Part 2

At first he showed contrition, but when he discovered the new Tom, who he supposed had assumed his duties in the household, he did not become an Enoch Arden, but, with fire in his evil eye and without making proper inquiries concerning Nellie's unexceptionable conduct, with a great bologna sausage of a fuzzy tail and a fearful shriek for vengeance, he made for Tom Number Two with the speed of lightning, in the stereotyped manner of an outraged husband whose lapses of fealty and so on are forgotten in the greater sin of an interloper.

What might have become of the innocent new fellow was illustrated in the story of the Kilkenny cats, with this difference, that one of the two would have been left on the earth, and it wouldn't have been the new fellow, for Tom was the maddest Cat you ever saw. When the tocsin of war was sounded by the mangy deserter, Nellie sprang for him and there ensued a battle royal. There was war to the knife, from the point to the hilt. The screams of the combatants were terrific, and the dining-room floor was covered with a constantly accumulating mass of Maltese fur. In both the new Tom and Nellie, who, alone, was a host in herself, the mangy Tom found more than his match, and he was beaten, torn, wounded at every point, and a total wreck when he scurried out of the house and took his sorrowful way down the street, toward the dock at the foot of Hubert street. Whether or not he did the best thing he could have done under the circumstances, and went and drowned himself, is more [Transcriber's Note: The remainder of this sentence appears to be missing.] original Tom, by the side of Nellie, never knew him more, for the new fellow thereafter succeeded to his lares and penates and Nellie and he lived happily together until Tom number two was shot by some cruel person. After that Nellie mourned his loss and refused to be comforted with another, although, of course, there were many Toms who would have lain down and died for her. She lived but a short time after the death of her second husband, and died regretted by all of us.

V.

MEMORY AND INTELLIGENCE.

We find, upon looking closely and impartially into our natural gifts, that it is memory that fails and proves treacherous to us more frequently than any other faculty, and as we go on with life, the fact becomes more and more apparent. With the Cat, memory never fails her. The dog may fail to find his way home, particularly the little dog, but the Cat, never.

No more conclusive testimony concerning the memory and intelligence of the Cat can be given to a doubting world than that contained in the following story from the columns of the New York Press. It is also illustrative of the love of persons as well as places, by the feline. It is recited in a straightforward manner, and I have no doubt of its truthfulness. At any rate, if the reader has his doubts, he can readily, at the cost of a few cents, paid to Uncle Sam in postage stamps, satisfy himself concerning the story, for names are given and the address is plain. "Fritz Heath," says the narrator, "is the noble son of a worthy mother, and lives in Syracuse, N.Y. Fritz is a large gray and white tomcat. Fritz and his mother are the proteges of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Heath. Mr. Heath is a telegraph operator in the employ of the New York Central Railroad. Both Fritz and Gyp are cats of unusual size and beauty. Fritz will roll over, jump through a hoop and turn somersaults at command. He also has the habit of jumping up to catch the smooth top of the dining-table with his paws and swinging suspended, while he surveys the prospects of his coming dinner. Two years ago there was mourning in the home of Heath. Fritz had suddenly disappeared. At night Gyp came into the house, sniffed at the basket, which she and Fritz had occupied together since the latter's kittenhood, and walked disconsolately away. The Heath family searched diligently, but Fritz could not be found.

"When two years had passed by, all but Gyp had nearly forgotten the missing member of the household. She could not be induced to go near her basket, which was still kept beside the fire, and persistently refused to be comforted. One night recently Gyp jumped into her basket and, nestling down, began to purr contentedly. A few days afterward the Heaths, returning from an evening call, saw a cat which, in the darkness, they supposed to be Gyp, lying on the doorstep. When the door was opened the cat ran into the hallway and out again as quickly. A short time later Mrs. Heath heard the crying at the door and went down to bring in the homeless cat and give it something to eat. As soon as she opened the door the cat darted inside. When it came to the lighted apartments, Mrs. Heath exclaimed, 'Why, Tom, that's Fritz!' Hearing his name, the overjoyed Fritz bounded into Mrs. Heath's lap, from hers to her husband's, turned somersaults, rolled over and performed all the tricks he had been taught, as if to thoroughly establish his identity or express his pleasure at getting home.

