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.