“Have you ever tried to bind him to his home with love and affection?” said mistress. “I have found in my experience with animals that it will forge a chain far stronger than iron.”
The lady said she would speak to her husband, and I am sure she has, for after that Nap had his meals more regularly, and he was free to roam where he pleased; and he proved himself very useful to the old hens in helping to keep strange cats out of the yard, while their chicks were small.
One Sunday morning when mistress was out in the yard with us, Nap came over to our fence barking for joy, and peeping in at us between the pickets. He seemed so happy to be at liberty. Mistress had brought a lunch out for us, and she offered him some of the meat, which he devoured greedily. I was glad to share my breakfast with him, for having known Dennis so long, I cannot help feeling very friendly toward all dogs.
But Budge and Toddy evidently did not care to share their meat with Nap, so they did what cats often do when they meet with an unpleasant surprise; they sang a song. Budge’s voice is a baritone, Toddy’s a tenor and mine a soprano. But I did not join them on this occasion.
I suppose you have often listened to cat concerts, and perhaps you have wondered why cats’ music is always so sad and doleful. The reason for this is that cats sing only when they are sad or in trouble, when they are contented and happy, they purr.
As soon as the song was ended, Napoleon began to whine, and thrust his nose between the pickets again. I think he wanted more song, but Toddy evidently thought he wanted more breakfast, for the moment his nose was well through between the pickets, Toddy made a lunge for it, and this proved to be Napoleon’s Waterloo. Before he could withdraw, his nose was a perfect network of scratches, with blood oozing out of them like so many small beads.
After Napoleon had retreated, mistress called us into the house, but in the afternoon I went out there again and jumped over on Nap’s side of the fence into the tall grass. But the old speckled hen drove me back with her cackle as she had often done before. She probably thought I was another naughty cat like Buttercup who stole her chickies; but, really, I was only looking for grasshoppers. Now, although I am not much acquainted with Napoleon, I have given him a place in my book, because I want my readers to stop and think how cruel it is to keep a dog chained all the time, and to leave him without his regular supply of food and water.
I will now tell you about Bunny, a little Manx cat that came to our house every evening at supper-time. She did not offer to stay only just long enough to get something to eat. Guy named her “Bunny” because she has only a little stump of a tail, and when running she would raise her back just like a rabbit. I think Bunny must have come from the same country that Jack did, for she was the same kind of a cat, only she was gray, just like Budge. In fact she resembled Budge so much that we were all horrified the first time we saw her. We thought it was Budge himself, and that some one had cut off his tail.
But while Toddy and I were busy smelling of the stranger, and mistress was bewailing the sad fate of her pet, in walked Budge, tail and all, carrying in his mouth a dead sparrow, which he laid at mistress’ feet with a great deal of pride. Then Toddy and I left off examining Bunny and turned our attention to the bird.
Mistress often used to say she wondered where Bunny got the rest of her meals, and where she kept herself; so one evening after Bunny had eaten her supper, Guy and I followed her; and what do you suppose we found? We traced Bunny into a vacant lot, and there under some shrubs was a little cave, dug into a bank of autumn leaves. This was Bunny’s home, and in it she had living with her five as chipper and lively little Manx cats as one could wish to see. Guy interested Don and Teddie in the little Bunnies, and the two boys brought them food mornings and noons; so that thereafter they had three square meals a day. The boys also found good homes for them as soon as they were old enough to leave their mother.