"'It surely is Fritz,' thought the Heaths, and they examined the cat's right ear. It was split. There was little doubt now, but to make assurance doubly sure, a small stick was thrown down the stairs, into the dark hallway.

"'Go get it, Fritz,' said Mr. Heath, and the cat darted down stairs, returned triumphantly with the stick balanced in its mouth, a trick, by the way, common enough with retrievers, but which few cats have ever been taught to perform. After a good supper, the reclaimed Fritz went straight to his basket behind the stove and cuddled down contented.

"Gyp at first gave the intruder a sharp rap with her paw, but at once recognized her prodigal son, fell on his neck and kissed him. Fritz now stays very closely at home, for his two years' absence seems to have given him an increased regard for the family roof-tree."

This wonderful power of memory in the Cat has seldom been surpassed by any other attribute in the feline, but there came under my personal observation the following astonishing proof of the intelligence and motherly love of the Cat for her young, the relation of which will undoubtedly find an echo in the memories of many of my readers.

While residing on Lexington avenue near Twenty-fourth street, New York, I had a Pussy who presented the world with a litter of three as pretty kittens as ever were seen. Their beauty, however, did not compensate for their burden upon the household, because there was no yard to the house. I kept the little ones until they were a month old and had grown to be attractive, and offered them to friends and neighbors, all of whom admired, but regretted that they had neither use nor room for them. So, one day I tied about the neck of each cunning little kitten a bright ribbon, to improve their appearance, and having secured the mother cat in the kitchen, I took her babies in my overcoat pockets and carried them to the Twenty-first street side of Gramercy Park, where I deposited two of them inside the enclosure. I then went around to the other side of the great iron fence and placed the other baby in the park and returned to the house. The day was a cold one in Winter, and the avenue is a very busy one during the day, being well traveled by pedestrians and vehicles, and the park a considerable distance from my residence. Within an hour the mother, who was supposed to be securely imprisoned in the kitchen, was heard by the servant crying in the front area, and upon opening the basement door, I discovered the Cat with her three beautiful kittens, all safe and sound, returned and claiming my protection. How the Cat released herself from her imprisonment in the kitchen, and by what wonderful power she found the kittens, whom she must have brought through the street, at the risk of her life, one by one, is more than I could surmise, and there they were. My admiration of her was such that I took in the brood and continued to care for them a month longer, all the while endeavoring to find homes for the little ones, but with no success. Finally, recognizing the necessity of getting rid of the kittens, I carried out the babies, once more, in my pockets, and deposited them in an area of a house, ten blocks away, in a busy part of the city, near Fourth avenue. This time I made sure of the mother by locking her in a room, but, on returning to the house, two hours later, I found the three kittens there, and the mother looking at me appealingly. Although much disgusted at the determination of the mother, I kept her kittens until I had induced some friends to take them, after telling the story and persuading them that the children of such a mother must necessarily become wonderful Cats.

Illustrative also of the intelligence, as well as the praiseworthy liberality and charitableness of the Cat, is the story in the Sun of Baltimore, Md., of June 22d, 1892, as follows:

"Mr. James Forwood of Darlington, Hartford County, has a cat which has developed an interesting trait. Being kittenless, she adopted as her own a brood of motherless young chickens, which come to her when she purrs, and follow her around wherever she goes. When any of the brood stray into a neighbor's premises the cat follows, and, picking up each chick carefully by the back of its neck, as if it were a kitten, and in the same manner in which she had been carried when a kitten herself, deposits it safely upon its own premises. Calling the chicks to her, the cat lies down and hovers over them as tenderly and as carefully as their feathered mother would have done. The chicks appear to accept the situation and are thriving."

