Front Cover

This version of THE ALLEY RABBIT by James H. Penniman was taken from the original book published in Boston by Richard G. Badger of The Gorham Press and copyrighted 1920.

THE ALLEY RABBIT is possibly the most loved book about a cat in the English language, and the readers who requires no more information at this point will not be disappointed to discover the author's gems of language and of love for themselves.

Transcription of THE ALLEY RABBIT is by The Pomfret. The original book is 59 numbered pages. The illustrated title page and 8 black-and-white photographs are included here. Portions will be posted as quickly as Mr.Donut can step on the"Publish Post" button. Information about the author is posted at the end of the book.

Please note that the last four sections of the book are not missing! They carry over from section Pages 45 - 49. Readers anxious to read the last part first should click on "Pages 45 - 49" which will take them to the final sections. The Pomfret apologizes for undertaking the project with only minimal skills in the art of HTML. Thanks to all for reading this great little book!

Pages 1-8

A LITTLE fuzzy creature called to Mary one evening from the top of a wall, putting its small head as close as possible and talking in a low sweet voice. The waif had a story to tell, it was experiencing the hardness of the world without being embittered. It was a mere bag of bones covered with moth-eaten fur whose dingy white was so nearly the color of its gray spots, that it presented a uniformily neutral tint. Its tail, a tufted bone, was about twice as long as its body. It followed Mary home and soon after its arrival a rat came out from behind the range. The small cat sprang after it and they circled the kitchen in a blur of speed and fur until the rat had a head-on collision with the coal hod. The cat pounced upon him and the career of Mr. Rat came to an abrupt but not untimely end. For this heroic act the cat was permitted to remain, though we are in doubt whether he has given himself to us or annexed us for his own purposes.

He was so experienced in the ways of the world, that it was not until his increase in size became noticeable that we realized that when he came he was only a half-grown kitten. We estimate his growth by the length of his tail. I have said that when he came it was a tufted bone twice the length of his body. It is now not quite as long as his body, plump, beautifully feathered and ringed and he manages it with extreme grace. When walking along the tops of fences he uses it as a rope-walker does a balancing pole. Gray remarked of his cat Selima:
"Her conscious tail her joy declar'd."

Pages 9-10

We can tell when and to a limited extent what our cat is thinking by the way he flirts his tail, for his spinal cord forms a direct wire from his brain to the tip. We thought of calling him Tommy Tucker, because he cried for his supper, or Oliver Twist, because he kept asking for more, or Rip Van Winkle, because he came down from his mountain on top of the shed as dazed as if he had been sleeping for twenty years, or Slickster, because of his resourcefulness in attaining his object, but we finally decided on Raoul, because that was what his cat friends called him when they hailed him from the back fence.

The expression micat inter omnes has a growing force for Raul is the smartest thing we have ever seen on four legs, and as we get better acquainted with him we are impressed with the idea that he is a super-cat, for we always are learning how he surpasses other cats in power of attention, in affection, in all those qualities which make the cat the silent companion of work and an active gamboling play fellow. Thoreau has written -

"How well behaved are cows! they do not obrtude, their company is acceptable for they can endure the longest pause. They have not to be entertained."

It was after reading this passage that George Eliot wrote -

"Animals are such agreeable friends, they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms."

How much difference there is betwqeen Thoreau's great cud-chewing cow and a little fluffy cat, and coming down to cats, how infinitely superior is Raoul to all others. To be the Boswell of such an animal is an intellectual recreation, for Raoul is the Samuel Johnson of cats. Boswell's favorite occupation was to study Johnson and observe his habits, his gestures, his cries, his fits of joy and anger, and how he devoured his dinner. In an ordinary man or cat these things would be commonplace and uninteresting.

Pages 11-13

Raoul is built something like a kangaroo; his long hind legs enable him to spring high in the air, landing accurately where he wishes. For a small animal his muscles arre extremely powerful and his bones are arranged at angles which make him a living catapult.

He is cautious about leaping from a height and will go around a considerable distance, rather than jump and when he does jump, he carefully selects the place where he is to land. He slides down fences on his back shins thus breaking the force of his fall. He can pull out his lithe body like an accordion, stretching it to almost twice its normal length. He has short fore legs, padded feet which give him a stealthy tread, and claws which keep sharp because they are retracted into sheaths.

Dr.Huidekoper says that the cat's claws are sharper and curved into stronger hooks than those of any aother animal. Raoul makes up for his paws being an awkward substitute for hands with which to scratch his ear, by the ability to wink his ear as Tennyson says a goldfish winks his fin. The inside of his ear is iridescent like mother of pearl and the opening is protected from foreign substances by think hairs. Raoul can scratch the top of his head with his hind leg. If I could teach him to scratch with all four legs at once, he would make a substitute for an electric fan. He is fond of sleeping with his hind paw stuck in his ear.

