My pursuit of short stories available in the Public Domain has led me to discover a number of very fine 19th Century writers that I did not previously know. One of those writers is Mary E. Wilkins Freeman. I have now read a number of her short stories and will no doubt be reviewing more here. She is a wonderful writer.

Freeman wrote two dozen volumes of short stories and novels. In April 1926, Freeman became the first recipient of the William Dean Howells Medal for Distinction in Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

“The Cat” is a wonderful story from a volume I found at Gutenberg entitled Lords of the Housetops: Thirteen Cat Tales. It is the story of a cat left alone in the mountains for winter. I read it while I was sitting in a snowstorm in Estes Park. It was the perfect venue for the perfect story.

As a cat lover, I have enjoyed all the stories I have read from this volume of cat-related stories. But I think I have enjoyed Freeman’s “The Cat” most of all.

To give you some idea of her style, here are some lines from Freeman’s story:

The Cat had known for a long time that his master was gone, but his reasoning was always sequential and circuitous; always for him what had been would be, and the more easily for his marvellous waiting powers so he always came home expecting to find his master.

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His experience with men had not been pleasant, and neither had the experience of men been pleasant with him. He was an old wandering Ishmael among his kind; he had stumbled upon the house of a brother, and the brother was not at home, and he was glad.

I recommend “The Cat” by Freeman and the collection it comes from. Lords of the Housetops: Thirteen Cat Tales can be downloaded here for free at Gutenberg.