Chapter Thirteen.
Sagacity of the Cat.
“The dignity of life is not impaired
By aught which innocently satisfies
The humbler cravings of the heart; and he
Is still a happier man, who, for the heights
Of speculation not unfit, descends,
And such benign affections cultivates,
Among the inferior kinds.”
Wordsworth.
I think many of the miseries which the “harmless necessary cat” has to endure in this wicked world of hers and ours would be mitigated if not entirely removed, were we only to take the trouble to study and consider what a wonderfully reasoning and sensible little thing she is. “Leave the study to old maids,” I think I hear some manly (?) reader exclaim. But why to old maids? It is you who are unkind to pussy, and regardless of her comforts, and not old maids. And indeed, indeed now, I never for the life of me could see why any stigma should attach itself to an old maid any more than to a cat. Most of the old maids I have known were very agreeable persons indeed, and I’ve spent many a quiet and enjoyable hour with old maids over a cup of homely tea. My two maternal aunts are old maids, they even plead guilty to the soft impeachment, but cheerier bodies you wouldn’t meet anywhere. They go three times to the kirk on a Sunday, to be sure, and wouldn’t cook a meal on that sacred day for a world. But just see them on a week-day, look at their bright smiling faces—what odds if they do try to appear a few years younger?—and ah! just see them go through the intricate figures of the mazy Reel o’ Tulloch, and hear them crack their thumbs, and cry “hooch!” you wouldn’t say old-maidendom was so very dreary after that. It isn’t always a woman’s fault if she can’t get married: many, whose early affections have been blighted, would not marry if they could, for haven’t they got a posy somewhere, a locket with a face, a lock of hair, and a faded ribbon which erst was bonny blue—relics of lost love, around which cling sweetest memories of the past? Besides, have not unmarried ladies more opportunities to taste the sweets of doing good, and, better still, more time to cherish hopes of happiness hereafter, which are worth a world of wedded bliss?
Cats then, like old maids, are fifty times worse than they are painted, and the reason why people don’t like them is because they don’t understand them. I have at this moment a large and beautiful tabby, and I positively rejoice that that cat is so fierce to everyone but me, because before I got her she was subjected to the most barbarous treatment, neither fed, nor housed, nor watered, and I believe I was the first person from whom she ever got a word of kindness. No wonder that at first she did not understand my meaning. But she does now, though she never will be tame; but if I am asleep she mounts guard on the table near me, and her purring chant is speedily turned into a low, ominous growl if any one but touches the handle of the door. Does she know that I am asleep, and that one in sleep is helpless as regards defence? I’m sure she does, for—
Cats know the nature of sleep in others.—A friend of mine has a pussy, Kate to name, who has been early trained to habits of cleanliness. When Kate wishes to get out at night she goes to her master’s bedside, and mews loudly and entreatingly. To see how she will behave, sometimes her master pretends to be fast asleep, and snores loudly. “Oh!” thinks puss to herself, “this will never do;” so she invariably stands upon her hind legs, and pats his face with her gloved hand. When he gets up, she trots pleasantly before him towards a little window, which he opens for her, and admits her into the garden. The same cat for many years used to seat herself regularly every night on a chest of drawers, waiting patiently till the door of the adjoining cupboard was thrown open for her: this cupboard was a very prolific hunting-ground of pussy’s. When she had kittens, and they were able to eat, she used to bring all the mice to them, and present them with that fond “murring” mew which all cat lovers know so well.
Everybody knows that cats can open doors if left off the latch, and also that they soon get up to the mechanism of the old-fashioned hand-and-thumb latch; they open this by springing up, and holding on to the hand portion with one arm, while they press down the thumb portion with the other foot.
A lady friend of mine has a large Tabby Tom who can open a room door, by standing on his hind legs and turning the knob with his teeth. This is clever, but cats even know how to fasten doors, at least some do; and this same lady was once in a cupboard, when one of her pussies came and turned on the button latch of the door, and made her a prisoner for some considerable time!
In a small village which I know, there is an old woman who lives by keeping lodgers of the more humble description. As these have often to get up and be off early in the morning, the woman always gives them strict injunctions to shut the door when they go out, for fear of thieves. One morning a lodger had forgotten to obey his landlady’s instructions. Pussy, however, had witnessed the infraction of the rule, and walked directly to her mistress’s bedside, and began to mew most plaintively. Nor would she be content till the woman got up, when the cat led her directly to the door. Pussy wouldn’t go out, but so soon as the door was shut, led the way again back to bed, singing. Old women’s cats are nearly always wiser than others—they get more care taken with their training, and more comfort and love. They know all the ways, likes, and dislikes of a beloved mistress, and study them just as they do their own. Indeed, some of the things I have known old women’s cats do are unaccountable in any other way, but the belief that they are possessed of a very high amount of intelligence and reasoning power. No wonder our ignorant ancestors believed them possessed of devils.