All that we do with tools he must do with paw and mouth, if he does it at all. His tongue is at once soap and sponge, and comb and brush. The center of his tongue is covered with fine spines which feel like sandpaper when he licks your hand. He licks his cushion in order to free these comb teeth from the hairs which accumulate on them. His neck is so sflexible that he can twist his head around like an owl and he can stretch his neck so as to reach any part of his body. His neck muscles are exercised by cvonstant languacuring, for Raoul goes over and over himself, as I go over a manuscript, licking himself into shape. He pushes out his neck and his tongue at the same time, and drawing them back together starts over again. This process enables him to lick with the grain of his fur. He consideres himself an animal of importance and spends hours working on his fur to make it accord with this high standard of living. His hair is always short and his whiskers trim, though he has no barber. His soft fur is both winter overcoat and nightgown. When he changes to his summer underwear, it is a dangerous time, for though he is not likely to take cold, he may have his digestion impeded by a hair ball. He is perpetually moulting the softest gray and white films, like cobwebs. The number of his hairs is beyond belief. I pick them off my dress clothes at dinner parties. I shall have to get either lighter clothes or a darker cat, and it will be easier to change my clothes than my cat.

Pages 14 - 18

Raoul has a furry tail which he wraps around his feet in cold weather, a possession not to be despised. He has a pink nose and mouth and little white teeth. We wonder how he keeps them so white without the use of a tooth brush. The pink nose indicates health, when he is ill it grows white. They say that the cat's whiskers show him in the dark the width of space he can go through, though the wonderful accomodation of his eyes enables him to see by the faintest light. Raoul can contract his upper lip so that his whiskers point straight ahead. His eyes are well protected by a heavy formation of bone, by thick furry outer eyelids and by inner eyelids of skin. I have never seen such keen eyes in any creature but man. They are greenish yellow with a vertical black slit which widens as the light falls till the transparent velvety black swallows up all the yellow and you can look into the depths of his cat soul. When he is playful, they are like black coals full of mischief. Then look out, for with the most kittenish intention he might scratch you. He has never done this to me, but I am wary when he lies on his back with his paws in the air and challenges me to what the Rollo books used to call a game of romps. Much philosophy, both human and animal, is contained in the proverb, "If you play with cats you must take cats' play."

Zola says of his cat:

"I read nothing in the glassy transparency of those eyes which open like bottomless holes, like wells of pale clearness where burning sparks are swimming."

and he adds

"His pale green eyes are fixed with a steady stare on an unknown world."

The confidence and affection of a little animal are not to be lightly esteemed, for his presence in a household cultivates gentle kindly feelings. "If you can't find the towel, wipe your hands on the cat," is a sign in a printing office and indicates how little consideration is shown cats, for no creature is less understood and appreciated. However fond you might be of petting, you would not enjoy being waked from a sound sleep by it, yet that is the way people treat cats and then complain that they are indifferent. The cat is a nervous highly-strung animal, easily frightened, but responding readily to gentleness and tact. He has a great deal of vanity and his feelings are easily hurt. At times Raoul seems to say, "I thought I was one of the family, but you have made me realize that I am only the cat." He will purr with delight in the library because he is proud to repose on his cushion and help me write. He regards his society as a compliment and sits on the floor with dignity and looks up at us at the table, as if he thought himself at least our equal and very likely our superior. You must adapt yourself to Raoul's moods for he will not serve yours. When you have learned how to do this he is a charming companion, for he has exquisite tact and a delicate sense of propriety. I will not say that Raoul has as many moods as a woman has. Raoul's moods are well defined. At times he carries on with a high hand or shall we say paw. When Raoul is languacuring himself he is so busy that he has no time to purr when his back is stroked. At other times he purrs so hard that he squeaks. He laughs when he is played with and pricks up his ears when spoken to. He has an affectionate mood when he makes the advances, purring and rubbing against my legs, arching his back, rubbing his little pink mouth against my hands. Truth compels me to add with reluctance that he rubs with just as much affection against the table leg and the chair. Raoul is then most appreciative of attention, likes to have his neck scratched and expresses his gratitude by licking my hand.This is common among dogs, but extremely rare among cats. At other times Raoul merely tolerates caresses or moves away out of range. He has a playful mood when he runs after his ball, bounding in the air and sending it around the room with quick dabs of his paw. This mood is usual after eating and seems to be for the purpose of aiding digestion. His most habitual mood is one of slumber or of placid Nirvana. With Raoul sleep is a systematic occupation. He goes at it carefully and deliberately after elaborate preparations. Stevenson tells us that during bad weather on the voyage to America the Indian servant of the Master of Ballantrae stupefied himself by some drug, and this seems to be what Raoul does when it rains, for he then lies dormant the livelong day. He will sleepon his cushion from ten in the morning till late afternoon, but every time you look at him, you notice that he has shifted his position. He is also not infrequently watching you through a squinted eye. When he seems asleep, without opening his eyes he will purr when he feels me near him. This is one of the most charming things he does.

