CONCERNING MY OTHER CATS
"Oh, what a lovely cat!" is a frequent expression from visitors or
passers-by at our house. And from the Pretty Lady down through her
various sons and daughters to the present family protector and head,
"Thomas Erastus," and the Angora, "Lady Betty," there have been some
beautiful creatures.
Mr. McGinty was a solid-color maltese, with fur like a seal for
closeness and softness, and with the disposition of an angel. He used to
be seized with sudden spasms of affection and run from one to another of
the family, rubbing his soft cheeks against ours, and kissing us
repeatedly. This he did by taking gentle little affectionate nips with
his teeth. I used to give him a certain caress, which he took as an
expression of affection. After leaving him at the farm I did not see him
again for two years. Then on a short visit, I asked for Mr. McGinty and
was told that he was in a shed chamber. I found him asleep in a box of
grain and took him out; he looked at me through sleepy eyes, turned
himself over and stretched up for the old caress. As nobody ever gave
him that but me, I take this as conclusive proof that he not only knew
me, but remembered my one peculiarity.
Then there was old Pomp, called "old" to distinguish him from the young
Pomp of to-day, or "Pompanita." He died of pneumonia at the age of three
years; but he was the handsomest black cat--and the blackest--I have
ever seen. He had half a dozen white hairs under his chin; but his
blackness was literally like the raven's wing. Many handsome black cats
show brown in the strong sunlight, or when their fur is parted. But old
Pomp's fur was jet black clear through, and in the sunshine looked as if
he had been made up of the richest black silk velvet, his eyes,
meanwhile, being large and of the purest amber. He weighed some fifteen
pounds, and that somebody envied us the possession of him was evident,
as he was stolen two or three times during the last summer of his life.
But he came home every time; only when Death finally stole him, we had
no redress.
"Bobinette," the black kitten referred to in the previous chapter, also
had remarkably beautiful eyes. We used to keep him in ribbons to match,
and he knew color, too, perfectly well. For instance, if we offered him
a blue or a red ribbon, he would not be quiet long enough to have it
tied on; but show him a yellow one, and he would prance across the room,
and not only stand still to have it put on, but purr and evince the
greatest pride in it.
Bobinette had another very pretty trick of playing with the
tape-measure. He used to bring it to us and have it wound several times
around his body; then he would "chase himself" until he got it off, when
he would bring it back and ask plainly to have it wound round him again.
After a little we noticed he was wearing the tape-measure out, and so we
tried to substitute it with an old ribbon or piece of cotton tape. But
Bobinette would have none of them. On the contrary, he repeatedly
climbed on to the table and to the work-basket, and hunted patiently for
his tape-measure, and even if it were hidden in a pocket, he kept up the
search until he unearthed it; and he would invariably end by dragging
forth that particular tape-measure and bringing it to us. I need not say
that his intelligence was rewarded.
Speaking of colors, a friend has a cat that is devoted to blue. When she
puts on a particularly pretty blue gown, the cat hastens to get into her
lap, put her face down to the material, purr, and manifest the greatest
delight; but let the same lady put on a black dress, and the cat will
not come near her.
"Pompanita," the second Pomp in our dynasty, is a fat and billowy black
fellow, now five years old and weighing nineteen pounds. He was the last
of the Pretty Lady's ninety-three children. Only a few of this vast
progeny, however, grew to cat-hood, as she was never allowed to keep
more than one each season. The Pretty Lady, in fact, came to regard this
as the only proper method. On one occasion I had been away all day. When
I got home at night the housekeeper said, "Pussy has had five kittens,
but she won't go near them." When the Pretty Lady heard my voice, she
came and led the way to the back room where the kittens were in the
lower drawer of an unused bureau, and uttered one or two funny little
noises, intimating that matters were not altogether as they should be,
according to established rules of propriety. I understood, abstracted
four of the five kittens, and disappeared. When I came back she had
settled herself contentedly with the remaining kitten, and from that
time on was a model mother.
Pompanita the Good has all the virtues of a good cat, and absolutely no
vices. He loves us all and loves all other cats as well. As for
fighting, he emulates the example of that veteran who boasts that during
the war he might always be found where the shot and shell were the
thickest,--under the ammunition wagon. Like most cats he has a decided
streak of vanity. My sister cut a wide, fancy collar, or ruff, of white
paper one day, and put it on Pompanita. At first he felt much abashed
and found it almost impossible to walk with it. But a few words of
praise and encouragement changed all that.
