The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1888-03-21
IT Was THE CAT-TAILS.
BY EVA NJ. DE JEANETTE.

BY EVA M. DE JARNETTE.
tails. Genus Typhus, also called
Reed mace" Vide dictionary.
Girls, doyou know what they say? In your
zeal for gathering and decorating with them.
have you ever thought to bend down your
ear and listen to their whispers?
In the dim ages OF antiquity King Midas
was punished for ill-taste in music by hav-
ing asses ears clapped on his head
AT his wife's suggestion the king started
the fashion of bangs, frizzes, ear-locks
and such, and he wore great bag stopped
crown to conceal his deformity.
But no man is hero to his valet, and
the barber knew all about it. Weary of the
burden of the terrible secret, he dug hole
in solitary place, and whispered into it,
"Our master has asses earsl'
Cat-tails sprang mp, and to this day, when
agitated by the wind, they mischievously
repeat the tale, maliciously varying the
message to make a personal affair of it..
"Our rulers have asses earsi' they MUIR
mur-"asses earslP
They whisper in Greek, and if Dick and
Tom, fresh from college, cannot make it
out. it is because they are Just humbugs,
and don't know anything about the Ian
guage.
Moreover. Homer says, the giant Typhus
gave more trouble to the gods than all the
rest put together. He was like n cork; push
him under in one spot aud he would pop
up in another. IL was difficult thing "for
TO put head on him." for he possessed
already hundred of his own. And when
at last Jupiter planted" him alive in the
Isle of Ischia, and was thinking about
setting up nice tombstone over him, to let
his friends know what a generous, spread
ing, ubiquitous kind Of old hairpin he was,
all at once cat-tails with their hundred
beads, appeared, and the wind hoated
their downy seed-puffs over the face of
the earth.
Diseases with hundred forms broke
out among men and beasts, which are still
called by his name wherever the cat-tails
grow. So Jupiter concluded not TO
waste his money on a fellow who could
actually make the four winds of heaven
and Whole face of nature do his advertise
Ing gratis, even bending into the same
channel the aesthetic fancies of fashion
able young ladies of the nineteenth Gen.
turv.
But Dick Harrington didn't know a word
of all this.
Although long past the age when a fell
lows friends constantly tell him, as
piece of unexpected news, "how he has
grown" Dick had all the whiskers he
would ever own, and had grown to feel sor-
~ he had not let his troublesome mus
tache remain latent, instead OF rasping and
scraping at it, and cutting it with his sis
tiers scissors, till it was as stiff as q black
ing-brush.
If course, he had trampled over cat
tails and club-mosses, pond-lhies and wild
celery. thousands of times, but had never
bothered his brain over the generic names
OF sedges and reeds.
He distinguished them as good Cover for
grouse. partiidges and Indian hens, or
chased them along with sand worms, snap
shells, and other small crustacea, as the
yproper food, or signs of feeding ground for
-"willets." martins" Summer ducks
"seek-no- furthers," and doe witches.
He wasn't aesthetic at all. Dick wasn't,
and no wonder his pretty sister Kate was
out" with him for putting on that rusty
velveieen shooting jacket, and stuffing his
pataloons into boots that were quite big
aud strong enough to walk about alone,
aud for going ont after clippers" and
Spring tails when n girl was coming-one
of those utterly utter" kind, too, who have
never a shadow of any kind of real trouble
to sour them, and consequently think that
the sun shines and the awde world ways"
for their private and individual benefit.
Afraid of a gall And he just six feet
two in his stocking feet" No wonder be
looked sneaking and mean; and when
Kate followed him as iar as the horse
blocks, still arguing the question. he gave
three perfectly hvpocritical reasons for not
going to the station TO meet Dora, her
doubly dear schoolmate and bosom friend,
Dora.
Falsely he avered flock of didappers
or wild turkeys Kate could not make out
what he said, he mumbled SOL to be scat
tered and in waiting for him to kill in
Carries Wood. In testimony of which he
produced "yelper, and yelped till Kate
put her fingers TO her ears, for all the COB
blers in the yard. sngrily answering, came
strutting up, with their Turks heads
swelled up ms red and big as acme tomatoes.
'Dick, you are just too uterly mean to
live. I'd like to throw a plate at you.
Really, Dick, am ready TO cry. To have
TO send the hired boy to drive, when I've
got a brother toll as n church steeple."
Kate, Id go in a minute, but I've got to
meet a man"
"Hush, Dick, Won nre telling STORES
Dora is so pretty too" signs Kate.
"The washerwoman has all my collars,
and"
Il wonder you are not afraid You'll end
like Ananias and Sapphira. oh, I do wish
wasn't afraid to drive Flirt myself" And
two bright little tears rolled down her
cheeks.
Really, Katie. was in the village
yesterday, where they have measles, and
should not like TO iun the risk of her CATCH
snx them through me-"
"Oh, do hope Dora will pay you for
this: indeed do. / hope she will dirt the
hat off your head, you aggravating, good
for nothing-"
Dick fled away out of hearing. for in his
heart of hearts be was "afeerd of gal.
He had climbed Horney's Peak when II
was two feet deep in snow; shot Cali
fernia g-izzIy; had slept calmly by the biy-