The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1877-05-03
A Western Romance.

The course of true love can never run
smoothly when complicated with cats.
OF this great truth the Western town of
Oshkosh has just furnished a striking
example. Possiblysome punctilious in
habitant of that town may deny this lat
ter assertion q He can not, however, de-
ny that Oshkosh is an excellent place
for things to happen in, and, after all,
the locality of any interesting Western
event is mere matter of detail, There
were, then, until recently two devoted
hearts in Oshkosh which constantly beat
as one, except in matters relating to
cats. The owner of the feminine heart
was passionately addicted to cats, while
her lover abhorred them. The pair
had reached the third and last stage OF
courtship-the period when the lover
has strong desire to enable his future
father-in-law to economist in the use of
kerosene, and when the loved one has
become convinced that the parlor sofa
is large enough for two. Now, a lover
who has successfully passed through
the earlier peanut and gate-swinging
stages, has good reason to believe that
his future happiness is secured. He has
no longer to hide the real purpose of
his visits behind the pretext of seeking
agricultural information from his sweet
hearts father, and the frank and open
way in which her parents promptly go
to bed at Q O'Clock, leaving him clear
field, is the very next thing to the form
marriage ceremony. To this happy
condition the Oshkosh man had attained
few weeks since, but now the -parlor,
the girl, and her revered parent seemed
to him only beautiful fragments Of a
broken dream.
Among the cats belonging to the ex-
pectant bride of Oshkosh was a large
cat of delicate grayish neutral turn, and
of the gender which may be delicately
described as Tomasculine. One Sun
day evening the young man made his
usual professional call at s O'Clock, de-
voted an hour to cheerful conversa-
ton upon the best method of grating
tllrnips, or some other equally fascinat-
ing agricultural topic, and bade an AFT
fectionate goodnight to the authors OF
his IDOLS being, as they went to bed at
9 :07 p. m. Immediately thereafter the
young lady seated herself in one corner
of the sofa, and the lover, after having
satisfied himself that no wicked waste
of kerosene would ensue, sad down with
the heavy lassitude of a happy man in
the unoccupied corner of the sofa. Lit
tie was heaware that the gray cat was
! calmly sleeping in that precise spot, but
he became rapidly convinced that such
was the case There was a wild feline
shrek, and the young man, uttering
loud and apparently irrelevant illusions
to ancient 'Gaul," together with re-
marks more fit to be uttered in the pres
ence of .dilapidated stockings than in
that of an estimable young lady, sprang
to his feet and rushed wildly about the
room. That cat knew when he had a
sure thing, if the expression may be al
lowed, and he held on with a tenacity
which would have done credit to a-bull-
dog. Meanwhile, the shrieks Tof the
young lady filed the room, and it was
notuntil the rest Of the family had rush
ed to the scene of uproar that the young
man, by backing firmly against the edge
ofthe open door, brushed off his tor
mentor and flew TO his lodging, where