[See Note L, Addenda.]

PUSSY AS A MOTHER.

A careful and fond mother is our pussy-cat. In no case is her wisdom and sagacity better exhibited than in the love and care she displays for her offspring. Weeks before the interesting event comes off, pussy has been “upstairs and downstairs and in the lady’s chamber,” looking for the snuggest corner or the cosiest closet in which to bring forth her young. In this matter different cats have different opinions. Some prefer a feather-bed when they can manage it, some a bundle of rags, some an old newspaper or humble straw, while others believe the acme of comfort is to lie inside a lady’s bonnet or a gentleman’s wig. Wherever pussy has chosen to have her kittens, there in that room or closet she prefers to nurse them, and should they and she be removed to another she will persist in carrying her offspring back to the old place, however comfortable the new bed may be. This proves that pussy like human beings of the same gender has a will of her own.

I know an instance of a cat, whose kittens were removed by her master from the attic in which they were born, to a snug little berth in the barn. The cottage doors were closed against her, but Mrs. Puss was not to be balked, and next morning found her and her family comfortably re-ensconced in the old quarters: during the night she had smashed the attic sky-light, and carried her kittens through one by one. Pussy gained her point and was happy.

I know a lady whose cat has had a litter of one kitten. It is her first, and if she had produced ten she could not possibly be prouder of the performance. It is amusing to watch the care and affection she bestows on her “ae, ae bairn.”[2] Her whole heart—I was nearly saying “and soul”—seems bound up in it. She sits and studies it by the hour—no doubt it is its father’s image—dresses it at least a dozen times a day, and whenever she has occasion to go out, she takes this miserable little object of her love, and rolls it carefully in the sofa tidy, so that it may neither catch cold nor come to harm.

When a cat finds out that there is not proper room or convenience in her owner’s house for the proper rearing of her family, or that there is some chance of molestation or danger from the inmates, she never hesitates to go elsewhere for the event. She generally selects an out-house, or in the summer-time goes to the woods, but she never fails to return to her old abode, as soon as the kittens can take care of themselves.

Mary is an old, old maid,—an old maid from choice so she tells me,—she could have been married if she had liked. “Mony a harum-scarum ne’er-do-weel,” says Mary, “came blethering about me when I was young and bonnie, but I ga’e them a’ their kail thro’ the reek, wi’ their calves’ faces and phrasing mou’s. Na, ne’er a man gave me a sair heart, and what’s mair never shall.”

I don’t suppose they ever will, for even the probability of Mary’s having been once young seems mere tradition. Besides, Mary has centered all her earthly affections on her cat, and there is every likelihood that puss will live as long as she herself. The old lady apologises for loving it, on the ground that it is “So clean and clever, sir, and catches mice as easy as wink;” and whenever a dog barks on the street, she runs to see that her pet is safe.

Some months ago this pussy gave evidence that she would soon become a mother. Now as the room in which poor Mary resides is only about twelve feet square, it was very evident there was but small accommodation for a decent cat’s accouchement. The same idea struck both pussy and her kind old mistress at the same time, and while Mary was busy going the round of her neighbours, seeking in vain for an asylum for her favourite, pussy was absent on the same errand, and apparently with more success, for she did not return. Mary was now indeed “a waefu’ woman,” for days and nights went past, and no tidings came of puss. Some evil thing must have happened to her, thought the old lady. Perhaps she was shut up in some lonely outhouse and starving to death; or tumbled down a chimney; cruel boys may have stoned her or drowned her; cruel keepers may have trapped her, or, more likely still, that rieving rascal Rover may have worried her. He was just like the dog to do a deed of the kind, aye, and glory in it; at any rate, she should never see her more. Alack-a-day! and Mary’s tears fell thick and fast on the stocking she was knitting, till she even lost the loops, and couldn’t see to pick them up again. Marvel not, oh reader, at the old maid’s emotion, pussy was her “one ewe lamb,” her all she had in the world to love. And weeks went past, as weeks will, whether one’s in grief or not, and it was well into the middle of the third, and getting near evening, when lonesome Mary, cowering over her little fire, heard a voice which made her start and listen; she heard it again, and with her old heart bobbing for joy, she tottered to the door and admitted—her long lost favourite. Pussy had no time for congratulations, she had a fine lively kitten in her mouth, which she carefully deposited in Mary’s bed, and made straight for the door again. She was back again in twenty minutes with another, which she gently put beside the first, then she went back for another, then another, then a fifth, and when she dropped the sixth and turned to go out again.

