Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1886-12-02
THE TWO CATS.

i
was Manny's pesSus pet.n
1t sounded much like "mammy's pessus
pet" but the voice was so young, so fresh, so
cooling, that Joe Parker could not believe his
ears.
There was something magnetic" about it,
to use the slang of the day; at least it at
tracted Joe to the row of raspberries that
flung their green arms all abroad on the old
picket fense between his garden and the next
neighbours and irresistibly bent his head to
peep through those respectable palings and
see what he could see.
And this is what he saw: Such lovely
girl! Her hair was red to be sure, but it was
that bronze red that looks brown in the
depth of its ripples and gold on their crests
just now, in the blazing sunshine, it was all
rich deep red, with gilt threads among it,
but then she had such eyesl large, clear. red
hazel eyes, as beautiful as a robins or q
squirrels, fringed with dark lashes and over
proved with delicate dark arches little
lifted with look of surprise that was the
result of shape and outline
regret to say that her fair, soft brow and
cheeks were slightly freckled but in such
fresh red and white the smallest spot will
show, and nobody is perfectly beautiful, not
even Mary Ann May, commonly called
NANNY May" For instance, her mouth was
large; but then it was SO full, so red, and
parted over such firm white teeth, that it
seemed just to match the saucy little nose above
and the round dimpled chin below it, Her
waist was large, too, just as large as the
waist of any sculptured goddess wrought by
Phidias or Praxiteles, for Nanny had never
been pinched in mind or body, or given over
to that awful tyrant "They,n who puts our
girls to the torture of rack and boot from
their infancy, that they may be and do as
"They" do and are.
But she had a TALL strong, shapely figure,
and its movements We're all instinct with the
untrammeled grace of nature. As she ST God
in her mothers garden, with both hands clasp
ing her pet to her BOSOM basket of dande-
lion greens and an old case knife at her feet,
she was perfect picture; but she had not an
idea of it.
Joes theories fed as he gazed The voice
had not misled him. it was not q mothers
voice; the darling on whom Nanny lavished
her sweet words, her tender embrace, even her
kisses, was-a cat.
But such a catl Peter was as great a
beauty as his mistress. His coat of deep
bule-gray was striped and dashed with shin
ing black a ring of black encircled his mas
sive neck; his tail was ringed also with sable,
and five wide black stripes ran from between
his ears down to the very tip of the tail,
merging as they went into one broad band,
then there was snow-white spot upon his
breast, and his powerful paws were black as
jet
"Mannys dumb silly about that there cat"
was her fathers chronic growl; but, since
Nanny was all the child left to him, and in
his secret heart its living idol, he only
growled. He would not have uttered de
rogatory word about Peter for anything; he
even remembered to get bit of meat for him
whenever he went to the village, and had
once been known to turn back half mile for
that very purpose.
AS for mother May, she spoiled the cat Just
as she had spoiled Mary Ann. She was
dear, kindly, tender-hearted old woman, with
an utter inability to rule or order or mold
anybody or anything She took life as she
found it, and neither fretted at nor tried to
amend tia sort of moral feather bed, soft
to evaporation, but, after all, restful to the
eager, hard-worked exasperated and wiry
people of her race.
"a proper, nice woman" Semanthy Car
rier said; "aIleays an eternally good
natured. Nc faculty in her, and one that
rifles you consider BILE when you want to have
things gee; but when you're sick or sorry,
sort of comfortin', like a poultice."
Peter knew his power and his position.
Petted from his early kittenhood, he soon
learned, like the young of the human species,
that he could tyrannize over his PETERS, and
then the warmest, softest seat was given up
to him, the door opened at his first appeal,
the giblets of the rarely used fowls We're
saved for him, his tastes gratified and his no.
tons respected. One is sometimes tempted to
half accept the masculine theory that women
like tyrants, when one sees how they manu-
facture them for themselves.
Now, Joseph Parker had just come to Meri-
den to live. A certain Mr. Webb, who had
mandatory in Vermont, had moved TO
Meriden to get more water power, and as Joe
Parker was his foreman in the paper mill, be
had moved too hired house a little way out
of the village, next to Mr.. Mays homestead,
and brought with him his mother-and his
mothers cat Hence this story, and what
ever tears may besprinkle it.
Mrs Parkers cat was not at all like Peter
May. He was black, all black, with green
yellow eyes, and an aspect that made a
stranger think of the regulation cat that was
the familiar of witches in all history. He
came from Hanover to Meriden by rail, nailed
up in strawberry crate, kissing, splitting,
yowling and sharpening his claws ON his frail
prison all the way, to the terror of every pas
senger in the car. Indeed, Joe was forced to
carry crate and all into a baggage car at the
third station, and ride with it the rest of the
way, for the brakeinen refused to look after
it, so daunted were they with the wild animal
within. Tiger was sent into solitary confne-
ment in the cellar as soon as Mrs. Parker
reached her house, and was subdued by hunger
and darkness before they dared to let him
range abroad in the new neighborhood.
Now, Joe Parker had not been in Meriden
long enough to make much acquaintance
there, and was very hard at work the first
few weeks of his stay, so that he ALWAYS went
to sleep in church on Sunday, and missed any
| sight thereby Of the blooming damsels in the
choir or in the pews; he was ashamed of it, to
be sure, but there was the change of air from
Vermont mountains to the fat meadow land
and low lying pastures about the river, and
| then be was really overworked for time in
h1ringte rlace the new machinery, move the