"Oh, what a pretty Pomp he is now!" exclaimed one and another, until he
sat up coyly and cocked his head one side as if to say:--
"Oh, now, do you really think I look pretty?" and after a few more
assurances he got down and strutted as proudly as any peacock; much to
the discomfiture of the kitten, who wanted to play with him. And now he
will cross the yard any time to have one of those collars on.
But Thomas Erastus is the prince of our cats to-day. He weighs seventeen
pounds, and is a soft, grayish-maltese with white paws and breast. One
Saturday night ten years ago, as we were partaking of our regular Boston
baked beans, I heard a faint mew. Looking down I saw beside me the
thinnest kitten I ever beheld. The Irish girl who presided over our
fortunes at the time used to place the palms of her hands together and
say of Thomas's appearance, "Why, mum, the two sides of 'im were just
like that." I picked him up, and he crawled pathetically into my neck
and cuddled down.
"There," said a friend who was sitting opposite, "he's fixed himself
now. You'll keep him."
"No, I shall not," I said, "but I will feed him a few days and give him
to my cousin." Inside half an hour, however, Thomas Erastus had assumed
the paternal air toward us that soon made us fear to lose him. Living
without Thomas now would be like a young girl's going out without a
chaperone. After that first half-hour, when he had been fed, he chased
every foreign cat off the premises, and assumed the part of a watch-dog.
To this day he will sit on the front porch or the window-sill and growl
if he sees a tramp or suspicious character approaching. He always goes
into the kitchen when the market-man calls, and orders his meat; and at
exactly five o'clock in the afternoon, when the meat is cut up and
distributed, leads the feline portion of the family into the kitchen.
Thomas knows the time of day. For six months he waked up one housekeeper
at exactly seven o'clock in the morning, never varying two minutes. He
did this by seating himself on her chest and gazing steadfastly in her
face. Usually this waked her, but if she did not yield promptly to that
treatment he would poke her cheeks with the most velvety of paws until
she awoke. He has a habit now of going upstairs and sitting opposite the
closed door of the young man who has to rise hours before the rest of us
do, and waiting until the door is opened for him. How he knows at what
particular moment each member of the family will wake up and come forth
is a mystery, but he does.
How do cats tell the hour of day, anyway? The old Chinese theory that
they are living clocks is, in a way, borne out by their own conduct. Not
only have my cats shown repeatedly that they know the hour of rising of
every member of the family, but they gather with as much regularity as
the ebbing of the tides, or the setting of the sun, at exactly five
o'clock in the afternoon for their supper. They are given a hearty
breakfast as soon as the kitchen fire is started in the morning. This
theoretically lasts them until five. I say theoretically, because if
they wake from their invariable naps at one, and smell lunch, they
individually wheedle some one into feeding them. But this is only
individually. Collectively they are fed at five.
They are the most methodical creatures in the world. They go to bed
regularly at night when the family does. They are waiting in the kitchen
for breakfast when the fire is started in the morning. Then they go out
of doors and play, or hunt, or ruminate until ten o'clock, when they
come in, seek their favorite resting-places, and sleep until four.
Evidently, from four to five is a play hour, and the one who wakes first
is expected to stir up the others. But at exactly five, no matter where
they may have strayed to, every one of the three, five, or seven (as the
number may happen to be) will be sitting in his own particular place in
the kitchen, waiting with patient eagerness for supper. For each has a
particular place for eating, just as bigger folk have their places at
the dining table. Thomas Erastus sits in a corner; the space under the
table is reserved especially for Jane. Pompanita is at his mistress's
feet, and Lady Betty, the Angora, bounds to her shoulder when their meat
appears. Their table manners are quite irreproachable also. It is
considered quite unpardonable to snatch at another's piece of meat, and
a breach of the best cat-etiquette to show impatience while another is
being fed.
I do not pretend to say that this is entirely natural. They are taught
these things as kittens, and since cats are as great sticklers for
propriety and gentle manners as any human beings can be, they never
forget it. Doubtless, this is easier because they are always well fed,
but Thomas Erastus or Jane would have to be on the verge of starvation,
I am sure, before they would "grab" from one of the other cats. And as
for the Pretty Lady, it was always necessary to see that she was
properly served. She would not eat from a dish with other cats, or,
except in extreme cases, from one they had left. Indeed, she was
remarkable in this respect. I have seen her sit on the edge of a table
where chickens were being dressed and wait patiently for a tidbit; I
have seen her left alone in the room, while on that table was a piece of
raw steak, but no temptation was ever great enough to make her touch any
of these forbidden things. She actually seemed to have a conscience.
