HOW SHALL WE REFORM OUR CAT? HER PREDECESSORS, HER HISTORY, HER INFIRMITY. Published in The Independent, June 13, 1861, page 6.
Family Reading: How Shall We Reform Our Cat?
She is by no means one of those uncanny monsters who steal cream, scratch babies, or howl nights.
Far from it. She wins her food from hunting, and the victims of her prowess are found each morning stretched upon the granary floor. Hers is "the hand of iron in the glove of silk" -- the iron grasp for the robbers that steal her master's corn -- the velvet gloves for her master's "young barbarians," and no squeezings, chokings, or other tortures from his two-year old boy have ever induced her to unsheath for him those steal claws.
She comes in from her cat nap in the hay, fragrant with the smell of vernal grass, sometimes hightened by a roll in a ned of catnip. No matter how muddy the ground, her dainty footfall never soils our India-matting. I have no doubt she is a cat of pedigree, did we but know her antecedents.
Her Predecessors
We were not long settled in a country place, with horses and a carry-all, pony and a saddle, a peacock and a dog, when we began to say, like Mr. Sparrow-grass, "It is a good thing to have a" cat in the country. A halfpaced kitten presented to the children was quite acceptable. Said kitten had an unfortunate weakness for sleeping near the kitchen range, and from keeping her brain too hot, I suppose, became epileptic, subject to such sudden and violent convulsions as to be the terror of the family. One day, after assuming all the impossible positions which a cat in a fit will assume, she ran straight up the back of a red-haired girl, who stood innocently peeling a turnip, ran down again, damaging both eyes and nose, and was found shortly after with a broken neck in the coal-scuttle. The children were allowed to bury her at the foot of a rose bush, and thus ended Kitty the First!
Meanwhile we said daily with greater earnestness, "It is a good thing to have a cat in the country," for we found the cellars, pantry, and barns were populous with the Muridae family. At night we heard them scratching up and down in the walls, a racing through the attic like a troop of horse. I fancied visitors came to breakfast with a scared look, and was afraid to inquire if they enjoyed a pleasant night's repose. The cellar floor was undermined and the bricks began to tumble in. I really was afraid the house would fall about our ears like those buildings in Honduras perforated by the horer comojen.
The coachman suddenly demanded a dismissal, and when asked his reason for dissatisfaction, said he had been told the place was haunted, and he heard such tramping at night he would now sleep in the coach-house again for all the master's money! The case was growing urgent. No half-grown kitten could act in this emergency.
We were accustomed at that tome to take a daily drive, for the benefit of an infant contending thus early in life with the whooping-cough, and it became a habit, whenever we drove, to carry a bag for the purpose of capturing some roadside Pussy. We always received the permission of the owner to take any cat we could catch. The order of performance was this : spying one of the purring family, I took the reins, while Jehu, bag in hand, started for the spoil ; presently the flies began biting, the horses began plunging, the baby began coughing, the nurse began screaming, I began signaling, and the panting Jehu, leaving the cat in a high tree, but just arrived to prevent a cat-astrophe ! Learning wisdom from the tings we suffered, I at last gave the bag to a boy, and promised if he would meet us the next afternoon at the same place with a full grown cat, (claws and teeth in good order,) I would pay him a dollar. That did the business. It was with a sense of achievement that I recognized the boy holding the animated bag, as I was full of the pride of possession as it was carefully placed upon the seat beside the driver. Nor was my complacency disturbed by the surprised exclamation of a wayside urchin as we drove slowly along -- "That bag wiggles !" "That bag wiggles !" That the bag did "wiggle" was to me a delightful certainty. How carefully we conveyed our passenger ! How gently we landed her ! How securely we closed the door ! How well we fed her ! How discontented she was ! She made that night hideous with her caterwauling. No being but "a carriage in a strange garret" could utter such emotions. In the morning I opened a shutter to see if the gentle sunshine would not cheer her. She made one dash through the glass, and vanished, whether to those Plutonian regions to which cats in all centuries have been granted access, I cannot say ; but as she shot by me, I thought what a capital pony to ride ! -- how far superior to the best broomstick ! I never saw her again, and this for us was the end of Kitty the Second.
I then said sadly to myself : Alas ! there is no help for me in cats -- treacherous, ungrateful, sorcerous cats. I will seek aid and comfort elsewhere. Our next drive was to the town apothecary. I purchased the most concentrated patented rat poison. I spread it amply upon slices of bread and butter. I cast it abundant in all their haunts. In a state of sublime expectation I awaited the result. That night they seemed to hold madder revels than ever, but I said, without compunction, "It is the last." The next night it was still -- hardly a scratch. The master congratulated me upon a good deed, and I said : How foolish to suffer such annoyance -- such destruction of property, when the remedy lay in a twentyfive cent box !
I was mistress in my own house, and could appropriate groceries to the use of my own family !
Within a few days, and while in this happy state of mind, Judge and Mrs. Treadwedll were announced.
"Did you show them into the library or the drawing-room, Bridget?"
"Into the drawing-room, ma'am."
