I know a lady who is very fond of cats, and when out walking or shopping in town, it is quite a usual thing for her to be accosted by some poor half-starved waif or stray, and very often she goes into a shop and buys food for them, for which, no doubt, they are grateful, and for which, no doubt, she will one day receive her reward from Him who careth even for the humble sparrows. This lady was passing a house one time where a poor cat was confined, the usual occupants having gone to the seaside, and left pussy shut up in the empty house. As soon as she stopped at the door of the house, the cat’s cries were quite pitiable to hear. As soon as this lady left the door, the cries ceased, only to be renewed whenever she returned. But pussy did not make the same noises when others stopped in front of the door.
A Cat deserting one Home for another.—A tortoiseshell-and-white cat, belonging now to a friend of mine, came into his possession in rather a singular way. The cat was originally the property of a neighbour of my friend, whose house was on the opposite side of the street, and about thirty yards off. There she stayed, apparently perfectly contented and happy, until she became the mother of four kittens. Then, for some reason or other known only to herself, she determined to shift her quarters, and one day my friend was astonished to see Kate, as she was called, march into his house with a kitten in her mouth, which she deposited in a safe and comfortable corner, and then set off for the others, which she brought one by one. Remember this, the cat had never been in my friend’s house before! Kate’s kittens were taken back again to her old home, and Kate marched them all over again to the home of her choice. And this was done every day for a whole week.
“It’s no earthly use, you know,” Kate seemed to say. “What I says I means, and what I does I sticks to.”
And so my friend had to adopt both Kate and her family, previously having failed in an attempt to starve her out, for Kate had adopted a system of house-to-house begging, but always came home in the evening.
This cat for fourteen years used to sit patiently on the arm of her master’s chair until dinner was done and she was helped.
It is exceedingly rude, I know, to doubt a lady’s word, but can you believe what follows? ’A lady assures me that she has such an inexplicable and innate antipathy to cats, that if she enters a strange room she can tell at once if there is a cat there, whether she sees it or not. And if a cat is carried suddenly into a room where she is, she “faints dead away.”
Another lady friend of mine, who is very fond of animals of all sorts, while living down in Brighton last October, was hastening home one evening just about dusk, when she suddenly found that she was not alone, but accompanied by some little black creature, which, immediately she came under the gas-lamp, she found was a poor little stray kitten. As this wee puss bounded into the house as soon as the door was opened, of course she believed it belonged to the house. Going to her bedroom to dress for dinner, there was little Miss Puss sitting on the bed singing, and apparently perfectly satisfied with her new quarters, for the lady soon found it did not belong to the house.
Pussy was treated to a saucerful of milk, and then sent adrift out into the street, chased out with a broom, in fact, for the housemaid hated cats. This kitten didn’t mean to be put off like this, however. She stopped out all night, certainly, but quietly came in with the charwoman at five o’clock in the morning, and came directly to my friend’s bedroom. There is no getting rid of a cat when it once concludes to board itself upon you, and this little waif soon established herself for good at Ashburnham House. But here is the strange part of the business. She seemed to know that my friend Mrs W. was only a visitor here, and constantly showed great discretion, by sticking close to her apartments and back-yard. Just once she ventured down to the kitchen, and the old residential cat bit a piece out of her ear. “If that is how you treat visitors,” said kitty, “I’ll stick to my own rooms in future.” And so she did.
It is sometimes rather a difficult thing finding suitable apartments when you are accompanied with pets. It takes considerable tact, I can assure you, to convince Mrs ’Arris, or whatever is the name of your intended landlady, that your Newfoundland is so clean that you never can see even a hair on the carpet; that your Pomeranian is an angel in canine form; that your Persian cat wouldn’t steal, if surrounded even by the most tempting viands; that your macaw doesn’t scream loud enough to give all the terrace “an ’eadache;” and that your white rats never escape and run all over the house. Mrs W. had some difficulty about her kitten when she went to the lodgings she had taken at Norwood.
“I certainly did expect,” her landlady observed, “a lady with birds, and a mouse, and a very large dog; but a cat I couldn’t have, because I’ve one of my own.”