In this nook, secluded from the world which every day swept by without a glance, a constant drama of life went on, which I could see and be myself unseen. I soon became absorbed in the study of it. The actors were of that mysterious race which lives with us, and yet is rarely of us; whose real life is to us mostly a sealed book, and of whom Wordsworth delightfully sings,--
"Think of the beautiful gliding form, The tread that would scarcely crush a worm, And the soothing song by the winter fire Soft as the dying throb of the lyre."
Yes, the cats, whose ways are ever the unexpected, and of whom I am so fond that one of the most touching objects unearthed at Pompeii--to me--is the skeleton of a woman holding in her arms the skeleton of a cat, whom perhaps she gave her life to save.
The builder of the fences at the back of this Cat's Eden very considerately capped them all with a board three inches wide, thus making a highway for the feline race, not only across the back, but from that to each house door. On this private path, above the heads of boys and dogs, they spent much time. This was their Broadway, and at the same time their point of outlook, where they might survey the landscape and decide when and where to enter their secluded domain. How admirable the facility with which these mysterious beasts pass up or down high fences! Ladders or stairs are superfluous. How can one possibly walk several steps down a perpendicular board without falling headlong to the ground? And still more strange,--how can one leap squarely against the same fence, and run right up to the top?
Soon after breakfast on every fair day the houses around began to give up their cats. There were three in whose actions I became specially interested. The most important, and the one to whom I felt the place belonged by right of appreciating it, was a personage of dignified manners, and evidently of rank in his own world, a magnificent silver tabby, the beauty of the neighborhood. Next in interest was a white-and-black cat for whom I had sincere respect because she lived most amicably with two canaries whose cages were always within reach and never disturbed. The third was to my eyes anything but attractive, being a faded-looking gray tabby, who entered the place by a hole under the fence next the apartment-house. She looked ill-used, as if her home life was troubled by bad children, or a frivolous, teasing dog, or a raging housekeeper who left no peace to man or beast.