"Very well ; "and I said to myself: "It is a good thing to have a servant who knows ceremonious visitors from everyday callers. Now this couple happened to touch my bump of reverence more than any of my acquaintance -- not because of their honorable family and great wealth -- but they are gentleman and lady of the old school -- beautiful in their lives, with exquisite sense of proprieties, consistent in all things, refined and elegant, with a slightly formal courtesy. I adjusted my attire carefully, and entered the room. Horrible dietu ! What was this odor that greeted me and mingled with their salutations? I could scarcely comprehend the courtly compliments of the Judge, and my replies were all astray. How could I converse? That intolerable odor seemed to rise stronger every minute from beneath my very feet. My mind wandered off upon soap factories and bone factories -- subjects too abominable for ears polite. After a short interview, in which there was considerably more starch h than sentiment, they gravely took leave.
At once I summoned the factotum of the house. "Aunt Dolly, what makes this room so offensive?
Dere is no mistaking dis 'ere smell, dead rats. Seems some how as if et cum from de carpet. Mus' be under de floor. !"
I was confounded. The carpet was taken up. The floor was taken up. There were found nests as large as half-bushel baskets, in which all the missing bibs, aprons, and dinner-napkins of the last twelve months were mingled in highly fragmented state. I did not stay to see the bloated bodies of my victims, but I was told they were neither few nor small. The same exhalation began to be apparent from other parts of the house, and as the walls could not be taken down, it was necessary to await the slow decomposition of time. However, we found, by staying out of doors all day, and sleeping with the windows all open at night, we could still abide ! Time, which brings relief to all, would bring it to us -- and it did. We returned again to our fireside with "none to molest and none to make afraid."
An unsightly old barn a quarter of a mile off took fire one night, and blazed as magnificently as if it had been a king's palace. For half an hour the flames wrapped its rickety gables in splendor, and we said as we enjoyed the sight, Who dreamed the old barn would fall so gloriously ? We little thought what was coming to us. But it seems there were the barracks of an army -- veterans of the Rodentine Order. Some perished in the fire, others scattered, and we soon learned that one regiment were quartered upon us ! O dolores ! The master walked thoughtfully out, and paced up and down, his hands behind him, looking at the gnawed bags in his granary -- and here I come to
Her History
As he paced, deeply thinking whether he should surrender to the invaders, or stand his ground, a voice said, "Purr-mew, Purr-mew," and looking him in the face was -- a black cat ! She rubbed against his boots, and said plainly as her language could, "Master, I'm at your service. You see I'm a little thin with travel and abstinence, but still able-bodied. Only install me cat of these premises, and I'll serve you well."
The cloud rose from her master's brow, and he replied, "Kitty, I am very doubtful where you came from, but I accept your services. I set apart for your use a basin, with directions that it be brimmed morning and evening with milk from the cow. I will order a door-cut for your especial convenience in passing in and out of the granary. Moreover, I bestow upon you the peculiar euphonious name of Wonks. Now make yourself at home, and conduct yourself like a rational cat."
She understood it all, and entered upon her new duties with vigor. Every morning she laid a dead robber at her master's feet. If he were absent she even condescended to bring it to me or to the baby, but she also singled out her master as her first and chosen object of devotion. Often she has climbed a tree that overhangs the upper piazza and laid her prey beside his bedroom window. She always follows him in the garden like a dog. One evening we walked half a mile, and when we came out after a two-hours' visit, there sat Wonks upon the steps, and trotted home beside us. Her master appreciated these delicate attentions, and often said, "I would rather lose my best horse than Wonks."
Her Infirmity
Spring came, and with it a new pleasure. Our trees were so young, no bird had condescended to build in them. This happy May a robin made her nest in the linden-tree by the dining-room window. We watched the building of the tiny log-cabin ; we watched the still brooding, expectant mother ; we watched cock-robin as he sat upon the highest sprig and sang his finest song for her ; we watched the birdlings as they staggered over each other, unable to walk or fly. The next morning Wonks laid one of them at the feet of her master !!! If "our eldest" had suddenly disgraced the blood of her great ancestor Charlemagne by some atrocious theft, we should have hardly been more dismayed. I fear the sudden impectus that sent Wonks flying a rod or two, was a blow from her master's boot. Candor compels me to say that the stones that followed her thickly and swiftly were from his hands.
All the young robins disappeared. The wings of a tiny yellow wren were found at the foot of the rose-tree that cradled it. A widowed cat-bird sat in his sable dress and sang a requiem for his mate. The gayety of the summer was over. Our birds were mourning.
The more poor Wonks was disgraced and beaten, the more she sought restoration to favor by fresh prowess. At one time when she had tried several days in vain to win one caress from her master's hand, she disappeared -- was gone all day. At evening she sprang into the window and laid in his hand a wild rabbit. She had traveled miles away to the woods to find some worthy offering, and had brought this, thinking it would surely please. The creature's dumb pleading was irresistible, and her master stroked her, saying, "Alas ! Wonks, that so intelligent a cat should know so little ; that one of such excellent intentions should do such mischief."
Another spring has come with its birds. Our morning slumbers are mingled with songs as entrancing as those of Arcadia. A pair of cat-birds are in the lilacs, a robin in the cedar, a thrush in the honeysuckle, an oriole in the white birch. Sometimes we keep a sentinel to guard these nests. SOmetimes we pen up Wonks like a pig. Sometimes we put leather stockings upon her fore-feet. But all means yet devised are quite inadequate.
I have searched Beecher's "Country Homes," but I do not find that this large-brained, large-souled man has yet suggested any mode of coercion or moral suasion by which a cat can be restrained from laying violent hands upon a bird.
Possibly, anyone who would do this, would in some degree advance the happy time when the "lion shall lie down with the lamb." RODENSE.