CATS
A FELLER which had took a unfurnished bed room in a lodgin’ house, he said one evening to a friend which had called on him: “Now I got my room, and I have bought this bed and chair, but my money has give out, wot am I to do for a water pitcher, and a lamp, and a hair brush, and other little articles of luxury such as a man of refined taste likes to see about him?”
Then his friend he spoke up and said: “Just give me that old cat and come along o me, and we will get all them things mighty quick.”
So they took the cat into the back yard of a other house and pinned her tail to a cloes line, where she swung free to the sport of the wind and owled awful! Then the fellers friend he said: “Now we will get plenty water jugs, and lamps, and hair brushes, and old shoes, and all things which is nice. All we got to do is just hide ourselfs till they come down like manna from Heaven.”
They stayed all night till the cat had singed herself into the better land and they was most froze, and no manna. While they was a lookin up to a window a feller in his night shirt opened the window and looked out for to see the sun rise. Then one of them said to the shirt feller: “It is a nice mornin, gum dast you!” But the man at the window he didnt say nothing. So the other feller he hollered: “How do you like music, old stick-in-the-mud?” but the man didn’t say nothin a other time. Then the feller which the cat was hisn he shook his two fists real terible and hollered: “Ile get even on you for this, you darned thief!”
The man in the house took notice and went away from the window, but pretty soon come back with a enormous ear trumpet, which he stuck in his ear and leaned out and shouted: “What?”
Old Gaffer Peters, which has got the bald head, he had a big Maltese cat, and the cat had a hole in its ear. One day it come in to Mister Brilys meat shop, which is the fat butcher, and Jack Brily, he catched it and shut it up. But first he cut off its ear which had the hole in it. Bime by Missis Doppy, which is old Gaffer’s daughter and has a red head, she come in for to buy sausage meat. Jack he sneaked the cat earinto the sausage meat and Missis Doppy she took the meat home, but Jack he said, just as she left the shop:
“That is the dandiest sausage meat which we have ever made, you look at it when you get home, and see if it aint.”
When she was gone Jack he shut the cat up in the box which catches the ground up meat as it comes out of the machine, and waited. Pretty soon Missis Doppy she come boilin in, real furious, and handed back the meat and showed Jack the cat ear with the hole in it and said: “Young man, do you know what that is?”
Jack he looked at it a long time, and then he said: “Looks like it might maybe be a washer off of some kind of machine. Where did you get it?”
Missis Doppy said: “I got it out of that meat. You made our cat in to sausage, you wicked thief!”
Just then old Mister Brily come in and asked what was up, and while Missis Doppy was a weepin and sayin what a mean man he was Jack said: “I dont see how that cat could get in the machine without our guilty knowledge, lets see if we can find the other ear.”
So he flang open the box of the grinder and the cat jumped out, and made a dash for the door and most knocked Missis Doppy down and busted out of the shop like it was a whirl wind, and scampered up the street, toward home, you never have see such a circus! Missis Doppy she fainted dead away and Mister Brily he hurled a beef bone at Jack, which dodged and walked away, a singin about war with its wide dissolution.
But Mister Pitchel, thats the preacher, he says it is wicked for to poke fun at the women, cause they cant poke back. Mister Pitchel he can pray real fine, but if me and Billy was preachers I rather be a pirate like Rinard the Red Revenger, which declaimed war with the whole world and had ships and a castle and no goin to school.
When cats is roarin like distant thunder it makes a feller awful fraid unless he is a sleepin with his sister.
The pig it is a native of the Holy Land, and dogs is French, but cats is known from the earliest times and can pur. Missis Dumberly, which has eleven children, she was to our house, and she said, Missis Dumberly did, that she just couldn’t bear cats. Then Uncle Ned he spoke upand said: “That is mighty lucky for the mice.”
Missy, thats my sister, she doesnt like cats too, but girls is quadderpeds and cant climb trees, and when they are mad they spit and swear and hunch their backs up like they was camomiles.
Cats and taggers is the same thing, only the tagger he is bigger and can thrash the lion, and is the king of the jingle. If I was a tag Ide rather be a rhi nosey rose, for the rhi it has got a sticker, and when it fights the ephalent it jabs its sticker in to the stomach of the ephs belly. And that is why the cracky dile says: “Suffer little children to come into me.”
Ephalents was one time used in battle, but once when the king of Rome was a chargin with ten thousand hundred ephs the enemies they turned loose a ton of rats, and the ephs all fled amain as one man! The king of Romes neck was broke and ephalents have ever since pursued the arts of peace and eats pea nuts. Mister Jonnice, which has the wood laig, he was one time a soldier in the war, and thats the way he got it, cause the enemies they shot it off with cannons for to keep him from runnin away. But he says he done some mighty good hoppin.
Mose, which is the cat, and Bildad, thats the new dog, they are good friends, but when Mose is give a saucer of milk Bildad he jumps in and swallers it in 3 or 4 gulps. Then he looks around at Mose, like he was astonished, and shakes his head, much as to say: “Well, well, if I had knew there wasnt no milk in that saucer I wouldnt have took the trouble for to come and see.”