“Lord keep us, Topsy,” said old Mary. “How mony mair is there? Are ye goin’ to board a’ the kits in the country on me?”

But the seventh was the last, and Topsy threw herself down beside the lot, and prepared to sing herself and them to sleep.

It turned out that Mary’s cat had taken up her abode in a farmer’s hay-loft, fully half a mile from her owner’s house; but no one had seen her until the day she carried home her kittens. She had no doubt subsisted all the time on rats and mice, for she was in fine condition when she gladdened the old maid’s heart with her return.

You may often observe that if two she-cats are living together, or in adjoining houses, one always gets and retains the mastery over the other, until that other happens to be nursing, when she in her turn becomes mistress, and her companion is glad to give her a wide berth.

Cats will go through fire and water to save the life of their kittens, and fight to the bitter end to protect them. A dog will seldom dare to attack a cat while she is nursing her young. My own cat actually imposes the duties of dry nurse on my Newfoundland, “Theodore Nero.” His finely feathered legs make a delightful bed for them. He seems pleased with the trust too, and licks them all over with his tongue. In Muffie’s absence, he lies perfectly still, seemingly afraid to move lest he should hurt them. When they get a little older and more playful, they make tremendous onslaughts on his nose and ears and tail, which the honest fellow bears with the most exemplary patience, for he loves Muffie, although many a wild chase he gives her numerous lovers. He can’t bear “followers.”The other day a playfellow of his, a large Irish water-spaniel, looked in at the door just to ask if he would come for a romp for an hour, as the sun was shining, the breakers running mountains high on the beach, and any number of little boys to throw in sticks to them. Theodore Nero was nursing. But Muffie went, and I should think that dog felt sorry he had ever turned out of bed at all that morning. The cat rode him at least fifty yards from her own door, battering him unmercifully all the way. Then she came back, and sang to Nero. Poor Coolin staggered down the road, half blinded with blood, and shaking his beautiful ears in a most pitiful manner; but his sorrows were only half over, for not seeing very well where he was running, he stumbled right upon a clucking hen and chickens. And she gave it to him next. If the cat warmed one end of him, she restored the equilibrium, and warmed the other; so true is it that misfortunes seldom come singly.

Cats have been often known to leap gallantly into the water after a drowning kitten, and bring it safely to land. A case occurred only a few days ago. Some lads stole a cat’s only kitten, and after playing with it all day, proposed drowning it. With this intention they went to a mill-dam, and threw it far into the water. But the loving little mother had been waiting and watching not far off, and, stimulated by the drowning cry of her kitten, she bravely swam towards it, and brought it on shore. I know another instance of a cat, that saved the life of a kitten which belonged to another cat. Her own kittens had been drowned a whole week before, but evidently she had not forgotten the loss; and one day, seeing four kittens being drowned in a pool, she plunged in, and seizing the largest brought it to bank, and marched off with it in triumph. She reared it carefully. The children baptized it Moses, very appropriately too; and it is now a fine, large Tom-tabby.

A poor cat some time since nearly lost her life in the Dee, attempting to save the life of her kitten. The river was swollen with recent rains, and the kitten was in the centre of the stream; but, nothing daunted, pussy, like the brave little heroine she was, plunged in, and finally reached it. Here her real danger only began, for the current was very strong, and pussy was whirled rapidly down the river. After struggling for nearly half an hour, she succeeded in landing at a bend of the river nearly a mile below. She had stuck to her poor kitten all the time; but the little thing was dead.

A family in Fifeshire were about removing to another farm, about four miles distant from the one they then occupied. Part of their household gods was a nice large she-tabby, and being kind-hearted folks, they never thought of leaving her behind; so having found a home with a neighbour for pussy’s one kitten, they took the mother with them to their new residence. Next morning pussy had disappeared, and they were just beginning to put faith in the popular fallacy that cats are more attached to places than persons, when back came pussy, and with her her kitten. That kitten, pussy thought, wasn’t old enough for weaning, and so she had gone back all the way to steal it. She was right.

