True Stories About Dogs and Cats | Page 8

cannot trust them; that the cat
heart is bad, and that there is no harm in boys' teasing them, since it is
no more than cats deserve; that they were made for us to plague; and
that the only good thing they do is to catch rats and mice.
Now, if this were true, and they were really ever so bad, they ought
never to be treated cruelly, never teased and tormented. None but the
meanest boy will ever torment any animal.
He who created us created also the little fly that crawls upon the
window pane. I am not now thinking of those boys who do not
remember, or have never learned this truth, but of those who have a
cruel prejudice against cats, of those who are kind to dogs and horses,
but unkind to cats. I shall speak to you of the poor cat with almost as
much respect and seriousness as if I were talking about any of my
fellow- creatures who were injured and ill treated.
We take it for granted that cats have no love in them, and so we never
act towards them as if they had any; now I believe they have, on the
whole, pretty good hearts, and, if they were treated with justice and
kindness, would be far more respectable members of society than they
are. To show this I will mention some facts of which I have heard, and,
some which I have witnessed.
In the first place, the cat is accused of never caring for the inhabitants
of a house, but only for the house itself. Now I knew an affectionate cat

who manifested much disturbance when the family were making
preparations for moving; at last, all was gone from the house except
herself and the cook. The cook, in order to make sure that the cat
should not escape from the carriage on the way, put her into a cage and
fastened her in.
When they arrived, the cat walked quietly out of her cage, looked at her
old friend the cook, went into another room where she met another
friend, and began forthwith to purr her satisfaction.
Two years afterwards, this family moved again. As soon as the cat saw
the preparations making for moving, she showed great uneasiness, and
went down into the cellar, where she remained during all the confusion.
When all else was gone, the cook went to the cellar stairs, and called
her. The cat came up directly. The cook stroked her, and showed 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, without the least resistance,
allowed herself to be shut into the basket by a cloth tied over it. As
soon as she saw the different members of the family in the new house,
she manifested her contentment.
In six months the family moved again. The cat again submitted herself,
and showed her preference to her friends over their house.
A cat has been known to nurse and bring up a rat with her own kittens.
I once took a little rabbit who was starving to death from the neglect of
its own mother, and placed it before the same cat who preferred the
people to the house. She had just come from nursing her kittens, and
when she saw the little trembling rabbit before her, her first thought
was, evidently to make a good meal of it. I took up the little thing and
caressed it, and then put it down again. She now approached it in a
motherly way, and looked at it; its ears seemed evidently to puzzle her.
After a while, she tried to take 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 rubbed herself against me; and then went to the rabbit and
licked it tenderly; I now ventured to put the rabbit in with her kittens,
and she nursed, and took the best care of it.

A friend of mine who killed a squirrel not knowing that she had young
ones, took all the little squirrels, brought them into the house, and put
them before his pet cat who had lost all her kittens but one. Pussy
looked at them for a while; probably her cattish nature thought a little
of eating them; but her better nature soon prevailed, for she took them,
one after another, and carried them all to her nest, and proved a faithful
nursing mother to them, and ere long there was no part of the house in
which the old cat and her roguish adopted children were not to be
found.
What will not cats