Only one thing on the dining table would she touch. When she was two or
three months old, she somehow got hold of the table-napkins done up in
their rings. These were always to her the most delightful playthings in
the world. As a kitten, she would play with them by the hour, if not
taken away, and go to sleep cuddled affectionately around them. She got
over this as she grew older; but when her first kitten was two or three
months old, remembering the jolly times she used to have, she would
sneak into the dining room and get the rolled napkins, carry them in her
mouth to her infant, and endeavor with patient anxiety to show him how
to play with them. Throughout nine years of motherhood she went through
the same performance with every kitten she had. They never knew what to
do with the napkins, or cared to know, and would have none of them. But
she never got discouraged. She would climb up on the sideboard, or into
the china closet, and even try to get into drawers where the napkins
were laid away in their rings. If she could get hold of one, she would
carry it with literal groans and evident travail of spirit to her
kitten, and by further groans and admonitions seem to say:--
"Child, see this beautiful plaything I have brought you. This is a part
of your education; it is just as necessary for you to know how to play
with this as to poke your paw under the closet door properly. Wake up,
now, and play with it."
Sometimes, when the table was laid over night, we used to hear her
anguished groans in the stillness of the night. In the morning every
napkin belonging to the family would be found in a different part of the
house, and perhaps a ring would be missing. These periods, however, only
lasted as long, in each new kitten's training, as the few weeks that she
had amused herself with them at their age. Then she would drop the
subject, and napkins had no further interest than the man in the moon
until another kitten arrived at the age when she considered them a
necessary part of his education.
Professor Shaler in his interesting book on the intelligence of animals
gives the cat only the merest mention, intimating that he considers them
below par in this respect, and showing little real knowledge of them. I
wish he might have known the Pretty Lady.
Once our Lady Betty had four little Angora kittens. She was probably the
most aristocratic cat in the country, for she kept a wet nurse. Poor
Jane, of commoner strain, had two small kittens the day after the Angora
family appeared. Jane's plebeian infants promptly disappeared, but she
took just as promptly to the more aristocratic family and fulfilled the
duties of nurse and maid. Both cats and four kittens occupied the same
bureau drawer, and when either cat wanted the fresh air she left the
other in charge; and there was a tacit understanding between them that
the fluffy, fat babies must never be left alone one instant. Four small
and lively kittens in the house are indeed things of beauty, and a joy
as long as they last. Four fluffy little Angora balls they were Chin,
Chilla, Buffie, and Orange Pekoe, names that explain their color. And
Jane, wet nurse and waiting-maid, had to keep as busy as the old woman
that lived in a shoe. Jane it was who must look after the infants when
Lady Betty wished to leave the house. Jane it was who must scrub the
furry quartet until their silky fur stood up in bunches the wrong way
all over their chubby little sides; Jane must sleep with them nights,
and be ready to furnish sustenance at any moment of day or night; and
above all, Jane must watch them anxiously and incessantly in waking
hours, uttering those little protesting murmurs of admonition which
mother cats deem so necessary toward the proper training of kittens.
And, poor Jane! As lady's maid she must bathe Lady Betty's brow every
now and then, as the more finely strung Angora succumbed to the nervous
strain of kitten-rearing, and she turned affectionately to Jane for
comfort. A prettier sight, or a more profitable study of the love of
animals for each other was never seen than Lady Betty, her infants, and
her nurse-maid. And yet, there are people who pronounce cats stupid.
One evening I returned from the theatre late and roused up the four
fluffy kittens, who, seeing the gas turned on, started in for a frolic.
The lady mother did not approve of midnight carousals on the part of
infants, and protested with mild wails against their joyful caperings.
Finally, Orange Pekoe got into the closet and Lady Betty pursued him.
But suddenly a strange odor was detected. Sitting on her haunches she
smelled all over the bottom of the skirt which had just been hung up,
stopping every few seconds to utter a little worried note of warning to
the kittens. The infants, however, displayed a quite human disregard of
parental authority and gambolled on unconcernedly under the skirt;
reminding one of the old New England primer style of tales, showing how
disobedient children flaunt themselves in the face of danger, despite
the judicious advice of their elders. Lady Betty could do nothing with
them, and grew more nervous and worried every minute in consequence.
