268 



Handbook of Nature-Study 



An Aristocrat. 



THE CAT 



Tcadicr's Story 



F all people, the writer should regard the cat sym- 

 pathetically, for when she was a baby of five 

 months she was adopted by a cat. My self- 

 elected foster-mother was Jenny, a handsome black 

 and white cat, which at that time lost her first 

 litter of kittens, through the attack of a savage cat 

 from the woods. She was as Rachel crying for her 

 children, when she seemed suddenly to compre- 

 hend that I, although larger than she, was an 

 infant. She haunted my cradle, trying to give 

 me milk from her own breasts; and later she 



brought half-killed mice and placed them enticingly in my cradle, coaxing 

 me to play with them, a performance which pleased me much more than 

 it did my real mother. Jenny always came to comfort me when I cried, 

 rubbing against me, purring loudly, and licking me with her tongue in a 

 way to drive mad the modern mother, wise as to the sources of children's 

 internal parasites. This maternal attitude toward me lasted as long as 

 Jenny lived, which was until I was nine years old. Never during those 

 years did I lift my voice in wailing, that she did not come to comfort 

 me; and even to-day I can remember how great that comfort was, 

 especially when my naughtiness was the cause of my weeping, and when, 

 therefore, I felt that the whole world, except Jenny, was against me. 



