Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-08-05
THE TOPICAL IALkER.
A Full Moon and Clear Sky Not What They
are Cracked Up to be When Dogs and

| Fuil Moon and Clear Sky Not What They
are Cracked Up to be When Dogs and
Roosters are Numerous and Noisy.
| a CLEAR moon-lit night is delightful Of
course. In summer there is nothing more
| pleasant than the GOODNESS that comes-or
ought to come-with the early hours of the
morning. When slips of silver cloud cross the
moon, and fling fantastic shadows upon the
earth, it is the time par excellence for the cul.
tivation of the romantic. One of Wordsworth's
noblest phrases describes these delicious mo.
ments:
1.-THE moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are
bare
Waters on 3 starry night
Are beautiful and fair"
he sings. But the poets seem to have forgot
ten in their moonlight musings and their mid.
summer nights dreams, that when the moon
is full and the sky clear, q night in August has
Its drawbacks.
THERE are our friends, the dogs--not our
dogs, but our neighbors' dogs. Nobody Is
ever disturbed py his own dog. A fence be.
tween you and the dog makes pile of differ
ence. When the moon shines bright the watch
ful dog next door sees burglar in every wav.
ing tree shadow, and he deems 1t his duty to
share his fears with everybody in hearing. It
is remarkable what energy cross between
Dalmatian coach dog and fox hound, or any
other valuable brute of like varied lineage re-
serves for barking solos in the night season.
Ii you observe the sweet creature BY day, how
ever, you will observe that he sleeps great
deal in cool corners and spends all his waking
moments in eating and drinking. Like the
illustrieus Patti the dog next door saves him.
self all day for the effort at night. The dog
that has any ambition to shine as a professional
vocalist at night knows full we'll that he cannot
afford to scratch flea of his ear while the
sun Is high. Therefore he lies around in the
snade. and the ugliest tramp in Christendom
or the most obnoxious cur in the vicinity will
not extract from him a two-cent bark.
But when night wraps her sable mantle
around the village, and fastens it with
myriad starry buttons and buckles 1t with the
great silver moon, then Zip or Towser or Jack,
or whatever that particular mans best friends
name is, plants his feet firmly on his native sod
opens his jaws and lets out the pent-up music
OF his soul. The moon may delight to look
round her when the heavens are bare, and
waters on a starry night are bea utiful and fair.
and yet know where'er I 60, as Wordsworth
well remarks, that there hath passed away
glory from this earth as soon as the dog next
door lets the night wind play through his dis
tended jaws.
RUT the dog next door has no monopoly Of
offensiveness on moon-lit summer nights,
when sleep is shy fairy to be courted with
infinite care. From the earliest times the
rooster has had pernicious habit Of growing
out Of season. If all cocks would be content
with Growing thrice when they start out say at
2 A. NJ. to inform an anxious world that they
haven't the sense to distinguish moonshine
from dawn, there would be little room for COM
plant. Roosters never know when they have
crowed enough. and full moon which never
wakes songblrd seems to excite the wretched
fowl huddled up in a hennery to wild exclama-
tions of defiance and alarm. If the census
had included an enumeration of roosters,
a moon-lit night would have given the best
chance of taking it. Roosters, like some higher
beings, like to have the last word and when
the silvery beams have found reflection in a
single ROSTERS eye you can bet fresh eggs to
corn cobs that every hen house within ten
miles of the bird that starts the opera will be
singing with cock-a-doodle-doos for two hours
continuously. How the meek, helpless hens
must dislike moon-lit nightsl
-
a BROKEN fly screen. aheadache In the morn
ing. q complaint from the owner Of a
wounded dog, and an insinuation that the rob-
berry of the hen house is indirectly your work,
are likely to make the moonbeams charms ap-
pear extremely paltd.