Weeks more have passed, and now we are in the city. Life is so quiet and happy that I don't seem to have much to think over! We eat, sleep, have a good time, and, looking out the window at the snow and ice, pity the poor cats who have no comfortable homes. That is our only trouble—Slyboots and mine. She stood the journey back to the city remarkably well, and as the days go by we become firmer friends than ever. I even proposed a while ago to have her sleep in my bed, but she said, “Black-Face, you aren't half grown up. Us cats want our own bed and our own food-dish. Don't mix too much, or you'll fight. We're better friends apart.”
Mona laughed when I told her this, and said there was much truth in it. She and Dolly are both well, and enjoy long walks every day with Mr. and Mrs. Denville. Mona says it is all nonsense to say a dog can not be kept healthy in a city. Good food and plenty of exercise will keep animals in condition anywhere, unless the air is poisonous, and she says Boston air is as good as any air.
Little Mary is much brighter and better for her visit to the country; and her parents are planning to take her to the country again quite early next spring. Mr. Denville is going to have a furnace put into the farm-house, so that they won't feel the cold. Just now Mary and her mother are very busy getting a Christmas box ready for the farm.
Della and the boys almost broke their hearts when little Mary left them, and Slyboots and I are lost in admiration of the beautiful and useful presents that are going into the box for those children.
With all their care for the human beings, for the Denvilles do much for the poor children in Boston, they do not forget the animals. The animal refuge where I was taken when I was a lost pussy, is to have a joyous Christmas. Mary is going to help decorate a Christmas tree for the cats, and the dogs are to have some new drinking-fountains, and a sum of money which will go to the rescue of suffering creatures who would otherwise perish in the streets.
Mrs. Denville says that if boys and girls are kind to cats and dogs and other creatures, they will be kinder to each other. She says we should all protect something weaker than ourselves.
As I lie on my cushion on the window-seat I watch the crowds hurrying across the Common and think this over. Suppose all the people were kind to each other, suppose all the cats, and dogs, and sparrows, and pigeons and squirrels on the Common were well-fed and happy, what a beautiful spot this Beacon Hill would be. Those people are not all kind. I can tell by their faces. If I were a human being, I would try to do something to make them smile on each other.
I am only a little cat, and all I can do is to be nice to Slyboots and the dogs, and the dear family in this house, and in my parents' house. Serena is the light of that home now. She is more beautiful than ever, and more dignified. No one here knows of her troubles in the country, and she is a leader in cat society on the Hill. My mother and father are so proud of her. She never tries them now by being affected or conceited. She says she doesn't want to go to the country again, but she is glad that she went this time.
The Denvilles had a great joke about her when she left them for her old home. They did not understand. Many things in the cat world are hidden from human beings. We suffer, and rejoice, and scheme and plan pretty much as the higher order of creation does. If only more people would take the trouble to study us. Serena says there is a whole book of cat psychology waiting for some one to open it and read aloud. Her theory is that all created things should work together, from kings to earth-worms. She says they were started to accomplish great things in unison, but some wicked people threw things out of joint. She is preparing a lecture on the subject for the Beacon Hill Angora Club. I am to have a ticket.
I hope everybody in Boston is going to have a pleasant Christmas. That is a foolish wish, Slyboots says, for everybody can't—Well, then everybody that can, just as many as possible. Some day, I may have some more adventures to think out. Just now there's nothing to tell except that we haven't anything to tell, and we're all very happy and wish the whole world were the same.