FAITHFUL GRIMALKIN.
Many years ago, when my parents lived in old Connecticut, my mother had a pet cat, a pretty graceful creature, frisky and arch and gay, though clad in sober gray. She was a favorite with all the large household, but especially attached herself to my mother, following her about everywhere,—“up stairs, down stairs, and in my lady’s chamber,” accompanying her in her walks, hiding behind every bush, and prancing out upon her in a surprising, not to say startling, manner.
At last she grew out of kittenhood, laid aside, in a measure, kittenish things, and became the happiest, fondest, proudest feline mamma ever beheld. She caressed and gloated over her little, blind, toddling, mewing, miniature tigers in a perfect ecstasy of maternal delight. Just at this interesting period of pussy’s life our family moved from the old place to a house in the country, about a mile away. My mother was ill, and was carried very carefully on a bed from one sick-room to another. In the hurry, trouble, and confusion of that time, poor pussy, who lodged with her family in an attic, was quite forgotten. But early in the morning of the first day in the new house,—a pleasant summer morning, when all the doors and windows were open,—as my mother lay on her bed, in a parlor on the first floor, she saw her cat walk into the hall and look eagerly around. The moment the faithful creature caught sight of her beloved mistress, she came bounding into the room, across it, and on to the bed, where she purred and mewed in a delighted, yet reproachful way, quite hysterical, licking my mother’s hand and rubbing up against her cheek in a manner that said more plainly than words, “Ah! my dear madam, didst thou think to leave thy faithful Grimalkin behind? Where thou goest, I will go.”
She was taken into the kitchen and treated to a cup of new milk; but after a few moments given to rest and refreshment she disappeared. Yet she went only to come again in the course of an hour, lugging one of her kittens, which she deposited on the bed, commended to my mother’s care, and straightway departed. In an almost incredibly short time she came bounding in with a second kitten. She continued her journeys till the whole litter had been safely transported, over hill and dale, ditches and stone-walls, through perils of unfriendly dogs and mischievous boys, and the family flitting was complete.
After this, our noble puss was loved and respected more than ever. She dwelt long in the land, and her kits grew up, I believe, to be worthy of such a mother.