Pages 19 - 24

No animal gives so cheering an exhibition of the joy of living as the cat. The joy of the dog is active and obtrusive; that of the cat radiates from passive content. A cat is the only animal that makes a special noise to indicate gratification and pleasure, for purring is used for no other purpose. The dog has a whine by which he expresses delight, but he also has a similar whine which he gives when in pain. I am told by a friend more learned in cats than I am, that sick or injured cats sometimes purr in delirium. What sound is more comforting than the purring of a cat. It has been called humming speech. Raoul has purrs of various gears, the lowest being one which he can use when asleep. When he purrs as he plays he is at once organ grinder and monkey.

Raoul's language is different from that of ordinary cats. He has a gentle voice which may indicate any emotion of his cat mind by the tone in which it is used, for he can express as much by "mew" as Mr. J.M..Barrie says Tibbie, who was not an animal but a person, could by "ou."

"Ou," said Tibbie.

I wish I could write "ou" as Tibbie said it. With her it was usually a sentence in itself. Sometimes it was a mere bark; again it expressed indignation, surprise, rapture; it might be a check upon emotion or a way of leading up to it, and often it lasted for half a minute. In this instance it was, I should say, an intimation that if Jess was ready, Tibbie would begin.

If in our conversation we were restricted as the cat is to the use of interjections it would hamper us immeasurably in the pursuit and retention of knowledge. Mark Twain, who was a careful observer of cats, wrote:

"You may say a cat uses good grammar. Well a cat does - but you let a cat get excited once, you let a cat get to pulling fur with another cat on a shed nights and you'll hear grammar that will give you the lockjaw. Ignorant people think it's the noise which fighting cats maked that is so aggrivating, but it ain't so; it's the sickening grammar they use. You think a cat can swear. Well a cat can."

Raoul hails me from afar when he sees me at the window, and at night, when I whistle for him at the back door. I hear an answering cry in the darkness and he comes scrambling over fences from a great distance, telling me where he is all the way. There is a gratifying sense of superiority in whistling and having a faithful animal arrive at full speed. This pleasure is not always enjoyed by the owner of the cat. Raoul has found out that if he cries at a door he can have it opened. He makes an outcry to get out and an incry to get in. He knows that a door is opened by the handle and stands on his hind legs and tries to grasp the knob in his paws. When I open the door for him he thanks me with a little mew. He has other ways of expressing himself besides his voice, for he is a master of eloquent gestures. Mr. Roosevelt says that the lion at bay lashes from side to side with his tail, but when he charges he holds it erect like a flag, and I have observed tht the same is true of the cat. Raoul speaks a language which we do not always comprehend, but he understands us and obeys when it suits his convenience.We must have hurt his feelings during the early days, for we often spoke of his dingy shabby appearance, so one day he brought in a beautiful tiger cat for the sole purpose of showing us how superior he was in intelligence and amiability to that splendid animal. It was the only occasion on which he tolerated another cat in the house. Mary understands Raoul better than anyone. The other day he was wailing loudly in the yard. He had been fed and as I coult not understand what else he wanted, I put him in the cellar which is the only punishment I inflict on him. When Mary came home she said that all he wished was to be played with. Raoul called to mary to take away the brick that uncovered the hole in the back yard. A few minutes later she heard him crying, "Mary, get me out, get me out." She found that he had grown so large that he could not squeeze through the hole, as he had been in the habit of doing and he was stuck and could not go either way. She was obliged to pull vigorously at his hind legs in order to extricate him. Raoul climbed on a pile of books and mewed, Mary said he wished to have the door opened so that he could play by putting his paw through the crack. This is one of his faorite amusements because when behind the door he imagines that he is in ambush. I thought he was fond of looking at himself in th4e mirror over the mantel until I found out be accident that he really was furtively watching me in the glass.

Raoul started for market with Mary, but when he had gone two blocks he was frightened by a trolley car and fled across the street, whence he cried to her not to forget his fish. Raoul, with gleaming eyyes, watches Mary prepare every meal, not missing a single thing she does, and we think he is learning to cook. He tries to say "Mary, if you had any idea how much I love you, you would immediately give me an egg." Raoul knows at all times what is going on in the house, and whenever there is the slightest indication of food being served he appears as if shot up through a secret trap in the floor.

One of Raoul's favorite resting places is the seat of my bicycle whence at his ease he commands a view of the whole kitchen. Mary says that he inspects the hats and coats in the hall and so keeps himself informed as to who is in the house.

Pages 25 - 30

Raoul has what few people have, but which is an imortant factor of success - an organized system of life. He sleeps on a chair in the kitchen at night, in the morning he is most affectionate until he is fed, then he asks to go out. When he returns he plays around until Mary goes to market, when he accompanies her as far as the corner with leaps and bounds, and remains under a porch till she comes back. Then he goes to his cushion in the library and sleeps till afternoon. Raoul has at times boundless curiosity, when in this mood he makes a careful investigation of everything in the house. This is usually after breakfast and supper. He will jump on the mantel, look at himself in the glass, move among ornaments, and go under furniture in pursuit of imaginary mice. He is loose jointed and walks with sinuous curves as if treading on velvet. His correlating the movements of his hind legs so as to wind among china and glass on the edge of a shelf, is as wonderful a performance as anything at the circus.

