The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-08-18

= .
at night. Then she dug il up and ran and
laid il before him. When he had given
her need Of praise. she tossed the mouse
away, and looked over at Major, as though
saying. Take II, and welcome. / don't
care for II any more
gentleman living some twelve miles
out OF Memphis, Tenn, owns a bird dog
whose intelligence was a neighborhood
marvel This was some fifty years back,
but even then there were such things as
yellow fever epidemics. A peculiarly viru-
lent one was raging in the town. and the
gentleman found himself under the siren
uous necessity Of communicating with his
son John, who was a commission mer-
chant there. His family, white and black.
numbered more than a hundred, and nat
urally he did not wish to risk bringing the
fatal fever on to the plantation. There
fore he determined to test Birdo as a mes
senger. He wrote a letter, fastened II Sc
curely to the dogs color. took him to
the plantations outer edge, and said:
"Birdo, go and give John this letter.
Understand me, John! Nobody else. Then
come home, but not till you have seen
him.
Birdo trotted off. 1t was little after
sunrise when he started. At shutdown he
was back with letter from John, saying
that the dog had gone first to his house
and found him absent, then had trotted
to the store and sat. growing whenever
his partner had tried to take the letter
until John himself came in. To him he
darted, barking and capering, and though
he sat quiet throughout the writing of a
return letter il was no sooner fast to his
collar than he ran to the door. whining to
be off
In the flush days of steamboating, be-
fore the war, the captain of Mississippi
river boat had dog that could distin-
guish between the passengers if once he
I n hoo ri tfo4v
mentioned one night in the saloon, and a
passenger sneered at the idea.
Bet you $500 that dog can't do 1t once
in three times" he said.
Done" rejoined the captain. Write
note to your wife and 1 will write one
to mine. Both are in the ladies' cabin.
We will give the notes to Snip at the same
time. and if he fails to deliver them prop
erly. the money is yours"
The passenger wrote merely his wife's
pet name inside a slip of paper, which he
folded and addressed. The captains mis-
sve ran:
Dear Wife-send me word at once
what Snip does when he comes into the
/ cabin.
Then he delivered both slips to the dog,
saying as he handed over the passengers
| note:
Snip. this is for Mrs NJ, who sat
beside me at supper. Give 1t to her,
then take the other note to your Miss
| Catherine"
Snip ran away. The men sat smoking
and chatting. Very shortly a waiter
brought in scrap of paper to the pas
/ senger. His wife had written: What
/ does ii mean, your sending me a note by
this little dog?" At almost the same
minute the captains wife wrote: Snip
came in and ran about smiling at all of
us, then jumped in Mrs Ms lap,
dropped bit of paper there, and came
on to me with the other one" The pas
senger owned himself beaten, and offered
$1,000 for Snip, saying luck could not so
against him if he owned so wise a beast.
But the captain would not part with Snip,
who lived and died a river dog.
So much for the dogs. They by no
means monopolize the reasoning faculty
in what are styled the lower animals.
Many men are not so wise as some very
wise mules. Jet was one of them, a big
| black fellow, standing nearly sixteen
hands, and so tough and supple that
he might have been made of whalebone
and India rubber. AT work he was a
! jewel of the first water. A playful spell
made him a torment. He could open
| gates and draw bars as though his feet
were hands, and the fence was not built
that he could not jump if the humor
took him. Consequently most of his
! summer leisure was passed in a stall,
though the rest Of the work stock ranged
and rollicked over acres knee deep in lus-
cious clover. Jet, If turned to grass,
would crop ii ravenously, but move
swiftly as he cropped toward the outer
fence, where it was nearest a neighbor-
ing plantation for which he had devel-
oped an inordinate fondness. He was
over the fence and galloping to the neigh
boris always inside half an hour after
he was out of the stable.
The neighbor usually stabbed him or
sent him home outright. but that made
no difference. Jet ran there all the same.
! One day his owner, vexed beyond en-
| durance by his continual outbreaks,
begged the neighbor to set the mule
hard at work the next time he broke
in. The neighbor agreed and put Jet
! to the following plough, inside two of
his own beasts. A half day they strained
and tugged through matted clover and
weedy tangle. When Jet came for the
noon feed he was turned loose to wal
low, but in place of that he leaped the
| fence, set his head on one side and his
| tail up and went whinnying home at a
! gallop. What is more to the point, he
stayed there faithfully evidently rea-
soning that it was better to take pleas
ure in leisure than to go visiting and
be set at wearying work.
Big Pete, another mule, knew the mean
ing of the dinner horn and always an
| swered it with a loud, joyous bray. After
he had heard it he would plough furrow
toward the house. but refuse utterly to
| draw if he were headed away from II.
| Beck and Lady, a team of mare mules,
grew so accustomed to the drill in the
course of many wheat seedlings that IL
was almost impossible for an awkward
driver to make them skip ground. They
understood that to do good work the
outer spout must run in the track made
by the wheel in the previous round, and
there they held it unless there was a
mighty tug upon their mouths. Similarly
in harvest time they would turn and half
back at the corners before the driver
had time to speak They had learned
what was needed, and did it of their own
motion.
A chicken story must fifty close this
record. 1t has to do with fiirty hen
who undertook to raise four broods in the
year. She brought off the first in Janu-
ary mothered them beautifully, but got
1 fresh nest of eggs and was sitting while
yet her chicks peeped about her. When
the young brood came she did not disown
the older one, but cared for her mixed
family in a way to win your heart. Yet
in a very little while she went away fiirt-
ing with a gay red rooster, leaving great