Suddenly she bethought herself of that never-failing source of strength
and comfort, Jane. She went into the next room, and, although I had not
heard a sound, returned in a moment with the maltese. Jane was ushered
into the closet, and soon scented out the skirt. Then she too sat on her
haunches and gave a long, careful sniff, turned round and uttered one
"purr-t-t," and took the Angora off with her. Jane had discovered that
there was no element of danger in the closet, and had imparted her
knowledge to the finely strung Angora in an instant. And so, taking her
back to bed, she "bathed her brow" with gentle lappings until Lady Betty
sank off to quiet sleep, soothed and comforted.
It is not easy to study a cat. They are like sensitive plants, and shut
themselves instinctively away from the human being who does not care for
them. They know when a man or a woman loves them, almost before they
come into the human presence; and it is almost useless for the
unsympathetic person to try to study a cat. But the thousands who do
love cats know that they are the most individual animals in the world.
Dogs are much alike in their love for mankind, their obedience,
faithfulness, and, in different degrees, their sagacity. But there is as
much individuality in cats as in people.
Dogs and horses are our slaves; cats never. This does not prove them
without affection, as some people seem to think; on the contrary, it
proves their peculiar and characteristic dignity and self-respect.
Women, poets, and especially artists, like cats; delicate natures only
can realize their sensitive nervous systems.
The Pretty Lady's mother talked almost incessantly when she was in the
house. One of her habits was to get on the window-seat outside and
demand to be let in. If she was not waited upon immediately, she would,
when the door was finally opened, stop when halfway in and scold
vigorously. The tones of her voice and the expression of her face were
so exactly like those of a scolding, vixenish woman that she caused many
a hearty laugh by her tirades.
Thomas Erastus, however, seldom utters a sound, and at the rare
intervals when he condescends to purr, he can only be heard by holding
one's ear close to his great, soft sides. But he has the most remarkable
ways. He will open every door in the house from the inside; he will even
open blinds, getting his paw under the fastening and working patiently
at it, with his body on the blind itself, until the hook flies back and
it finally opens. One housekeeper trained him to eat his meat close up
in one corner of the kitchen. This custom he kept up after she went
away, until new and uncommonly frisky kittens annoyed him so that his
place was transferred to the top of an old table. When he got hungry in
those days, however, he used to go and crowd close up in his corner and
look so pathetically famished that food was generally forthcoming at
once. Thomas was formerly very much devoted to the lady who lived next
door, and was as much at home in her house as in ours. Her family rose
an hour or two earlier than ours in the morning, and their breakfast
hour came first. I should attribute Thomas's devotion to Mrs. T. to this
fact, since he invariably presented himself at her dining-room window
and wheedled her into feeding him, were it not that his affection seemed
just as strong throughout the day. It was interesting to see him go over
and rattle her screen doors, front, back, or side, knowing perfectly
well that he would bring some one to open and let him in.
Thomas has a really paternal air toward the rest of the family. One
spring night, as usual on retiring, I went to the back door to call in
the cats. Thomas Erastus was in my sister's room, but none of the others
were to be seen; nor did they come at once, evidently having strayed in
their play beyond the sound of my voice. Thomas, upstairs, heard my
continued call and tried for some time to get out. M. had shut her door,
thinking to keep in the one already safe. But the more I called, the
more persistently determined he became to get out. At last M. opened her
window and let him on to the sloping roof of the "L," from which he
could descend through a gnarled old apple tree. Meanwhile I left the
back door and went on with my preparations for the night. About ten
minutes later I went and called the cats again. It was a moonlight night
and I saw six delinquent cats coming in a flock across the open field
behind the house,--all marshalled by Mr. Thomas. He evidently hunted
them up and called them in himself; then he sat on the back porch and
waited until the last kit was safely in, before he stalked gravely in
with an air which said as plainly as words:--
"There, it takes _me_ to do anything with this family."
None of my cats would think of responding to the call of "Kitty, Kitty,"
or "Puss, Puss." They are early taught their names and answer to them.
Neither would one answer to the name of another, except in occasional
instances where jealousy prompts them to do so. We have to be most
careful when we go out of an evening, not to let Thomas Erastus get out
at the same time. In case he does, he will follow us either to the
railroad station or to the electric cars and wait in some near-by nook
until we come back. I have known him to sit out from seven until
midnight of a cold, snowy winter evening, awaiting our return from the
theatre. When we alight from the cars he is nowhere to be seen. But
before we have gone many steps, lo! Thomas Erastus is behind or beside
us, proudly escorting his mistresses home, but looking neither at them,
nor to the right or left. Not until he reaches the porch does he allow
himself to be petted. But on our way to the cars his attitude is
different. He is as frisky as a kitten. In vain do we try to "shoo" him
back, or catch him. He prances along, just out of reach, but
tantalizingly close; when we get aboard our car, we know he is safe in
some corner gazing sadly after us, and that no danger can drive him home
until we reappear.