Raul likes to get on my desk and rustle around my papers which he does in a dainty careful way without disarranging anything except the little strawber4ry pin-cushion once red but now faded brown with age. Mother told me it was on her mother's bureau when she was a little girl. If Raoul can send this pin-cushion spinning with a dab of his paw, it gives him great delight. He notices any new thing that has been placed in a room and noiselessly and delicately investigates it. Every book added to a constantly growing pile in a corner of the dining room he goes to as soon as he comes in, climbing over the other books without disturbing them in any way, though they might easily be knocked down. Hamerton says that the cat has the most refined sense of touch in the animal world. One morning while I was at breakfast, Raoul was sitting on a chair when the clock on the mantel struck, wishing to investigate this he sprang four feet in the air, coming down like a snowflake on a small vacant space, which he had carefully measured with his eye; a remarkable feat, when we consider that on the mantel are vases, china teapots, books and other things which might easily have been knocked off. He spends a considerable time aiming himself before he leaps.

Raoul is naturally refined and always had good manners. He has a system of etiquette which he carefully observes. Though very hungry he will sit quietly and watch me eat and gently remind me when I have finished that it is his turn now. This is politeness and not docility, because, if h3e is not fed when he thinks he should be, he calls attention to the fact with vigor, though never forgetting his manners. He would like to spring on the table or get on my lap, but he makes no attempt to do so, when there is food on the table. He is unable to comprehend a strangely unreasonable being who keeps looking at his newspaper when he might be eating meat. When the hungry sheep look up and are not fed they are as nothing compared to a hungry cat, whose persistent affection at such times no sheep could possibly equal. Raoul does not get hungry, he just stays hungry, but at times he is in a condition when you must either feed him or kill him. Then he cares no what happens to him, he will run under Mary's feet and trip her up in his efforts to attract her attention.

An animal trainer who made a study of the comparative intelligence of animals has written: "The cat in sheer brains stands next to man. He has the adaptive intelligence3 that makes him equally at home in parlor or wild woods and gets him a living anywhere. A cat can think faster, and take care of himself under more difficult conditions, than any other living thing except man."

Owing to willfulness which makes it difficult to teach him anything, the cat's intelligence is underrated. Patience and perserverance are characteristics of the cat. If you wish to obtain a correct idea of his intelligence and persistence, try to keep him from doing something that he has set his heart on, or to make him do something that he does not wish to. I have seldom seen a more sheepish looking man than a shopkeeper on Tremont Street in Boston, who was trying to keep a small cat out of his store. He put the cat on the sidewalk, but when he went in the door the cat rushed past him with a scream like nothing feline and was in the store before his master, if the word master may be applied to a man in such a case. The cat is an egotist, incapable of looking at things from any point of view but his own. His apparent selfishness is largely due to his e3xtraordinaty concentration. He will focus his mind for hours on a rat hole. Ability to pay attention is the surest sign of intelligence in an animal and this is the test trainers use in selecting animals to be taught tricks.

Raoul is a careful observer. When he enters a room, he goes around it and makes a thorough inspection. His senses are wonderfully acute and he knows when a dog or a cat or a mouse is near long before I am able to perceive it. His power of diagnosinfg what is going on on the other side of a closed door and who are in the next room is uncanny. Raoul's ability to adapt himself to circumstances and to adapt circumstances to himself rises above mere instinct and closely approaches genius. Every place that he occupies is carefully selected with regard to his comfort or intentions. If the sun is shining he will bask on the roof. When there is a wind he shelters himself behind the fence. If there is a cool breeze on a warm day, he knows where to find it. He can sleep on top of a narrow fence, but he mjuch prefers his cushion in the library. He will not sleep on the cold ground or floor but selects a dry board, a table or a chair. In cool weather he curls up to keep warm, in warm weather he lies stretched out at full length, so that a skillful observer could form an idea of the temperature of a room from observing the posture of the cat.

Pages 31 - 37

That cats think there can be no doubt. You can see Raoul judicially weighing in his mind the comparative advantagesof a cushion by the fire or of the lounge in the library. He will go to the register to see if the heat is turned on and when he finds that it is, he will carefully select the most comfortable place in the room and compose himself to sleep. Cat lovers have even gone so far as to try to make a barometer of the cat. If he washes his face to the west it will be fair, to the east it will rain, if he is restless the wind will blow - so they say. Raoul is an accurate observer of the weather and of natural phenomena. Hel loves to watch the melted snow drip from the shed. The spring sun shines all over the roof, but he selects a spot where he has the added heat of the rays reflected from a wall at his back. Raoul likes to lie in ambush in a bower of leaves whence he can observe the sparrows. He sleeps with his paw over his eye to shut out the light. When Raoul found out that we did not like him to sleep in the parlor, he stopped it and received credit for obedience until we learned that Mary had put pepper in the chairs. Raoul will sleep soundly while a carpet is being laid, the noise of the doorbell or telephone does not disturb him at all, but the smell of cooking or the slightest scratching as of a rat will arouse him at once. By day his favorite place is on the trap-door of the ventilator over the gas stove in the back kitchen. Here he is master of the situation, for nothing can be cooked without his knowing it. He seems to have an idea that Mary made the ventilator for his especial benefit and that I had it covered with mosquito netting to keep him out. Some day he will fall through wrapped up in the netting like what Kipling has described as a "blaspheming cocoon."

