Depositing him in my neck, she stood
and looked at me, as much as to say:--
"There, you can take him awhile. He cured me and I won't be selfish; I
will share him with you."
I was ill for three days, and all that time the kitten was kept with me.
When his mother wanted him, she kept him on the foot of the bed, where
she nursed, and lapped, and scrubbed him until it seemed as if she must
wear even his stolid nerves completely out. But whenever she felt like
going out she brought him up and tucked him away in the hollow of my
neck, with a little guttural noise that, interpreted, meant:--
"There, now you take care of him awhile. I'm all tired out. Don't wake
him up."
But when the infant had dropped soundly asleep, she invariably came back
and demanded him; and not only demanded, but dragged him forth from his
lair by the nape of the neck, shrieking and protesting, to the foot of
the bed again, where he was obliged to go through another course of
scrubbing and vigorous maternal attentions that actually kept his fur
from growing as fast as the coats of less devotedly cared-for kittens
grow.
When I was well enough to leave my room, she transferred him to my lower
bureau drawer, and then to a vantage-point behind an old lounge. But she
never doubted, apparently, that it was the loan of that kitten that
rescued me from an untimely grave.
I have lost many an hour of much-needed sleep from my cat's habit of
coming upstairs at four A.
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