They love a hearth-rug quite as
well as a cat does. A cat and a woman always come home to the
hearth-rug. But there is very little mental exhilaration in a
hearth-rug. Lots of comfort, but little humor. The real excitement of
life, at least to a cat, is when in a morning stroll abroad she goes
out of her sphere--the hearth-rug--and meets some feline friend to
whom she extends a claw, playful or otherwise; or possibly meets some
merry puppy which induces her to move rapidly up the nearest tree with
an agility which you never would believe the mother of a family could
boast if you had not been an eye-witness to the interesting scene.
Such an encounter will not induce her to want to stay up a tree. It
only makes the safety of the hearth-rug more inviting. Now, if she
always remained on the hearth-rug, how could we tell, should the
hearth-rug be invaded in the absence of her natural protectors, that
she could defend herself? For my part, I am glad to know, when I leave
her, that she is not so helpless or so sleepy as she looks. It is a
great thing to know that a cat's tree-climbing abilities are not
hopelessly dormant. It does not make her purr the less when she is
stroked. Her fur is as soft, her ways are as gentle as they ever were,
and as she lies there so quietly upon the hearth-rug she looks as
though she never had left it.
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