Raol makes up his mind quickly and carries out his purpose like a flash. He usually has a definite plan of operations which he is quick to modify as circumstances demand. Yet I have seen him waver on the roof of the shed undecided whether to take a rather long leap or go round b the fence. He has an excellent memory for that which he considers of importance. He suddenly left me one night and went off to sleep on a cushion up stairs which he had observed that morning and kept in mind all day. He will wait patiently at a door until it is opened and then go directly to some comfortable place int he upper part of the house which he may have selected hours before. When he is waiting in a closed room, he is usually pointed in the direction he intends to go when he can get out. He spent an afternoon apparently dozing on a shelf in the back kitchen, but the result of his meditations was that he devised means, as yet unknown to us, of scaling the high refrigerator and prematurely consuming his supply of fish. Raoul had a mental reservation, something was on his mind, he paid little attention to what ordinarily interested him and when he haed an opportunity sneaked up stairs and composed himself to sleep in my bed. When he saw that his purpose was found out he tried by allurements to be allowed to remain. When gently evicted, he showed pique which lasted for days during which time he would not come up to the library. He afterwards resorted to every known feline wile and to some hitherto unknown to us which he probably invented to accomplish his purpose of spending the night in my bed. He ran the risk of dogs in order to come in late with some one by the front door and make a dart up stairs. When he entered by the back door he diesregarded his supper and tried to steal up unnoticed, when I carried him down he squirmed and twisted and wailed.

The confidence of the cat is hard to gain, though he recognizes intuitively one who is in sympathy with him. Raoul flees in terror from people with brooms, but he will sit on the railing of the porch and play with me while I make passes at him with a broom. You can have charming little conversations with strange cats if you know how to approach them delicately without frightening them. R.L. Stevenson, who touched nothing that he did not adorn, has given this account of a chance meeting with a cat when he was a boy.

"One melancholy afternoon in the early autumn, and at a place where it seems to me, looking back, it must always be autumn and generally Sunday, there came suddenly upon the face of all I saw - the long empty road, the lines of the tall houses, the church upon the hill, the woody hillside garden - a look of such a piercing sadness that my heart died; and seating myself on a door-step, I shed tears of miserable sympathy. A benevolent cat cumbered me the while with consolations. We two were alone in all that was visible of the London Road - two poor waifs who had each tasted sorrow - and she fawned upon the weaker and gambolled for his entertainment, watching the effect, it seemed, with motherly eyes. Long ago has that small heart been quieted, that small body (then rigid and cold) buried in the end of a town garden, perhaps with some attendant children. She will never console another trembler on the brink of life - poor little mouse, bringing dstrength to the young elephant - poor little thing of a year or two, ministering to the creature of near upon a century. For the sake of the cat, God bless her! I confessed at home the story of my own weakness; and I owed a certain journey, and the reader owes the present paper, to a cat in the London Road."

The disposition of a cat is easily injured by harsh or careless treatment. You cannot be intimate with a little creature who is afraid of you. Companionship is possible only where there is confidence. Even the most savage old Tom will respond to kindness, but it takes generations of well treated cats to produce the ideally sweet tempered animal. Cat fanciers devote their entire attention to breeding cats with beautiful fur and coloring and pay no heed to the temper of their cats and yet intelligence and affection are surely more desirable than fur.

A cat needs companionship as well as food; he will ask for it and go about the house to seek it. Raoul considers his society at all times desirable and agreeable. He may be too busy to respond to my attentions, but when I do not comply with his wishes he reiterates them with insistency and emphasis. He gets up on the table, gently pushes my book aside and lies on his back with his paws folded like a trussed chicken (trussed chickens awlays fold their paws) and a self-satisfied smirk on his face. This is a broad hint tht he wishes me to scratch his neck. He tries to prevent my studying by lying down on my book and I must keep my box of manuscripts covered up or he will get into it and tear them up with his claws.

Five o'clock in the morning is evidently his lonesomest hour. It is then that he exerts every force of his cat mind and body to get out of the kitchen and to steal up to my room. About once a week I am awakened by a little mew and Raoul jumps into bed and cuddles as close as possible, purring with all his might. He knows that there is no food there for him and he comes solely for companionship.

