OBEDIENT THOMAS.
Now I want to give you an instance of filial respect and submission in a young cat. When we first came to Washington, nearly two years ago, I took to petting a handsome cat belonging to the relatives with whom we then lived. I fed and caressed her, and she became very fond of me, always running to meet me when I entered the garden which she haunted, or the barn in which she lodged. She was rather wild in her ways, and so stole a nest, in which she finally hid away some kittens, that she afterwards reared to be wilder than herself. These somehow disappeared, all but one, which, when he was about half grown, I undertook to tame. It was a difficult, tedious job; but I persevered, and at last found him a more affectionate, docile pet than ever his mother had been. She had seemed fond of him in his wild, unregenerate days, but as soon as he became domesticated, and I began to show a partiality for him, she grew very severe with him, scratching his face and boxing his ears whenever she saw me caressing him. I soon noticed that when she was near he was shy, pretending not to be on intimate terms with me; while, if she was out of the way, I had only to call his name, to have him come galloping up from the furthest part of the long garden, to rub against me, to lick my hand, and show every feline fondness and delight. Now we live at another house, and I seldom see my pets, mother and son; but they are loving and constant still, proving that the poet Coleridge didn’t know every thing when he talked about “the little short memories” of cats.
Master Thomas has grown large and strong, and is accounted a gallant young fellow by all the young pussies in the neighborhood. But while toward cats of his own sex he is fierce and combative, he is just as meek and deferential to his mother as he was in his tender kittenhood. The other day I encountered him in the old garden, and was surprised to find how stalwart he had become. I stooped to caress him, and he seemed as susceptible to gentle overtures as ever, arched his back, switched his tail, and purred rapturously. Suddenly the mother cat stole out from behind a tree, and confronted us. “Good morning, madam,” I said, for I always talk to cats and dogs just as I talk to other people. “You have a fine son here; a handsome young fellow, that favors you, I think.” But she wasn’t to be softened by the compliment. She walked straight up to him, and boxed him first on one ear and then on the other, quite in the old motherly way. As for him he never thought of resenting the old lady’s act, or opposing her will, but drooped his lordly tail, and hastily retreated. Now that is what I call good family discipline.
This city of Washington is a place where the wits of people are sharpened, if anywhere, and perhaps even cats and dogs become uncommonly clever and knowing here. Only yesterday I was told of a Washington cat which had just been found out in a wonderful trick. Observing that, when the door-bell rang, the one servant of the household was obliged to leave the kitchen, she managed to slyly ring the bell, by jumping up against the wire, and invariably, when her enemy, the cook, went to the door, she would slip into the kitchen, and help herself to whatever tempting article of food was within reach. At last some one watched, and caught her at her secret “wire-pulling.” Poor puss retired with a drooping tail and a most dejected aspect, evidently realizing that the game was up.
Another cat I know of was of so amiable and benevolent a disposition that she actually adopted into her own circle of infant kits a poor, forlorn little foundling of a rat. As her nursling he grew and thrived, seeming quite as tame as the others; and when a mischievous boy set a rat-terrier on him, and so finished him, cat and kittens really seemed to mourn for their foster son and brother.