VI.

FRIENDS OF THE CAT.

The unjust prejudice concerning Pussy extant in the United States and England is not common in other lands. In fact, nowhere outside of the two great countries named is the prejudice tolerated. In Arabia, the Cat is worshiped and treated with tenderest care and the consideration which is her due for duties well performed and properly appreciated. Arabians, who have always expressed a great fondness for the feline, in their legends trace back the origin of the Cat to the time of building the great ark by Noah, and they have a fiction that Pussy was sneezed out of the nostrils of the king of beasts, the lion.

Whatever may be the origin of the Cat, one fact is undeniable, which is that she is not indigenous to America. Some naturalists declare that Pussy was brought over to America in a ship, and others have arrived at the conclusion that it was the wild-cat that took passage to our shores on a sailing vessel, and our kind little household pet has evoluted from the wild beast of the denser forests. The tutelary deity of the Cat is Diana, or Pacht, and, according to Plutarch, Pussy was not only sacred to the moon, but an emblem of it, and a figure of a Cat, fixed upon a sistrum, denoted the moon, just as a frog on a ring denoted a man in embryo. Hence Cats were treated with peculiar consideration in Egypt during the reign of the Pharaohs. Throughout Egypt, upon the death of the family pet, the entire household went into mourning, and the Cat's funeral was invariably celebrated with great pomp and impressive ceremonies. The bereaved owners of the deceased feline testified their sorrow and respect for the memory of the lost pet by shaving off their eyebrows. The body was always embalmed, and after the funeral placed in the temple of Babistis, where it was visited at stated intervals by members of the household and mourned over as one of the family.

In the days of Moses and the prophets it was a very serious thing to kill a cat. Diodorus relates a story of a Roman soldier, a man of bravery, who accidentally killed a Cat and was tried, convicted and condemned to die. This sentence was executed as religiously as if the Cat had been a human being. It was, in those days, a common thing to mete out severe punishment for injuries done to the feline, and it is to be regretted that some of the stern laws of the Egyptians, relating to outrages perpetrated upon the innocent animals, have not descended to this land and generation, for the better protection of the person of an innocent animal that harms no one and is of inestimable value to mankind.

The Arabs continue to venerate the Cat. Just out of Cairo stands a mosque, where, in modern times, Sultan El Daher provides all the Cats of Cairo and its vicinity in need of sustenance with a plentiful daily repast. From flat roof and from terrace, from the dusty streets and the multitudes of filthy alleys of the city, and from their thousands of hiding places, the hungry felines come, at the hour of prayer, to get their never-forgotten allowance of food, furnished by their ever-faithful friend of the Orient. It has been declared to be an outgrowth of superstition, but there is justice in the remark, "'tis true, 'tis pity, and pity 'tis, 'tis true," that the superstition exists only in the nobler breast of Sultan El Daher, who feeds his pets, the poor, needy and neglected waifs of other households, then, with a happy heart filled with the glow of a deed of charity well performed, he turns his face to the setting sun and prays for the blessing so richly earned.

Napoleon Bonaparte is said to have hated a Cat with as great a fervor as was expressed by him for his Austrian and Russian foes. In him we have a strong contrast to the great Sultan, although the ridiculous superstition of the great soldier of France has gone into a proverb. Even Shylock, with all his sins and hardness of heart, had a good word for Pussy, and expressed his disgust of a cowardly man by saying, "Some men there are that are mad if they behold a cat--a harmless, necessary cat."

France's greatest Cardinal, Richelieu, was of an opposite temperament to Napoleon, for he dearly loved the Cat. Mahomet possessed a strong passion for the feline, which has seldom been equaled. It is recorded of the immortal prophet that upon one occasion, when a particular favorite was lying asleep upon his sleeve, he cut off the sleeve and left Pussy in a peaceful slumber rather than disturb her rest. Horace Walpole had a favorite Pussy, and when she died he mourned her loss so much that the ever-living author of "Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard" wrote an ode on the death of Salina, the lovely Tabby of his friend. Many world-renowned people of all ages have been noted for possessing large families of Cats, a fact due, in some cases, to a superstition, but generally from an intense love for the innocent, beautiful and useful animal. The author of "The Doctor," Robert Southey, when he lived at Greta, near Keswick, possessed a large number of plump and healthy Cats, which the kitchen-maids nursed and the Keswick apothecary dosed.

