Johnstown weekly Democrat. (Johnstown, Cambria County, Pa.) 1889-1916, 1890-01-31
LITTLE STORIES OF ANIMALS.
A Greedy Horse-The End of an Exasper-
ating HIule-A Bulls Vengeance.

| horse mad deVOured q whole stack of
hay, and the Waverly man became
frantic. He straightway came to Scran-
ton and told the owner of the horse that
the greedy beast would ruin him finan-
cially before spring, and he begged the
man to take the horse away at once,
agreeing to take So a ton for all the hay
the horse had eaten and say no more
about it. There was a good deal of the
milk of human kindness in the owner Of
the horse, and he made the discouraged
farmer feel happy by removing the
horse the next day.
The bay nag was an elephant on the
Scranton mans hands for a while, but
eventually he traded it Off for pair of
mare mules that he didn't know any
thing about. One of the mules proved
to he a very gentle and docile creature
while the other soon convinced her
owner that she had been foaled and
raised right in the center of the village
of kickerville as he expressed IT, The
man quickly concluded that it wouldn't
do to keep the mules together, and so he
sold the gentle mule for S17j The bad
| mule, whose name was Jen, was as big
an elephant on his hands as the tall horse
had been, and how to dispose of her
honorably racked his brain for months,
he said.
Jen was sleek and handsome, but she
would kick everything to pieces that
was hitched to her. In the stall she was
as gentle as kitten until some one
undertook to throw a harness over her
back. Then her feet flew, and the har-
ness and the man who tried to put it on
her didn'tstay there long. Jen wouldn't
let any one ride her, either. Several
smart young men tried to get ON her back
in the stall, but Jen's hind feet flew so
fast and furiously, and her rump bobbed
up at such rapid rate, that the young
men were glad to so to another part of
the stable and reflect for a while.
Along in the summer an unusually ac-
tive young chap offered to bet Jen's
owner that he could ride the mule five
blocks on one of the business avenues.
"I'll bet you So you can't" the man told
the spry fellow, and the money was put
up at once. All that the young man
wanted on Jen when he rode her was a
blind bride and surcingle, and pretty
soon Jen was led out on the street in
sight of a crowd that didn't get very
near her heels. The athletic chap seized
the bride reins in his left hand, grasped
the surcingle on Jen's back with his
right, and spoke kindly to the mule.
Jen was standing still then, but the
expression in her moving ears, her owner
said, told him as plainly as words that
the old Harry would soon be to pay.
With spring the young man leaped to
Jen's back, and at the same instant Jen's
hind legs began to play like drum sticks,
while her head went down, and the ath-
lete was astride of her neck. Between
kicks Jen whirled around dozen times
within a circle of twenty feet, and then
made dash for the open door of gro
Gerry, in front of which low awning
extended over the sidewalk. Her would
be rider saw his danger, and grabbed the
caves of the awning with both hands,
and Jen kited into the grocery and be-
gan to eat apples out of barrel He
was the last person who tried to ride her.
In the fall Jen met tragic fate on the
Delaware and Hudson canal, just below
Honesdale. The man who put her on
the canal knew all about her habits, and
had agreed to pay $3.50 for her if he could
make her work. He hitched her behind
three other mules, and in going less than
half mile Jen threw herself into the
canal seventeen times. That exasperated
her driver to the highest pitch, The butt
of his whip was loaded with lead, and
as Jen lay kicking on the ground, he hit
her with the loaded butt, crushed her
skull and killed her.
A wealthy coal mine operator in the
Lackawanna valley owned 6-year-old
Holstein bull that was cross and vicious.
Generally the bull was tied with a rope
in yard by himself, but occasionally he
was allowed to run loose in yard with
lot of idle mine mules. The two yards
joined, and one day four or five of the
mules got in the yard where the bull was
tied up and began TO act mischievously
around him. The barn keeper saw one
of them nip the bull on the flank and cut
up other playful capers. The bull didn't
like to be played with, but one mule in
particular seemed to take delight in teas
ing him. After while the old bull got
believing mad, and the barn keeper
drove the mules out and put up the bars.
A few days after that the bull was let
loose in the mule yard. He began to
nose around a manure heap, apparently
as contented as could be, while several
of the mules nibbled straw on either side
of him. At his right stood the mule that
had teased him few days before. The
barn man was watching them. All at
once, without bit of warning, the bull
made vicious lunge at the mule on his
right, and thrust one of his horns deep
into its left side. The mule died in no
time, and when they cut it open they
found that the bulls horn had pierced
the center of its heart. After that the
bull tried to kill two men, and he got to
be so dangerous that the owner had him
shot.-Scranton Pa-) Letter in New
York Sun.
The refusal of a Detroit street car