Pages 38 - 44

I came home one night and looked int he kitchen. Raoul was not at home. The house was empty and the doors locked. I went to my room in the third story and was reading when the stairs began to creak, some one was coming up. I seized an eight pound dumb bell and stood in the entry prepared to let the burglar have it as soon as he was within range. The noise came nearer until with a friendly "wow" Raoul appeared. How did he get in? The side cellar windows were open but screened. The Professor had ordered the front window opened, but no one could get to it because it was banked with the winter's supply of coal. The Professor had told Mary that there must be a current of air through the cellar and if the window could not be opened to throw a brick through it. The next morning when I went down cellar, Raoul harangued me from the top of of the coal bin, explaining that that which we could not do he had done, for he had pushed the window open. One of his cat friends was waiting outside. Raoul was much excited and would run out and talk to his friend and come back and talk to me; looking down on me from the top of the bin. From that time he used the front cellar window as a regular means of entrance and exit making his white paws black by going over the coal. His use of this window shows an extraordinary sense of location, because to reach it he must go in half a block up the street and come all the way under porches. We thought it might be necessary to explain to Raoul the next spring that the front cellar window had been opened and that he could now go in and out as he used to. Not at all, he knew it as soon as we did.

It was decided that Raoul should spend our vacation with Mary's sister Rose, and he was packed in a basket for the journey. To make it as agreeable to him as possible sardines of which he was at that time very fond were also put in, so that he might regale himself on the way, but so strong is his power of association and so unpleasant to his cat mind was that trip in the trolley that he now refuses to touch a sardine. He cried lustily while shut up in his basket throughout the long journey to Rose's house and as Harry, the husband of Rose, was getting off the car some one thrust a tract in his hand. Supposing it to be a religious paper, he put it in his pocket. When he had time to read it he found it was against cruelty to animals. Raoul made himself very much at home with Rose. He first explored the house from top to bottom. On the second floor was a mysterious closed room, but he had his suspicions as to what was within. Rose took him in the parlor so that he might look out the window and get accustomed to his new surroundings, and before she knew it Raoul had his head in a bowl of goldfish from which Rose pulled him dripping. Up to this time, the only fish he had seen was a canned sardine so that he must have been impelled by atavism or at least catavism. Raoul politely asked Rose to be allowed to go out the front door, but she was afraid that as he was new to the neighborhood he might not return. He then spoke so sternly to her that timid Rose opened the door. Raoul went out and after a while asked to be let in again. The mystery of the closed room was constantly in his mind and at ten o'clock one morning some of the children left the door open. Soon there was a thud and shortly after Raoul came down stairs with yellow feathers in his mouth. He had jumped at the hanging cage, and bird, cage and cat had come down in a heap on the floor. It was not until afternoon that Rose had the courage to go into that upper room for she expected to find there the fragments of her bird. What he did find was the tailless, but otherwise unhurt canary perched on top of the window.

If Raoul had deliberately started out to create a riot he could not have done so more completely than when driven into a tree by a neighbor's Scotch terrier. He emitted foghorn howls at intervals of a minute, causing people to come running as if to a fire, and making it necessary for a colored man to climb the tree to get him down. Ordinarily silent and demure, on this occasion he cut loose.

Mary has taken two of his nine lives. One by placing pans of chloride of lime in the cellar, which Raoul mistook for milk, with the result that for a day he lay around eating nothing, and hardly able to lift his head. The other life she took by sprinkling him with insect powder which he licked off. This had the same effect on him as the lime. After being flea-powdered Raoul became so white that Mary said he had been dry cleaned. With the first cold weather Raoul, whose experiences were limited to the summer caught a severe cold. He could not purr and his mew became a faint squeak. I greased his nose with vaseline and he retired to the roof of the back kitchen. When he saw me again he came down and tried to rub the vaseline off on my golf stocking. When I saw Raoul stealthily approach a neighbor's cat, Francis, and bite his tail, I thought it a clever performance, but when Raoul came in some days later with his own tail badly chewed I said Francis had played Raoul a scurvy trick. When Mary put dioxygen on his sore tail, Raoul gave one of the loudest howls ever heard in West Philadelphia. He is constantly receiving small injuries from other cats so that we say to him -

"Raoul, Raoul, beware of the day
When the tomcats shall meet thee in batle array,
For they'll chew your ears and scratch your face
And bite you in most every place."

We need a cat strainer on the back door to prevent the friends of Raoul from making a feline bee line for his fish bowl. One of them has broken a pane in the back kitchen window by trying to jump through it from the fence. On St. Patrick's Day Raoul succeeded in painting a portion of himself green from the front porch wnere the painters had been at work. He showed his belief in early shopping when on the third of December he presented us with a fine mouse as his Christmas offering.

Raoul has only inherited instincts and his limited individual observations to take the place of literature and education. He has small means of communicating with other cats and profiting by their experience. He takes a philosophic interest in investigating how water comes out of a spigot and where it goes to, this he will study for an hour at a time; how hot air comes from a register and how sound comes from a clock or a speaking tube. Great was his joy when he figured out that the speaking tube in the library communicates with that in the kitchen. When I am using the telephone he jumps on the table and puts his fuzzy head as close to the receiver as he can get it trying to listen in..

