True Stories about Dogs and Cats by Eliza Lee Cabot Follen
page 15 of 46 (32%)
page 15 of 46 (32%)
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she nursed, and took the best care of it.
A friend of mine who killed a squirrel not knowing that she had young ones, took all the little squirrels, brought them into the house, and put them before his pet cat who had lost all her kittens but one. Pussy looked at them for a while; probably her cattish nature thought a little of eating them; but her better nature soon prevailed, for she took them, one after another, and carried them all to her nest, and proved a faithful nursing mother to them, and ere long there was no part of the house in which the old cat and her roguish adopted children were not to be found. What will not cats submit to from a loving child? I have seen a child lie down with a cat for its pillow, and the cat merely move herself a little, so as to bear the weight as easily as possible. A cat can be taught to stand and walk on her hind legs, which seems at first very disagreeable to her. I remember, when I was a child, seeing a Maltese cat come in every morning and wait till my father had finished his breakfast, then, at a certain signal, rise up on her hind legs, and beg for her breakfast, and take just what was given her with the utmost propriety, asking for nothing more. I will tell you a well-authenticated anecdote which I read the other day. A cat had been brought up in close friendship with a bird. Now birds, you know, are the favorite food of cats. One day she was seen suddenly to seize and hold in her claws her feathered companion who happened to be out of the cage. |
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