“'They never could get that cat to notice any one of the family or to come into the house again. Was this instinct?Was it reason? Was it a type of chivalry and grandeur in the animal not yet recognized by man?”
“Some time ago,” said Mr. Webb, “The New York World published a story about a cat that lived in Eighteenth Street, in that city, and was called 'Ears.' The World said of her:
“'She can fetch and carry like a retriever, and when her mistress throws a paper out of a third-floor window, Ears climbs into a basket fixed outside on a pulley, shuts the lid, and quietly lets herself down to the ground. Then she gets the paper, hides away in the basket and mews as a signal to be drawn up. She will play dead and alive and allow the wickedest boy alive to whirl her around his head by the tail. She takes a bath every day of her own accord and rocks herself to sleep on the back of a rocking-chair. The canary that lives in the same house uses her as a riding-horse, and every morning Ears gallops round and round the room with the bird on her back.'”
“I thought cats didn't like water,” said Charley, “and never took a bath except by accident.”
“They dislike water very much,” replied Mr. Webb, “as their fur has very little oil in it to resist the effect of moisture. I knew a cat at the Wawayanda Club, on Great South Bay, Long Island, that used to go into the water to catch small fishes; she didn't seem to mind the wetting, or rather she cared less for it than for a fish dinner. I read recently of a mill on a stream in South Carolina, belonging to a man named Pruitt. Pruitt owns a large cat that, as soon as the mill is stopped, by shutting down the gate, will immediately run down behind the mill and get on a log just over the sheeting over which the water is flowing. She will then look intently into the water, which is from eighteen inches to two feet deep, until she spies a fish; she then plunges into the water, frequently burying herself under it, but almost always coming out with a fish. She then sits quietly down on a rock near by and enjoys her meal.