Pages 45 - 49

He is our shipmate for the voyage of life, day and night he will never go more than a block away from home. His world is our back yard, about as big as a pocket handkerchief, the yards on the other side of the alley are his universe. Raoul seems able to tell time with considerable accuracy and usually appears from parts unknown within a few minutes often at night. If for any reason he is delayed and gets locked out he is most contrite in the morning and tries to apologize, but he loves his home comforts and rarely allows this to happen. One night Raoul was literally out on a tear for in his efforts to get in he tore down the mosquito netting which Mary had carefully nailed up in the back shed and Mary said if Raoul is on a tear let him rip. He is more than a mere animal, he is a personage who must be reckoned with, quite able to impose his views and wishes upon one. He evidently has appointments with other cats and he will sit by the door and do his best to explain that he has an important engagement, and must go out. If I refuse to open the door he will argue with me and try to tell me that he has an inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Raoul is a true sportsman and takes an active interest in the sparrows, rats, mice and grasshoppers which constitute the wild game of his domain, not so much that they are good to eat but that they are exciting to hunt. There is little in the ferae naturae of his realm that Raoul does not sooner or later catch. He has just called me into the yard to view a large dragon fly, probably the first he had ever seen. Raoul wished to be admired and complimented on securing the unusual prize. He has the same feeling when he catches a grasshopper that I have when I pick up at a bookstall a rare volume on George Washington. But he does not manifest it the same way. Raoul's joy at catching a small rat was expressed by bounds three feet in the air. Hearing a scurrying in the dark kitchen, I thought Raoul had caught an enormous rat but on turning up the gas I found him in active pursuit of an empty pea pod which he batted around with his paw, scampering after it. This shows how frivolous he can be when he is in the mood, though there are times when he takes himself seriously enough. Raoul respects me as a mighty fisherman for he seems to think that I obtain cans of salmon by vigilance and activity as he does rats. In two years Raoul has caught many rats and mice, but only two sparrows. If he should catch the robins which nest in our trees it would cause us much sorrow, but the robins seem perfectly able to take care of themselves.

During the winter when Mary tossed snowballs in the air for Raoul to catch she little knew for what useful service she was preparing him, but he showed the value of his training when in the spring, a bat got into the house and the cat sprang four feet in the air and brought him down chattering. The closet under the stairs is Raoul's jungle and every few days, he asks to have it opened in order that he may explore it for mice.

Cats are not mentioned in the Bible, but the book of Baruch in the Apocrypha states that upon the bodies and heads of the idols of the Babylonians sit bats, swallow, birds and cats. "By this ye may know that they are no gods." It is better, however, for the cat not to be noticed in the Bible than to be referred to with the contempt that is there expressed for dogs. Hieroglyphics of from 1700 to 2400 B.C. mention the cat. An Egyptian tablet of 1500 B.C. now at Leyden represents a cat as a domestic pet sitting under a chair. One of the most ancient of recorded cats is Bouhaki the cat of King Hana. It wore gold earrings and is represented at Hana's feet in the statue at the Necropolis at Thebes. We read that the cat was dedicated by the Egyptians to the moon, probably because he sings to the moon. When the family cat died the Egyptians had him embalmed and shaved their eyebrows as a sign of mourning. There are few more amusing stories of antiquity than that which represents the inhabitants of a burning house striving, not to put out the fire, but to prevent their cats from rushing into the flames.

Pages 50 - 58

The best that Shakespeare can say for the cat is that it is harmless and necessary; two important qualities now that some ornithologists are making attackson on our little friend. Shakespeare also speaks of the poor cat in the adage that let "I dare not wait upon I would." A witch in Macbeth says "Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd." We have witch cats but we also have hell hounds and the dogs of war. Dr. S. Weir Mitchell describes cat-mares, a form of nightmare. On the other hand cats have been famous for valuable services performed, among them are Whittington's cat and Puss in Boots, the faithful Servant of the Marquis of Carabas. There are various proverbial expressions about cats, such as "A cat may look upon a King," a "cat's paw" and the modern "pussy footing." There is a curious connection between the sayings "Buy a pig in a poke" and "Letting the cat out of the bag," for he who bought a small pig in a poke might find on opening the bag that it contained a cat. Some of the wisest persons of all times have written of the cat. Among them are the historians Herodotus and Froude, and the fable writers Aesop and La Fontaine. There is a note book in which La Fontaine copied all his cat fables for the Duchess of Bouillon. Sir Isaac Newton is said to have had a large hole cut in his door for the cat and a small one for the kittens. Scholars such as Erasmus and Montaigne have been the friends of cats. Dr. Johnson bought oysters for his cat Hodge.

The greatest number of literary cat artists is found among the poets, - the list is a long one and includes such shining names as Chaucer, Shakespeare, John Gay, Matt Prior, Goldsmith, Thomas Gray, Robert Herrick, Heine, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Southey, William Cowper, Wordsworth, Swinburne and Matthew Arnold. Tasso wrote a sonnet to his cat. Byron had five cats at Ravenna. Essayists like Hamerton, Charles Dudley Warner and Miss Repplier have given charming descriptions of cats. Some of the most delicate appreciations of the cat have been written by Frenchmen, among them are Theophile Gautier, Pierre Loti, Alexander Dumas and Emile Zola. In order to enjoy the society of his cat Gautier used to come home early from evening parties.

