No animal appreciates kindness more than a cat. Witness the gratitude even a poor stray will evince, to any one who may have fed it when hungry.
“Not long ago,” writes a lady to me, “a cat (one of the kind kept as a machine) used to frequent our garden, starved enough, poor thing, as its knotty fur betokened; so, having a trap set in our house to catch mice, and being always more or less successful in catching the vermin, I one day took the trap, with a mouse in it, to the garden, and by dint of very little persuasion, managed to get near this cat waif, and give it the mouse. That was quite enough; it got them ever after, so long as it was in life; and invariably from that date whenever it saw me in the garden, it would come bounding to me. And I am sure, by its dumb delight, it well repaid me, showing that it fully appreciated both the voice, and hand of kindness.” (See [Note D], Addenda.)
It is this same patience in her nature, that makes our domestic cat such an excellent hunter and vermin killer. We all know how patiently she will sit in a corner, and watch for a mouse or rat. She knows very well it will come sooner or later, and she is always rewarded with success. She is the same in the hunting-field, waiting for hours at the door of a rabbit-burrow, till poor Bunny, or some one of her children, peeps out; then, “I’ll have you,” says puss, and forthwith walks it off. Or, hidden under a heather hillock, or a turnip-leaf, she will wait and wait, and never weary, until she can secure a beautiful grouse, or plump little partridge. Witness their patience and long-suffering with children,—this I have already spoken about, and need not repeat,—having proved, in a former chapter, that they not only bear, but even seem to like, a certain amount of rough treatment at baby hands.
Tucker was about the best-natured lump of a cat I ever knew. You might have done anything with him—flung him over the church for instance. If you had, I dare be sworn, Tucker would have alighted on his feet at the other side, and gone quietly off to sleep. No, he was not a particularly good hunter, he was hardly cruel enough to kill a mouse; but he had a spirit of his own for all that, and if you had shaken your finger at him, he would have let you have it straight from the shoulder. (See [Note E], Addenda.)
Tucker used to submit himself, quietly, to be tied up in a towel, and placed in a scale opposite a leg of mutton, or Scotch cheese. He was once sent a distance of thirty yards, trussed up in this fashion, to a shopkeeper’s place, to be weighed. Tucker went through the operation so patiently, that the grocer never suspected till the very last.
“A good solid hare,” he said, feeling the bundle; “but bless me, isn’t he warm? Do you think he is really dead?”
“Err-a-wa-ow,” said Tucker, popping out his head at a corner, as much as to say, “Not just yet, friend;” and the laugh was all against the grocer.
How patiently a cat will wait for her dinner, until every one else is served, reminding you only then, by her loud singing and demonstrative kindness, that there is still a little hole in her stomach that wants filling! And, how patiently sit and wait, and watch for the return of her master or mistress, be they never so long absent! She knows their footsteps, and jumps up at their knock, and runs to the door to meet them.
I know of a poor cat that was for a whole fortnight in a trap. The cruel keepers had left him for all that time, without either food or drink; he was afterwards discovered by his owner, and taken home. Although a beautiful large Tom tabby when he left home, he was reduced to a perfect skeleton. His leg had to be amputated; but he bore the operation without flinching, struggling a little at first only, but giving vent to no expression of pain. He made a very good recovery; but, being one of the mighty-hunter persuasion, as soon as he was perfectly recovered, he hopped off to the woods again. He did not return, however, and for two years was not seen again; but one dark night, his master, on passing through a wood, had his attention attracted by the cries of a cat. The animal was in a tree; and, on the gentleman’s approach, it sprang down, and commenced rubbing round his legs, with every expression of affection and kindness. On bending down to caress it, the gentleman was surprised to find it had only three legs. It followed him home, and he then made certain it was none other than his long-lost pet. It stopped at home for many a day after this, and seemed in no way inconvenienced from the loss of its hind-leg. But travellers never can settle, and puss took to the woods again, and this time fell a victim to the keeper’s vengeance. (See [Note F], Addenda.)
Another cat of my acquaintance was in like manner caught in a trap, and had to endure amputation of the leg; although in much suffering and pain, it bore it without a murmur.