Throughout nine years of motherhood she went through
the same performance with every kitten she had. They never knew what to
do with the napkins, or cared to know, and would have none of them. But
she never got discouraged. She would climb up on the sideboard, or into
the china closet, and even try to get into drawers where the napkins
were laid away in their rings. If she could get hold of one, she would
carry it with literal groans and evident travail of spirit to her
kitten, and by further groans and admonitions seem to say:--
"Child, see this beautiful plaything I have brought you. This is a part
of your education; it is just as necessary for you to know how to play
with this as to poke your paw under the closet door properly. Wake up,
now, and play with it."
Sometimes, when the table was laid over night, we used to hear her
anguished groans in the stillness of the night. In the morning every
napkin belonging to the family would be found in a different part of the
house, and perhaps a ring would be missing. These periods, however, only
lasted as long, in each new kitten's training, as the few weeks that she
had amused herself with them at their age. Then she would drop the
subject, and napkins had no further interest than the man in the moon
until another kitten arrived at the age when she considered them a
necessary part of his education.
Professor Shaler in his interesting book on the intelligence of animals
gives the cat only the merest mention, intimating that he considers them
below par in this respect, and showing little real knowledge of them.
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