Part 2

The story of the intense hatred of the shanghaied cat; his dignified aloofness; his "tabasco temper" over the pranks of the sailors; and his final survival of the wreck, from which, after braving the ocean waves, he reached the shore and gained his freedom amid the mystery of the wild.

MAIDA 99

The strange but true story of the Maltese mother-cat who adopted a brood of white rats, and the record of her disciplinary methods in raising and controlling her alien foster-children.

A MEMORY 109

The tale of Jiminy Christmas, a tramp cat, whose wild and vagabond nature caused him to yield, intermittently, to the call of the open, and to leave, unceremoniously, his protected home of plenty and comfort; his last pathetic return.

THE PICTURES IN THIS BOOK

JIMINY CHRISTMAS: HIS FIRST APPEARANCE Frontispiece

He was probably a graceless vagabond, born in the gutter, with no pretensions to breeding or even good looks.

FACING PAGE

THE GREAT SMALL CAT 8

Although the small stray was minus all signs of pedigree, she held her head high and was accorded the respect and good treatment due a lady.

THURSDAY 34

As she never attained the full stature of an ordinary cat, she always looked but half-grown, but was the very perfection of dainty symmetry, her coat a solid black, almost blue in its depths.

THE CAT 52

Handsome, shining and saucy, the kitten had grown into the most splendid bigness of his race: all muscle and nerve, unusually broad of chest and looking as if bred to the mountain fastness and able to endure all sorts of pioneer hardships.

AÏDA AND SAADI 72

"Oh, lady! You do not suspect us of having seen any of your birds this morning?"

MAROONED 84

Neither disappointment nor ugly temper had broken his fierce sense of injury or his indomitable spirit.

MAIDA 102

In long-suffering patience Maida would stretch herself in a streak of sunshine and survey the riotously incorrigible mites, indulging in their favorite pastime of playing tag all over her body.

JIMINY CHRISTMAS, THE FREE SPIRIT 120

Born free, he kept his own wanton will free from enslavement to the end, living his own life in honor and honesty in an out-doors all his own.

THE GREAT SMALL CAT

Once upon a time, a while ago, during pleasant hours spent in the "land of big cows and small horses," I met one of the most modest of black mother cats, but one with such a pathetic experience in her life as to make her stand alone, not as a cat, but as the cat. At any rate, the story as told by the young ranchman is absolutely true and surely worth the telling, if only to prove that cats are singularly human in their love for their offspring, and are all mother in sacrifice and thoughtful care, giving life itself if necessary in unselfish devotion.

The cat was small, bright-eyed and clean but apparently of the most commonplace and ordinary variety, and not distinguished by any special attractiveness as to species. Still, on hearing the "story of her life" as related by this man, one of her most faithful benefactors, of how she cheated fate and battled with fear and death, conquering every natural antipathy, it made one feel that it was an event to meet her. To encounter such a plain unassuming little creature who had given positive proof of harboring in her small head the brain of a diplomat and of being so surprisingly shrewd, and so gloriously fearless, was an incident of such stirring revelation as to make it of marked consequence.

In telling the story, the cattleman said it was partly owing to the accident of the little mother-cat's being black in color that she was here on the ranch in a little corner that she felt was home and that meant happiness to her. There may be in some out-of-the-way corners of the world, people who still believe in magic and folk-lore and with them the fair fame of black cats ever suffers from that benighted superstition of ancient times, that they are creatures of witches and devils. But the more modern belief makes double reparation for this uncanny ignorance by giving them the reputation of not only always bringing good luck in their wake, but lovers as well.

Larry was squatting upon his heels, his broad back leaning carelessly against the "bunk house," while he gazed reminiscently down over his pipe at the modest bunch of black fur neatly snuggled in the dust at his side, all four paws tucked out of sight, when, in Western cameraderie, I coaxed from him the story I had wondered so much about and longed to hear in detail. As he began to tell me about it in the lazy, good-natured, provincial dialect of the plains, one hand strayed caressingly to the head of the "little pard" and lingered there lovingly while he talked and smoked.