The Lake County star. [volume] (Chase, Mich.) 1873-current, 1877-04-19


When Lumpy LoSgerhead comes near,
Whose bed Is all his Joy;
How glad am he is not here,
That very sleepy boy
TURNING INTO CATs.-Once there
was a law that, on a certain day, when
the Westinghouse bell rang for neon,
everybody should turn into cat.
Some people don't believe this is true
but YOU ask the children and the barn
swallows!
Well, and so you may be sure it was
great fun TO sit up on the big granite
rock on the side of Deer Hill and see
them turn, just where they were and
whatever they were doing, at that very
minutel
The minister's son had come into the
study, with his hat in his hand, and
said:
"Shall Cornelius and I, sir. take our
scythcs, sir, and 60 out and NOW little
while, sir?"
And then Mr.. Fadyon's fool caught
hold of the bell-rope.
Mr.. Fadyon's fool knew some things
as we'll as anybody; and he knew how
to ring the bell exactly when the sun
dial and the nOon.mark and his grand
mothers eight-day clock said 1t was noon.
So "ding, dong !" went the bell, and
it was only Maltese kitten that had
hold of the rope!
Just at that hour, Aunt Patty was out
in her garden hoeipg weeds, with an old
hat of Uncle Rodney's tied on her head;
and she began to turn, first her nose
and then her chin. They were very
long and sharp when she was Aunt
Patty, and they grew short and snubby,
and whiskers began to start, and her ears
pricked up as though she heard some
thing, and then, quicker than you could
say "scat!" she was a spotted cat
chasing Deacon Davis's hens, that we're
trying to sneak through the garden
fence with the old ROSTERS spurs on.
After soaring them half out of their
feathers, she kept on through Mrs. Dea-
con Davis's cathode, aud up in the back
chamber, where she prOwled about and
shifted in all the dark corners and behind
the old tea chests and barrels.
When she was Aunt Patty she always
had mistrusted whether or no Mrs. Dea-
con Davis hadn't some cobwebs and
poke-holes out of sight, for all that she
kept everything looking as neat as wax
on the outside.
And then the minister's son jumped
with one spring on the minister's
shoulder. and began to bite the ministers
hair and claw off bis glasses, for he liked
rough ways and mischief as we'll as any
boy, only he had to be proper because he
was the minister's son.
The minister looked around solemn
and dignifed, good deal astonished ;
and then his glasses grew rounder and
rounder, and his arms grew slenderer
and slenderer and then he seemed to
wink all over; and then there was a
great black cat, with white spot on his
throat and white face and four white
feet, sitting in the study.chair, swapping
at the flies, with one paw on volume of
Jonathan Edwards's Sermons.
1t was a great change for the minister.
But as for Hrs. Deacon Davis, she didn't
seem to need to alter hardly bit. Her
eyes were the mildest skim-milk before,
much more faded than an old cats eyes +;
and her hair was pale bluff and sort of
furry. And she mad a way of rubbing
herself against the side of her chair as
she talked along in kind of purr-
purring tone. She stopped work for the
first time in her life, though, and taking
her yellow paws out OF the wash-tub,
went TO chasing dandelion.down.
But as soon as ten clocks anywhere in
town struck one at the same second, all
the cats turned back to people again I;
and you ought 10 have sc EN- how sur
prised they were to catch themselves do
ing such odd things.
Aunt Patty was rummaeing through
the minister's wifes bnreau-drawer
among her best clotnes and, bad as that
looked in a cat, it looked thousand
times worse in Aunt Patty, with Uncle
Rodney's hat still on her head and hoe
under her arm.
Mrs. Deacon Davis was curled up
asleep in the rocking-chair, and she rub
bed her eyes and put her hands in the
wash-tub again, and didn't know any
thing had hsppened. She wouldn't be-
lieve it now If you should tell her.
Only, when her clock struck one Git was
always little slow, she fslt grieved to
see few cats hairs on her chair-cushion,
and to find she had lost SO much good
time right out of the heart of the day.
" But then" she thought, " my nap has
rested me up completely, and with such
poor health a. / enjoy, do suppose l
needed it. And, all is, | must work the
smarter to make it up"
The minister looked most astonished
to find himself playing with large
brown, limp rat. at is very extraordi.
nary! Most remarkable - said be
Glorianap he continued, turning to
the black serving maid who was SWING
ing herself down from the cherry-tree,
where, a moment before, she had been
black kitten, chasing squirrel.
"Gloriana! you may take this dead an
imal and bury the creature in the gar
den. 1t will act as fertilizer"
And then he began to walk up and
down the footpath, from the door to the
gate, with his hands behind him, and to
think over the heads of his next sermon.
Ga the whole, it was funnier when
the cats became people than when the
people became cats; they were 80 sur
prised and shocked to find where they
were and what they were doing
Frances Lee. in 81. Nicholas.
FOURTH MONTH DUNCE.-The curious
custom of joking on the first Of April,
sending the ignorant or the unwary on
fruitless errands, for the sake of making
them feel foolish and having a laugh at
them, prevails very widely in the world.
And whether you call the victim
Fourth month Ounce" an April fool"
an April fish" Gas in Francel, or an
April gowk" Gas in Scotland), the OBJ
ject, to deceive him and laugh at him, Is
everywhere the same.
The custom has been traced back for
ages; all through Europe, as far back as
the records 60. The Feast of Fools "is
mentioned as celebrated by the ancient
Romans. In Asia the Hindooe have
festival, ending on the Slst of March,
called the Hull festival in which they
play the same sort Of first of April
pranks,-translatedin into Hindoo, laugh
ing at the victim, and making him
I" Hull fool" Itgoes back even TO Persia,