Both Thomas and Pompanita take a deep interest in all household affairs,
although in this respect they do not begin to show the curiosity of the
Pretty Lady. Never a piece of furniture was changed in he house that she
did not immediately notice, the first time she came into the room
afterward; and she invariably jumped up on the article and thoroughly
investigated affairs before settling down again. Every parcel that came
in must be examined, and afterward she must lie on the paper or inside
the box that it came in, always doing this with great solemnity and
gazing earnestly out of her large, intelligent dark eyes. Toward the
close of her life she was greatly troubled at any unusual stir in the
household. She liked to have company, but nothing disturbed her more
than to have a man working in the cellar, putting in coal, cutting wood,
or doing such work. She used then to follow us uneasily about and look
earnestly up into our faces, as if to say:--
"Girls, this is not right. Everything is all upset here and 'a' the
world's gang agley.' Why don't you fix it?"
She was the politest creature, too. That was the reason of her name. In
her youth she was christened "Pansy"; then "Cleopatra," "Susan," "Lady
Jane Grey" and the "Duchess." But her manners were so punctiliously
perfect, and she was such a "pretty lady" always and everywhere;
moreover she had such a habit of sitting with her hands folded politely
across her gentle, lace-vandyked bosom that the only sobriquet that ever
clung was the one that expressed herself the most perfectly. She was in
every sense a "Pretty Lady." For years she ate with us at the table. Her
chair was placed next to mine, and no matter where she was or how
soundly she had been sleeping, when the dinner bell rang she was the
first to get to her seat. Then she sat patiently until I fixed a dainty
meal in a saucer and placed it in the chair beside her, when she ate it
in the same well-bred way she did everything.
Thomas Erastus hurt his foot one day. Rather he got it hurt during a
matutinal combat at which he was forced, being the head of the family,
to be present, although he is far above the midnight carousals of his
kind. Thomas Erastus sometimes loves to consider himself an invalid.
When his doting mistress was not looking, he managed to step off on that
foot quite lively, especially if his mortal enemy, a disreputable black
tramp, skulked across the yard. But let Thomas Erastus see a feminine
eye gazing anxiously at him through an open window, and he immediately
hobbled on three legs; then he would stop and sit down and assume so
pathetic an expression of patient suffering that the mistress's heart
would melt, and Thomas Erastus would find himself being borne into the
house and placed on the softest sofa. Once she caught him down cellar.
There is a window to which he has easy access, and where he can go in
and out a hundred times a day. Evidently he had planned to do so at that
moment. But seeing his fond mistress, he sat down on the cellar floor,
and with his most fetching expression gazed wistfully back and forth
from her to the window. And of course she picked him up carefully and
put him on the window ledge. Thomas Erastus has all the innocent guile
of a successful politician. He could manage things slicker than the
political bosses, an' he would.
One summer Thomas Erastus moved--an event of considerable importance in
his placid existence. He had to travel a short distance on the
steam-cars; and worse, he needs must endure the indignity of travelling
that distance in a covered basket. But his dignity would not suffer him
to do more than send forth one or two mournful wails of protest. After
being kept in his new house for a couple of days, he was allowed to go
out and become familiar with his surroundings--not without fear and
trepidation on the part of his doting mistress that he might make a bold
strike for his former home. But Thomas Erastus felt he had a mission to
perform for his race. He would disprove that mistaken theory that a cat,
no matter how kindly he is treated, cares more for places than for
people. Consequently he would not dream of going back to his old haunts.
No; he sat down in the front yard and took a long look at his
surroundings, the neighboring lots, a field of grass, a waving
corn-field. He had already convinced himself that the new house was
home, because in it were all the old familiar things, and he had been
allowed to investigate every bit of it and to realize what had happened.
So after looking well about him he made a series of tours of
investigation. First, he took a bee-line for the farthest end of the
nearest vacant lot; then he chose the corn-field; then the beautiful
broad grounds of the neighbor below; then across the street; but between
each of these little journeys he took a bee-line back to his
starting-point, sat down in front of the new house, and "got his
bearings," just as evidently as though he could have said out loud,
"This is my home and I mustn't lose it." In this way he convinced
himself that where he lives is the centre of the universe, and that the
world revolves around him. And he has since been as happy as a
cricket,--yea, happier, for death and destruction await the unfortunate
cricket where Thomas Erastus thrives.
But don't say a cat can't or won't be moved. It's your own fault if he
won't.