In fact, from time immemorial Pussy has been a companion of the learned. Petrarch had his pet embalmed and Andrea Doria, one of the rulers of Venice, not only had his dead Cat's portrait taken, but also preserved her skeleton among his choicest mementos. The Cat of Cardinal Wolsey sat by his side when he gave audience or received princes. Rousseau loved Cats, and it is said of Sir Isaac Newton that he cut a large hole in his barn for his old cat and a smaller one, beside it, for the young kittens. Edgar Allen Poe wrote a thrilling tale of a black Cat, and even the ambitious, bloodthirsty Lady Macbeth alludes kindly to the household pet. Dr. Johnson had a Cat upon which he doted, and being seemingly desirous of perpetuating her fame, he taught her to eat oysters, a feat never recorded of any other Cat in history. Henry James, the novelist, wrote with his Cat upon his shoulder. The effusively polite, sensitively dilettante, conscienceless and steel-hearted Chesterfield had one redeeming trait, which was his love for Pussy, if such a cold-blooded man could be possessed of the faculty of loving. When he died, he left a pension to his Cats and their posterity after them. Paul de Kock, the French novelist, had a family of thirty Cats, and De Musset wrote apostrophes to Cats, in verse.

Chateaubriand was passionately fond of Cats, and when he was sent as an ambassador to the Pope, the latter could think of no more suitable present for the devoted son of the Church than his predecessor's favorite Cat, which present greatly pleased Chateaubriand and cost the great prelate nothing. There is no more familiar figure in the memory of an Englishman than Whittington, once Lord Mayor of London, with his Cat.

The Greek monks of the Island of Cyprus used to train the Cats to hunt and kill the serpents with which they were plagued. In Sicily the Cat is sacred to Saint Martha, and whoever, either by design or accident, kills one, it is believed, undergoes seven years of punishment. In Hungary they believe that a Cat must necessarily be a good mouser, and she is highly prized there for her inestimable qualities.

VII.

SOME REMARKABLE TRUE STORIES.

The delicate movement, characteristic reserve and native modesty of the Cat may account for the supposition of the ignorant and unappreciative that Pussy is stupid. This foolish supposition has been refuted by innumerable instances of her intelligence, which, in many cases on record and thoroughly authenticated, are marvelous in the extreme. I will not delve into ancient history for proofs of the astonishing intelligence of the Cat and relate what is already patent to the world, but will give some of the best authenticated incidents which have occurred within a few years in our own land. Very recently the New York Sun gave an authenticated account of a Cat owned by Mr. Chester F. Hall, of Danville, Ind., who, when she desires to enter the house, invariably rings the bell of the front door and is admitted by the servants. This, I imagine, is an expression of more intelligence than is often evinced by many of the Cat's traducers among the country bumpkins who, with the bell handle under their noses, have frequently been known to knock upon the door for admission to the house.

The camaraderie of dogs and Cats, in every land, has been significantly narrated in every tongue, innumerable times. It has always been noticed that in such associations the dog have always bossed the Cat, demonstrating his arrogant spirit, resulting from his appreciation of the fact that he is the stronger animal and that "might makes right." But within my personal observation this bossism is of a good-natured character, and often amusing. Frequently, too, the canine in the full knowledge of his superior strength, uses it generously for the protection of the weaker comrade, and I propose to give an instance of this fact, together with an illustration of the characteristic insouciance of Pussy, and the sense of order and the amenities of private life as manifested by the stronger comrade.