Great prelates hage been entertained by cats. Pope Leo XII gave Chateaubriand a cat called Micetto. Cardinal Richelieu enjoyed the gambols of kittens which he sent away when they reached the age of three months and replaced by others. He thus missed opportunities for the very interesting study of the development of the cat's intelligence. It is said that the mind of the cat is not fully matured until he is four years old and all his life a cat is learning. Cardinal Wolsey's cat sat in an arm chair by his side. Mahomet cut off his sleeve rather than disturb the sleep of his cat Muezza. Christopher Marshall says in his Diary, August 26th 1779:

-Buried my poor cat this morning that was sick sometime past. I set great store by her."

There will always be people who are agitated by the fear that the ice has not been properly boiled. Such persons are like the young lady who was moved to tears by seeing a hatchet sticking in a rafter in the cellar for she feared that if she got married and had a child and the child went down cellar the hatchet might fall from the beam and kill it. It is the fashion now to discredit the cat. They tell us that he loves places more than he does people, that he has no conscience and no gratitude, and that he carries disease germs. In one paragraph they tell us that cats do not catch rats any more and in the next they complain that cats torture rats I may be prejudiced but it is my opinion that if there is any animal which deserves no sympathy it is the rat. Rats and mice are the weeds of the animal kingdom, as the cactus is the monkey of the vegetable world. Kate V. Saint Maur says: -

"A cat is a much better safeguard against rats and mice than the best trap."

and that has been our experience. One small cat has entirely freed our home from these pests which rat poisons and traps used with expensive energy and for a long time had utterly failed to do, causing us to make this modification of the old parody -

"O Raoul, in your hours of ease
Uncertain, coy and full of fleas,
When rats and mice kick up a row
A feline rat trap then art thou."

Cataphobes have evidently forgotten their New England Primer which says

"The cat doth play
And after slay."

and the picture represents the cat in pursuit of two rats, for they would have us believe that a five cent rat trap will beat any cat alive and tell us if we must have pets to keep guinea pigs or rabbits which will not kill birds. Andrew Lang calls the cat a charming animal, the friend of literature and of men of letters but if any one has said anything of this kind about the guinea pig it has not come within my notice. Wordsworth wrote a beautiful poem about the kitten, playing with falling leaves, but even he could not make any literary use of the guinea pig. Longfellow has described in "The Birds of Killingworth" a campaign waged against birds by enthusiasts like those who would now exterminate cats -

"Ill fared it with the birds, both great and small,
Hardly a friend in all that crowd they found,
But enemies enough, who every one
Charged them with all the crimes beneath the sun."


and he calls the ensuing slaughter the very St. Bartholomew of birds.

As a menace to health there is certainly nothing that can be said of the cat that is not equally applicable to the dog, and the cat is in many ways superior to the clumsy, blundering dog, who knocks down everything he touches and brings dirt into the house. The cat does not have to be exercised. He goes out, roams around the neighborhood and comes back at the proper time and of his own free will. What other animal of any kind can be relied upon to do this? When you return after an absence of a week or two, your dog greets you with effusive affection, indeed he would do the same if you had been away for only an hour. The reserved cat conceals his feelings, but if you are a close observer he will show you for days in charming subdued ways that he remembers that you have been away and rejoices at your return.

I am by no means indifferent to the nobler qualities of the dog but I am now holding a brief for the cat. It cannot be denied that much of the advantage which dogs have over cats is due to the fact that people take bretter care of their dogs than they do of their cats. Those who neglect cats are responsible for the damage done by cats. Neglected cats should assemble under their windows and sing: "You made us what we are to-night, we hope your're satisfied."

There are to me few sadder passages in literature than that in which a great man of letters whom I love and admire too much to name in this connection, tells of permanently leaving his home in the country. As the carriage drove away it was pursued by their five cats who followed as far as they were able and then sat down on top of a hill outlined against the wintry sky and mournfully watched their owners disappear in the distance. What became of those cats?

Page 59 End

Raoul died May 17, 1920, aged four years

Good night, Raoul,
Your little day has faded to its close,
You've charmed us with your merry play
And now that I put out the light,
You purr "Good night."
Sleep well, Raoul.

Good night, Raoul,
Your little life has all too quickly passed,
Your graceful limbs are still in death,
Your topaz eyes are closed.
Rest well, Raoul.

Back cover

Notes

A Google of "James H. Penniman" reveals that he was associated with libraries and collections at the University of Pennsylvania, Yale University, and Indiana State University, and with the Concord (MA) Free Public Library. In addition to The Alley Rabbit Pennington authored "A Graded List of Common Words Difficult to Spell" in 1899. He was a prolific pamphleteer, and among his works are George Washington, All-American Athlete, George Washington at Mt.Vernon, George Washington as Commander in Chief, The Gold Service Star, The Mosque of St.Sophiea at Constantinople, Due Debt to France, What Lafayette did for America, and Philadelphia in the Early Eighteen Hundreds. The Pomfret regrets that her Google did not yield more specific information about Mr. Pennington but welcomes those with closer associations to his institutions to offer more information, and for a qualified biographer to bring his life and work to modern readers.