Excerpt from A Spinster’s Leaflets: Wherein Is Written the History of Her Doorstep Baby
Kittery is another kind of cat. She is not only a fine mouser, but she can pounce upon a rat and kill it quicker than an authorized terrier; and she goes out at night, like a nineteenth-century Donna Quixote, to right the wrongs of the neighbors and mount guard over their corn-bins. In the morning, when her watch and ward are over. She comes and taps three times on my window. And I rise and take her in for a nap on the warm foot of my bed, at a little personal inconvenience. It is but a small reward for her scientific services, and a cheap way of showing regard for my townsfolk. I have known scores of human beings who were less neighborly and infinitely less interesting as individuals than she.
At table I set a chair for her. And she waits with composed dignity and the air of a trusted serving-maid until I push back my own chair and serve her myself by the kitchen fire. Occasionally she so far forgets her manners as to put up a beckoning paw which never touches the table; but one shake of my head reminds her that she holds her place for life subject to good conduct. And so she stands. Or rather sits, just behind me, alert but not eager, biding her time. With Cattery it is far otherwise. IV hat she cannot effect by stealth, she accomplishes by effrontery. Not a window, not a door, escapes her stretched neck and prying claws. She demands admission in a poor-relation sort of way, and takes it when refused even if her progress be partly stopped with the broom; a humiliation that she never recognizes nor resents.
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