teddy roosevelt on "the lone cat of the camp"

I've posted before on excerpts from Theodore Roosevelt's letters to his wife and children. They evidence a robust, jolly personality, not surprisingly. What does always make me sit up and take pleasant notice is the tenderness with which he speaks of animals - mind you, even though he was a huntin' fishin' shootin' type. I think back then the two mindsets were more readily able to coexist.

Here he is in Lousiana in 1907, writing his son:

DARLING QUENTIN: When we shifted camp we came down here and found a
funny little wooden shanty, put up by some people who now and then come out here
and sleep in it when they fish or shoot. The only living thing around it was a
pussy-cat. She was most friendly and pleasant, and we found that she had been
living here for two years. When people were in the neighborhood, she would take
what scraps she could get, but the rest of the time she would catch her own game
for herself. She was pretty thin when we came, and has already fattened visibly.
She was not in the least disconcerted by the appearance of the hounds, and none
of them paid the slightest attention to her when she wandered about among them.

You'll see more of what I mean when you look over this page, complete with his funny, nimble drawings.