tiger,
Thibet Tiger Cat,
Fontaneir’s Cat,
Golden Cat,
Fishing Cat,
Bengalese Cat,
Wagate,
Marbled Tiger Cat,
Serval,
Golden-haired Cat,
Gray African Cat,
Servaline Cat,
Ocelot,
Margay,
Geoffroy’s Cat,
Ocelot-like Cat,
Yaguarundi (Brazil),
Eyra,
Colocolo,
Rusty Spotted Cat,
Chinese Cat,
Small Cat,
Jerdon’s Cat,
Java Cat,
Small-eared Cat,
Large-eared Cat,
Flat-headed Cat,
Bornean Bay Cat,
Egyptian Cat,
Wild Cat,
Indian Wild Cat,
Common Jungle Cat,
Ornate Jungle Cat,
Steppe Cat,
Shaw’s Cat,
Manul,
Straw or Pampas Cat,
Northern Lynx,
Pardine Lynx,
Carcal,
Cheetah,
Domestic Cat.
[Illustration: From Painting by Frank Paton.
PUSS IN BOOTS.]
[Illustration: A LITTLE MISCHIEF MAKER.]
Considering the Cat Family as a whole, there is probably no other
animal so well equipped for the battle of life.
Cats are carnivorous, preferring to discover and kill their own prey.
Cats are ferocious and sanguinary, loving retirement; moving with
concealment and stealth; always fighting desperately when injured, or
when escape is no longer possible. All cats climb with ease, except the
tiger and the lion. So persistent are the characters both of body and
mind in the Cat Family, that, in spite of thirty-five centuries or more
of domestication, the household cat to-day preserves far more of its
ancestral traits than any other of the four-footed associates of man.
Cats are found all over the world except in the Australian region,
in Madagascar, and the West Indies. They are mainly tropical and
heat-loving, although a few species range far to the north, as the
tiger in Asia and the puma in America. The short-tailed lynxes also
predominate in the northern regions.
The first real evidence of cats in connection with man is to be
found in the ancient monuments of Egypt, Babylon, and Nineveh. Cats
are mentioned in inscriptions as early as 1684 B.C., and they were
certainly domesticated in Egypt 1300 years before Christ.
The earliest known representation of the cat as a domestic animal and
pet is at Leyden, in a tablet of the 18th or 19th Dynasty.
In ancient Egypt, the cat was an object of religious worship and a
venerated inmate of certain temples. The Goddess of Pasht or Bubastis,
the goddess of cats, was, under the Roman Empire, represented with a
cat’s head. A temple at Beni-Hassan, dedicated to her, belongs to the
18th Dynasty (1500 B.C.). Behind this temple are pits containing a
multitude of cat mummies.
The cat was also worshipped in the Temple of the Sun at Heliopolis, as
the Egyptians deemed the cat an emblem of the sun, because its eyes
were supposed to vary in appearance with the course of the sun, and
for a similar reason the cat was deemed sacred to the moon, because it
would undergo a change each lunar month, and because of the waxing and
waning of its pupils.
Among the Greeks the cats became common pets at the period when
Athens represented the civilization of the world; and, later, in the
Græco-Italian civilization of Herculaneum and Pompeii in the south of
Italy, and in the period of Roman supremacy, it was a well-known pet of
courts and ladies’ boudoirs.
During the Middle Ages, cats were very scarce and valuable, and persons
owning cats were heavily taxed.
The cat has also had its detractors, and shortly after the Middle Ages
cats were looked upon as symbols of witchcraft and deviltry of all
kinds, and were even burned at the stake as sorcerers and savants.
In Paris, every St. John’s Day, a number of cats were heaped up in
baskets and bags in the Place de Greve, and the sovereign himself
always set fire to the pile. This practice continued down to Louis
XIV., who was the last King of France to do so cruel an act.
Gipsies have always feared the black cat and have greatly loved the
white cat.
Shakespeare rarely alludes to cats, except in an uncomplimentary way.
The domestication of cats was gradual and continuous.
The origin of our domestic cat is undoubtedly the wild cat of Egypt and
the American wild cat. And such origin is of very ancient date.
To-day the classification of our domestic cat is into two great
classes: (1) The Long-haired or Angora Cat (Asiatic or Eastern in
origin), consisting of the Persian, Russian, Chinese, and Indian Cats;
(2) the Short-haired Cat (European and Western), consisting of the
Tortoise Shell, Tortoise Shell and White, Tabbies—banded and spotted,
brown, spotted, blue and silver, red, white, blue (Maltese in America),
black and white, Royal cat of Siam, Manx.
DING, DONG, BELL.
Ding, dong, bell,
Pussy’s in the well!
Who put her in?
Little Tommy Lin.
Who pulled her out?
Little Johnny Stout.
What a naughty boy was that
To drown the poor pussy-cat,
Who never did him any harm,
But killed the mice in his father’s barn.
