This is no fancy picture. It is taken from a photograph of a real cat with her adopted family of chickens. The lady who made the photograph, and kindly sent it to St.Nicholas, tells this story in an accompanying letter:
“The owner of our good-hearted puss raised a great many chickens; and out of each brood of fifteen or twenty, when but a few days old, several were quite likely to be weakly, and not able to follow the old hen around with the rest of the brood.
“These weak little chicks, therefore, were carried into the house, and put with the cat on her cushion by the fire. Though at first somewhat surprised, she soon cuddled them up and purred over them with apparent pleasure and pride; and when she had looked after them for a day or two, she did not take at all kindly to their removal.
2008-11-25