mal, of the sex which
votes (but not a pole-cat),--so large and powerful that, if he were in
the army, he would be called Long Tom. He is a cat of fine disposition,
the most irreproachable morals I ever saw thrown away in a cat, and a
splendid hunter. He spends his nights, not in social dissipation, but in
gathering in rats, mice, flying-squirrels, and also birds. When he first
brought me a bird, I told him that it was wrong, and tried to convince
him, while he was eating it, that he was doing wrong; for he is a
reasonable cat, and understands pretty much everything except the
binomial theorem and the time down the cycloidal arc. But with no
effect. The killing of birds went on, to my great regret and shame.

The other day I went to my garden to get a mess of peas. I had seen,
the day before, that they were just ready to pick. How I had lined the
ground, planted, hoed, bushed them! The bushes were very fine,--seven
feet high, and of good wood. How I had delighted in the growing, the
blowing, the podding! What a touching thought it was that they had all
podded for me! When I went to pick them, I found the pods all split
open, and the peas gone. The dear little birds, who are so fond of the
strawberries, had eaten them all. Perhaps there were left as many as I
planted: I did not count them. I made a rapid estimate of the cost of
the seed, the interest of the ground, the price of labor, the value of
the bushes, the anxiety of weeks of watchfulness. I looked about me
on the face of Nature. The wind blew from the south so soft and
treacherous! A thrush sang in the woods so deceitfully! All Nature
seemed fair. But who was to give me back my peas? The fowls of the air
have peas; but what has man?

I went into the house. I called Calvin. (That is the name of our cat,
given him on account of his gravity, morality, and uprightness. We
never familiarly call him John). I petted Calvin. I lavished upon him
an enthusiastic fondness. I told him that he had no fault; that the one
action that I had called a vice was an heroic exhibition of regard for
my interests. I bade him go and do likewise continually. I now saw how
much better instinct is than mere unguided reason. Calvin knew. If he
had put his opinion into English (instead of his native catalogue), it
would have been: "You need not teach your grandmother to suck eggs." It
was only the round of Nature. The worms eat a noxious something in the
ground. The birds eat the worms. Calv