The Hickman courier. [volume] (Hickman, Ky.) 1859-current, 1876-06-16
Sports of the Kitchen.
Feom the BurIIngton Hawkeye.

Yesterday morning a Burlington lady
who lives out on West Hill was moved,
by reading the city lyric" on the sub
iect, to go down into the cellar and see
how the moisture was. She did not 90
down. however, for the water was there
before her, and had been there all night,
and had driven the rats out to higher
ground like the poor people in Happy
Hollow She had not more than opened
the door when great rat sprang between
her dress and pet-oh'' -ur-oh-skirt,
and scrambled up to kneasy resting
place. The next instant the lady had
him in her nervous grasp, holding dress,
skirt, and rat with desperate grip de-
spite the wriggling and squirming of the
rodent. And back into the kitchen she
went, and the matinee opened. The lady
is a good church member, has never taken
a lesson in dancing in her life, but she
waltzed across the kitchen and galloped
through the sitting-roOm and polkaed
down the hall and schottisched back into
the dining room and reeled back into the
kitchen, where she jigged and shuffied
and pirouetted, never missing step and
furnishing her own music, all the time,
while her sister and three children ran
after her. shrieking and wailiDg for help,
under the impression that she had gone
mad, and beseeching her to tell what was
the matter. She told them at last, when
the orchestra was out of breath, and
when she told them they all shrieked in
chorus, and ran out of the room, but
returned, climbed upon the table, and
begged her turn the rat loose. Perish
the thought. she said. In all her wild
dancing, while striving TO quiet her
nerves, she had chung to that rat. 1t
had caused her too much fright to escape
now. She held on to him as the demo-
cratic party held on to Belknap and she
wasn't going to let 20 of him till the
headsman was ready. A council of war
determined that the best way to kill the
rat was to put him in bag and pound
or drown him. The lady ordered the
galleries cleared, and then, with many
shrieks and trembling but determined
hands, she emptied the rat into the bag
that her sister had given her, and called
in the family. When the house was
again in session the rat was chased into
corner of the bag, the lady who had cap
tured it put her foot on the bag to keep
him in his place, and her sister, posing
the heavy poker over the rat, took good
aim, raised the poker high above her
head, shut her eyes and averted her head
so that she might not see the carnage,
and then, summoning all her strength,
struck the deadly blow. A loud, pierre
ing scream that curdled the blood with
the intensity of its agony followed the
blow, and as the executioner opened her
eyes she beheld the unfortunate rat
catcher at the other end of the room,
seated on the floor, swaying to and fro,
nursing her bruised and beaten foot, |
while the rat, greatly frightened by the
noise, ran out OF the bag, jumped on the
baby's head and scared it into convul-
sions, leaped from the baby on to the
table. Topped into a crock of butter.
scrambled through pan ofmilk, jumped
off the table nn to the window-sill and
ran under the house 10 conceal its
emotion.