Owing to the peculiarities of his matrimonial relations, the happy father of a litter of kittens shares none of the responsibility, and has none of the care and trouble of rearing them, because he does not, as a rule, reside in the bosom of his family. When he does live with his wife, however, he is never exempted from family duties. And Tom always shows himself a thoughtful husband and loving father. A male cat of my acquaintance was most exemplary in his attentions on his wife at one of the most interesting and critical periods of her life. Made aware, goodness knows how, of her approaching confinement, he not only selected the closet for the occasion, but even made her bed for her, and stood sentry at the door till the whole affair was over. Every morning for weeks he trotted upstairs, first thing, to see if his wife wanted anything, and to gaze enraptured on his darlings. I am sorry to say, however, that this little woman rather bullied her doating husband. If she happened to be in good humour when Tom entered, then well and good, she returned his fond cry and chaste salute. If not, her brows fell at once, and she let him have it straight from the shoulder. Poor Tom in the latter case used to mew apologetically, and retire. It was Tom’s duty every morning to bring in a very young rabbit, a bird, or at least a mouse, and it seemed to be an understood thing that he should bring it “all alive ho!” When he brought it dead, she slapped him. Sometimes he brought a herring, then she slapped him. Indeed, she lost no opportunity of slapping him. She slapped him if he looked fond and foolish at her, and she slapped him if he didn’t. One day he was put to nurse the kittens. The kittens commenced an unavailing search for tits among Tom’s fur. As a wet nurse, Tom was a failure. He was slapped, and sent off accordingly. Tom seemed to have business that took him down town every day. Whenever he came back, he was snuffed all over and examined to see whether he had been with lady friends. If he had been, then he was properly slapped. So there was a good deal of slapping. His wife was fond of him, however, for, once, when he absented himself without leave for a whole day and a night, she made the house ring with her melancholy cries. She half killed him when he did return, nevertheless. Such is conjugal felicity.

Although, as a rule, all the duties of maternity seem to end with the weaning of the kitten, still the motherly affection does not die out; and in cases of sickness in any of her children, pussy at once resumes the cares of nursing, as the following little story will illustrate.

GINGER AND JOSIE.

And Josie was Ginger’s mother. She was a good mother. There had been originally five, but the others were born to sorrow, and were accidentally drowned; so that all mother Josie’s love was centred in her one son Ginger. Ginger, therefore, not only got all the love, but he got all the milk; so he grew up thumpingly and fat. Nothing remarkable transpired during Ginger’s kittenhood. He neither had the measles, nor, strange to say, the hooping cough; and he played the usual antics with his mother’s tail that all kittens do, and have done, since Noah’s cats’ kittens downwards. When Josie found her milk getting scarce, she weaned her son Ginger; this she accomplished by whacking him, and endeavouring to carve her initials on his nose. No doubt Ginger thought himself absurdly ill-used. We have all thought the same on a similar occasion. But Ginger was amply repaid for the loss of his tits, by the mice which his loving mamma never failed to supply him with daily. So he grew up burly, big, and beautiful; and at the age of one year had become a mighty hunter. Then came six long days and nights wherein Ginger never appeared, and poor mother Josie went about the house mourning unceasingly for her lost son. At the end of that time, a pitiful mewing was heard outside, proceeding from the bottom of the garden, and on walking down, his owners, to their dismay, found poor Ginger, to quote his mistress’s words, “in a most lamentable plight, thin to emaciation, and coiled up on the ground apparently lifeless, his fur, once so glossy and bright, now all bedraggled in blood and mud.” The cruel keepers had been the cause of Ginger’s misfortunes. He had been caught in a trap. For five days, without food or water, had the poor animal languished in a field. On the sixth he had managed to crawl some little way, dragging the trap after him, till he came to a gate. This he managed to get through, but the trap getting entangled, held him fast until some kind Samaritan, seeing his miserable plight, set him free from this impediment. He then crawled home, jumped the wall, and sunk exhausted on the ground, where he now lay. Tenderly was Ginger borne into the house, and laid on the hearth-rug. His leg was broken, swollen, and entirely useless; so it was determined to have recourse to amputation. The extremity was accordingly cut off by the owners, and, although long confined to his mat, pussy lived. Josie was very happy to see her son again, maimed and bruised as he was, and at once set about performing the duties of nurse to him. She seldom or never left him, except to procure food for him; but Ginger had a regular daily supply of dead mice, birds, and other feline dainties, until he was able to get about and cater for himself. Ginger’s accident happened upwards of two years ago. He is still alive and well, and as strong and active on his three legs as other cats are on four. Ginger is a fine, large cat, but has always exhibited the greatest aversion to strangers.