* * * * *
There was an old cat, and a black cat, too,
She had so many children she didn’t know what to do;
To save them from fighting and scratching and bawling,
She pinned them all up by their ears when out calling.
THE CAT OF HINDUSTAN.
Where mighty Ganges rolls in foam
Down-sweeping to the Indian Sea,
Grimalkin Long-Ears made her home;
Lover of birds (to eat) was she,
Wise and astute as cat can be.
There was a hill named Vulture-Fort,
Great vulture nests filled all the space;
There did the little birdlings sport,
And chirp and hop with birdling grace;
To puss a most attractive place.
She crept along paw after paw,
Like velvet dropping soft and light;
She munched the small birds with no awe
Of Justice;—sudden—what a sight!
Her fur stood upright with affright.
The mightiest vulture of them all—
Jaradgabah—his shadow cast
Upon her! see him, black and tall!
Well might Grimalkin’s heart beat fast.
She thought, “My hour is come at last!
“Swiftness and strength avail not me,
I cannot fly, nor fight this bird;
I’ll try my wits with flattery.”
She smoothed her fur and gently purred—
The vulture understood each word.
“Hearken to me, the wisest cat
That in all Hindustan you’ll meet;
Temperate and good; no lean nor fat,
Nor fish, nor flesh, I ever eat;
Grass only is my diet sweet.
“All men the stranger’s rights revere,
And hospitality afford;
Even foes may come, and with no fear
Sit unmolested at our board;
To all, food, shelter, we accord.
“Straw, water, earth, and pleasant words
The good man’s house will aye contain;
Shall I seek from you, king of birds,
Kind hospitality in vain?
Then would all Hindustan complain.”
The end was this: her whisking tail
And specious purr were not withstood;
The vulture’s wrath began to fail;
Surely this pleasing creature should
Be wise, be pious, be most good.
He asked her in;—O with good cause
The happiest cat by Ganges’ foam!
She winked her eyes and licked her paws;
Soon he went forth awhile to roam;
She ate the small birds and went home.
The mothers came at eve; no sound
Of joyous chirping filled the air,
But claws and feathers strewed the ground,
And in the midst, in blank despair,
Jaradgabah sat brooding there.
“Jaradgabah!” shrieked every one—
“’Tis he who has in frenzy slain
Our darling broods! Be justice done!”
The poor bird had no time to explain;
They seized him, rent his neck in twain.
When you your bosom’s love would mate
With strangers, be not prudence mute;
Think of Jaradgabah’s hard fate;
His trusting nature bore sad fruit.
Grimalkin Long-Ears was astute.
THE DEAD CANARY.
CHARACTERS: ELSIE, GEORGE, and JAMES.
STAGE SETTING: Home interior.
SCENE: GEORGE and JAMES are sitting at table reading books.
[_Enter_ ELSIE.]
ELSIE. O dear! O dear! It’s gone—killed—eaten up! O dear! O dear!
[_Wringing hands._]
GEORGE [_looking up from book_]. What is the matter, Elsie? What is
gone?
ELSIE [_sorrowfully_]. My dear, dear bird—my canary that you gave me.
GEORGE [_sympathetically_]. You don’t say so! How sorry I am!
JAMES [_looking on and deeply interested_]. What killed it, Elsie?
ELSIE. The cat.
GEORGE [_angrily_]. How cruel! how wicked! I’ll shoot her!
JAMES [_surprised_]. For what?
GEORGE. Why, for killing the bird.
JAMES. For killing one bird? What should be done with you, who have
killed so many birds—all as beautiful as the canary?
GEORGE [_indignantly_]. Why, I am not a cat!
JAMES [_earnestly, yet with determined voice_]. No; but you are far
more responsible than a cat, who is governed only by instinct, and
kills a bird for food, not for sport, as you do.
GEORGE [_sarcastically_]. Well, this is being decidedly personal.
JAMES. It is simply calling things by their right names. Elsie, what do
you think George has spent his whole day for? Just to catch and shoot
a poor little wren. Late this afternoon he succeeded in fetching her
down, and that leaves four poor little baby wrens in the nest to starve
and die.
ELSIE [_shaking finger sorrowfully at George_]. Bad, wicked George!
I’ll not speak to you again for a week. You and that kitty-cat are two
murderers of birds, and should be shut up in the cellar together.
[_Exit_ ELSIE.]
GEORGE [_shrugging shoulders, gets up, shoves hands into pockets, and
moves about room restlessly_]. What a great fuss about a bird!
JAMES [_indignant_]. Fuss? Why should you not apply the same rule to
yourself that you would apply to a cat? The equity of the case is
against you, George. You claim the right to kill, yet deny that right
even to a cat! The law of usage is your only excuse, and it is a very
poor defence at best; it is one law for the powerful and another for
the weak. You should be too just to use it. [_Rises and stands leaning
on table._]