Some years ago my Skye terrier, "Gyp," had a litter of puppies, and we saved one of them, "Jessie," who was brought up with a pretty little kitten. From Jessie's birth she manifested a great liking for Kitty, and played with her as good-naturedly and freely as if she had been a dog. It is true that Gyp, the mother of Jessie, looked upon this fraternizing with disapprobation, often telling her puppy that she was lowering herself by such close intimacy with the Cat, but the intimacy went on and on. One never saw Kittie scratch or hurt Jessie, nor did the latter ever injure, nor even anger, the Cat. Pussy permitted Jessie to play all sorts of pranks with her tail, and the laughter of the entire household has often been provoked by the seeming cunning little ways of both. Jessie would hide behind the door, and as Pussy came gingerly along in search of her playfellow suddenly dash out upon Kittie, to her palpable consternation, and the two would roll over and over each other, on the kitchen floor, in each other's arms. Neither dog ever interfered with the food set apart for Kittie, nor was there ever a wistful glance at the dainties upon her plate.

One remarkable circumstance, however, proved the dogs' ideas of "the right of domain," and demonstrated the fact that they considered the kitchen the proper place for Kittie. She had always been kept "downstairs," and never ventured to go above the kitchen floor, excepting upon one memorable occasion. The little dogs were permitted to remain in the dining room during the time when the family were eating. At all other times they were at liberty to roam about the house at their own sweet will. One day, the kitchen door being left open, Kittie thought she would make a new departure, and accordingly strolled up the kitchen stairs and into the dining room, tail erect and a "lovely day, to-day" kind of a look upon her smiling face. Pussy's appearance and her nonchalant impudence overpowered the dogs for a moment, and before they had recovered from their astonishment Pussy had pre-empted a soft cushion on a rocking chair, which was the especial resting place of the mother, Gyp, and always regarded as particularly sacred to her aristocratic ladyship. This was too much for the dogs. Every member of the family vacated that chair when Gyp claimed it, and as for Jessie, she never dared to get upon that sacred cushion.

When the dogs had recovered their equilibrium, after their astonishment at the temerity of the "kitchen cat," as they evidently regarded her, they put their noses together and compared notes, after the fashion of canines, and then Gyp and Jessie proceeded to the development of their theory concerning Cats in the dining room. Together they went up to the chair, and each seized a corner of the cushion upon which Kittie had made herself comfortable and at home, and with a suggestion that she was not asked to sit down, deliberately pulled both Cat and cushion from the chair, landing Kittie unceremoniously upon the floor in a very indecorous manner and very much to her disgust. But the affair did not end here. Kittie looked from one to the other of her household companions as if doubting the evidence of her senses, and as much as to ask them if they did not feel ashamed of themselves for treating a lady in such an undignified manner? She cast a withering glance at them and sidled toward the table, as it seeking protection from some one of the family, who were at dinner, and with an injured air sat down at my side. This was altogether too much presumption for the dogs to stand, and their good nature left them as, prompted by the mother, Jessie sidled up to Kittie, who looked at the dogs, appealingly, while they said, as plainly as could be said by dogs, "You are not an upstairs Cat, Kittie--you are nothing but a kitchen Cat, and you have no rights here that we are bound to respect. Go downstairs, like a good little kitten, and the cook will feed you."

To this remark Kittie shrugged her shoulders and refused to budge. Then came the funny part of it, which was not at all funny to the Cat. Jessie edged up to Kittie upon one side and Gyp sidled up to the other side of the Cat, and together they actually pushed her along to the kitchen stairs and forced her to descend to her own quarters on the floor below. Kittie struggled to get away from them and remain in the dining room, but they were too quick for her, and downstairs she went, full of dudgeon, and never after attempted to encroach upon the territory which the little dogs claimed for their own.

This incident did not disturb the friendship existing between Jessie and Kittie, for they continued to be as fast friends as ever, but the Cat, certainly, had an idea that Jessie had been put up to the job by her mother, and I have no doubt that the cunning Jessie told her so.