Bildad has got a bushy tail, and Mose he can blow hisn up like a balloon wen he is mad, but the Manx cat it hasnt got any. And that proves that all is for the best, cause man was made in six days and rested on the 7th and went a fishin.
When cats fight they spit fire and sword! One night 2 tom cats was fightin and a woman she put her head out of the window and said to a police man: “Poor things, why dont you part them, you wicked man?”
The police man he spoke up and said, the police man did: “I thought of that, mum, but I guess it aint worth while, cause it looks to me like they would part one a other.”
I think he was afraid, but it is nice for to be brave like Billy, which says if there wasnt any soldiers the Millennium would be upon to us and we would all haveto flee to the mountains!
My sisters young man says that once there was a cat, and there was a dog, and there was a lamb, and there was a ox. The dog it said to the ox: “Thats a mighty long tail you got there, mister, with a nice duster to the end of it, but you cant waggle it when you meet your master carryin a beef steak.”
Then the cat it said to the ox, too: “No, indeed, and you cant blow it up and spit fire wen you meet a other ox.”
The lamb it said: “And you aint able for to twinkle it when you think of some thing funny.”
The ox he thought awhile and then he said: “I played hookey when I was a little boy so much that I didn’t learn them vain acomplishments, thats a fact, but I have got a tolerbly fair business education, and I guess maybe you fellers would have to come to me for to help you out if you had to fill a order for ox tail soup.”
Mary, thats the house maid, she has wrote some poetry about cats, which my mother says is mighty fine. Here it is:
The cat it has 4 feet,And it has got a tail,And purs when you stroke it the right way,But beware its toe nail!There is nothing beautifuller than catsWhen they are little kits,But some day they grow up to be big tomsAnd hunches up their backs and spits.Cats catches mice, which if they wasn’t caughtWould be drownded in the honey,And the preserves, and the jams, and the jellies,And maybe poison Billy and Johnny.
The cat it has 4 feet,And it has got a tail,And purs when you stroke it the right way,But beware its toe nail!There is nothing beautifuller than catsWhen they are little kits,But some day they grow up to be big tomsAnd hunches up their backs and spits.Cats catches mice, which if they wasn’t caughtWould be drownded in the honey,And the preserves, and the jams, and the jellies,And maybe poison Billy and Johnny.
The cat it has 4 feet,And it has got a tail,And purs when you stroke it the right way,But beware its toe nail!
The cat it has 4 feet,
And it has got a tail,
And purs when you stroke it the right way,
But beware its toe nail!
There is nothing beautifuller than catsWhen they are little kits,But some day they grow up to be big tomsAnd hunches up their backs and spits.
There is nothing beautifuller than cats
When they are little kits,
But some day they grow up to be big toms
And hunches up their backs and spits.
Cats catches mice, which if they wasn’t caughtWould be drownded in the honey,And the preserves, and the jams, and the jellies,And maybe poison Billy and Johnny.
Cats catches mice, which if they wasn’t caught
Would be drownded in the honey,
And the preserves, and the jams, and the jellies,
And maybe poison Billy and Johnny.
I never have saw such rot, but Uncle Ned he says: “I beg for to remind you, fair youth, that you have yet to peruse the work of Ella Wheeler Wilcox.”
If I was a poet I would not write about spitcats, no, indeed, it would be all about the eagle, which is the king of beasts and fixes its eye on to the sun, and soars aloof into the blue imperial, and defies the lion and her welps!
Once there was a eagle which was a show, and a man which was to the show dropped a twenty dollar gold piece and it rolled into the eagles cage. The eagle it looked at it a while, and called his wife and said, the eag did: “That feller threw his poker check in here, and I guess he thought I would swaller it cause it has a chickenon one side, but Ide blush for to have such a nasty lookin rooster cut out of my craw.”
My sisters young man he says when he was a boy and went to school him and a other boy had a readin lesson about animals. The teacher, which was near sighted, he had lost his spettacles and couldn’t tell one word from a other, and they knew it. So when they stood up for to read, my sisters young man he begun and said: “The cat is the loftiest centipede which sweeps the horizon and scowers the plain.”
The teacher he said: “What’s that, whats that?”
Then my sisters young man he looked at the book, real atentive and said it again. The teacher he said: “Lemmy see that book, youngster, just lemmy see it.”
When he got the book he poked his long nose in it and pretended for to read, and then he scratched his head where it didn’t itch and told the other boy to go on and read too. The other boy he looked at the book and said, like he was readin: “The cat is found in every country of the globe, but it likes republics the best, and when it soars aloft the nations of the earth tremble so that you can see them shake.”
The teacher looked at the book a other time, close to, but bime by he give it back and said, the teacher did: “Young men, that readin lesson looks to the yuman eye jest like it has looked for twenty years, but I guess I have got to get some spettacles for my ears.”
But the ears of the jackus are a spettacle their selves, for the jack he is a bird of bray.