River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1881-01-13
THE SNORING CAT.
y Feline Victim of saince Pie and the
Alarm She Produced.
Now Orleans Picayune


A gentleman residing on Van Buren,
street has eat that snores, which is
regarded by many as n phenomenon.
He first discovered the cats popularity
one night last week, when she had
been accidentally shut in his bedroom.
He was awakened about midnight by
groans which seemed to come from I'M
der the bed, and he rose to a sitting
posture while his hair began to stick
up like a bundle of extension tish-pOles.
1t was wild, weird sound, and one
that he had never heard before. and in
the stiffness and darkness it struck
upon his nerves with ghostly clam
mmess, as though a cold oyster had
been dropped down the back of his
neck. The cat was evidently the victim
of mince pie, which produced a sort of
night-cat-mare, and she seemed to be
dreaming of the hour when Greece,
her knee in suppliance bent, should
tremble at her power. BY her snore-
its length, breadth, depth, and cubical
contents-it was apparent that the old
cat had shouldered her crutch in her
mind and yas fighting her battles over
again. She was dreaming of moon
light fences, swollen tails and the
many wild nights she had put in with
other cats, in back yard S, yelling over
the returns coming in from New York
and Indiana. And the wild-eyed man
sitting up in bed listened, while his
hair rose three cents on the strength of
a failure ofcrops in Europe. His first
thought was that some burglar had got
under the bed in the day time, to wait
until everybody was asleep to rob the
been attacked with a cholera morbus
and was dying alone and forsaken, far
from home and friends and all whom
he held dear. 1t was by no means a
pleasant prospect and he half regretted
that the man had got uneder the bed at
all. Still it had been the ambition Of
his life to STAY burglar, and he had
often wished for the time and oppor-
tunity to go out and kill enough burg
lars for a mess. But now that he ha
one under the bed, all doubled up with
the collie and the killing Of him
would be merely routine business, he
felt that it would not be right. He had
stood with his back toward death on
many battlefield. years after the battle
had been fought, but he thought that
this burglar under the bed came more
properly under the head Of new bust
ness. He desired to move upon the
enemy's works at once, but he did not
wish to sacrifice his troops needlessly
He wanted to save his men. He only
had one, and it became necessary to
employ strategy, for the loss of that
one man would defeat the object of
the expedition. If he had had
friend sleeping with him that he could
have thrown out rs skirmish line,
il would have given him sort of
Headquarters from which to direct the
campaign. But he had not, and it
was a game of solitaire. He started to
put one leg out Of bed, when it occur
red to him that the burglar might have
hydrOphobia instead Of the collie and was
even then laying back to spring out
and fasten his venomous fangs into
something. 1t was horrible thought,
and the gentleman lodged back and
covered his head with the bed-clothes.
The old cat now getting into the thick
est of the fray, and her snoring wa S
terrific. She seemed to be dreaming
of some gallant fight, where she had
met her enemy on the plains of Abra
ham, and they snatched handfuls ofhair
out of each other, and then shook there
tails, and jumped around. Under such
circumstances man thinks fast, and
the gentleman in bed conceived plan
to crush the burglar at one fell swoop,
and at the same time take no risk of
death. The bed was q STAT bed, and
rising up in it he came down with the
force of a pile-driver, springing the
Stats out of the side-pieces, as he ex-
pected, and the whole bed was forced
through to the floor with crash. The
Turk awoke That is to say, the cat
awoke, and her smothered cries under
the bed sounded almost human, until
they died away in suffocation. When
there was no longer any sound to be
heard issuing from under the mattress,
the gentleman cautiously lifted it back,
and there limp and almost lifeless, lay
the family cat. He had been the vic
tim of misplaced confidence.