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.
CHAPTER XIII.
[See [Note M], Addenda.]
HOME TIES AND AFFECTIONS.
Are cats more attached to places than to persons? I have taken considerable pains to arrive at a correct answer to this question, and not satisfied with my own judgment and experience, as in the case of pussy’s honesty, I “appealed to the country.” I am happy to find that the opinion of all cat-lovers, nearly all cat-breeders, and the large majority of people who keep a cat for utility, is that cats are as a rule more attached to their masters or owners than to their homes. This question then must be considered as set at rest, and a stigma removed from the name and character of our dear little friend the cat. The popular fallacy, that cats are fonder of places than persons, first took its origin in the days, long gone by, when cats were kept for use only, and never as pets; and it only obtains now among people who look upon pussy as a mere animated rat-trap, and who starve, neglect, and in every way ill-treat the poor thing.
Pray don’t mistake me, reader, I am not saying that pussy isn’t fond of her home, in fact I am going to prove that she is immensely so; but I most emphatically deny, that she ever allows that fondness, to obscure her love for the hand that feeds and caresses her, or the kind voice of a loving master or mistress.
Six years ago, an intimate friend of mine, who “loveth all things great and small,” went to reside for a time with a family in town. A fine blue tabby was an inmate of the same house.
“That cat,” said the mistress, “belongs to the family that lived here before, it has been five times removed, and always comes back.”