The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1903-07-12
AMAZON OF A CLUB PIAZZA.
A DOUGHTY WARRIOR rs TABYTHA
OF BINGHAMTON.
Chooses Her Castle and Holds It Against
All Corners, However Muscular and
Keen OF TO0th--A Military Axiom Dis
prov ed Daily In Battles I'm the Shade.


BINGHAMToN, N. Y. July 1.-THE Bing-
hamton Club occupies low, widespread
ing house at the corner of Henry and Che
mango streets. There 10 broad lawn
around it, with trees that give comfor-
table shade these hot days. A low picket
fence surrounds the property.
Up to a short time ago this corner was
the favorite resting place for half the
dogs that roamed the streets Of this busy
city, Dogs whose license tags proclaimed
they belonged to members of the club
naturally found their way to the corner
and assumed ali air of proprietorship over
it as they settled down for morning doze
in the shade. interloping dogs, strays ard
mongrels destined for the pound. furtive
fugitives from the clutches Of the tax gath
erer. watched their opportunity to snatch
| moments snooze under the spreading
elms or on the soft blue grass. Then one
day the destroyer of happiness came.
| She was q miserable, wretched. flea
bitten, woebegone, crooked-legged, lame
and hating little tabby cat, blind in one
. eye, snged along the back and with half
| her whiskers sacrificed In some forgotten
battle against great odds No one OF the
| little compound with careful scrutiny sus-
pected the gallant spirit hidden by the
rough exterior
1t was a fine, gay morning, and for
! wonder it happened that no dogs had
come to take their matutinal nap. Tab
itha walked into the yard and serenely
surveyed the landscape. 1t evidently
| appropriate it to her own use.
The club members did not interfere when
| she seecteda Csey nook on the south piazza,
where the sunshine spread warmth very
grateful to her feline soul. There she
established her metes and bounds and
| presently brought forth young after her
kind, five well-favored, properly furred,
tiger-striped kittens. No sin Of their
mother was visited upon them. not scar
of all her battles did any Of them inherit.
Thereupon Tabitha concluded that it
was time TO move again. Still unopposed,
she watched her opportunity and brought
her children home in triumph to nest in
side the house, where storm and trouble
could not come nor dogs break through to
make afraid.
For the few days before the kittens opened
their blue eyes Tabitha attended them with
the stricest Of devotion. Although women
may not belong to the Binghamton Club,
they have the freedom of the house during
certain morning hours Of specified days OF
the week, and Tabitha and her family found
prompt and enthusiastic admirers among
them. And some among the sterner fire.
quenters Of the club, who devote the after
moons to the exacting requirements OF
pin pool or checkers, attached them
selves stoutly to the cause of the new
Corners. Thus Tabitha and her FAM
lily prospered exceedingly, and grew
fat and frocsome, so that they would
play with the elusive string though It
were held by the hand of the most staid
and sober member Of the club, or chase the
deceitful paper ball even though it were
tossed by bank president or Supreme
Court Justice. Life was all skittles for them,
and there might have been some beer too,
If it were allowed on the premises Of the
Binghamton Club.
Then it occurred to Tabitha that it was
time TO show her kittens something OF the
world, at least as much of 1t as could be
seen from the corner of the south piazza.
She took them all out for morning airing
and sat down contentedly to deliver the
first lecture. Then Immediately trouble
developed. During all these days there
had been no indication to mother Tabitha
of the morning visits to her precincts of
the unfriendly and cat-chasing dogs. Nor
had there been any intimation to the dogs
of the presence of the much-to -be-chased-
and-bedevilled kittens. Each in blissful
ignorance of the other came out into the
yard of the Binghamton Club that morning.
Mother Tabitha had hardly begun her leo
ture on the importance of clearly habits
in early cat youth when her eyes, ranging
slightly from the fond family before Aer,
beheld that which froze the genial current
Of instruction as il flowed, caused every
separate and individual hair along her back
to rise and put stop instanter TO the lesson
of the day. There, not ten feet away and
directly in front of her, insolently asleep
on the grass in the shade Of great maple,
lay an unconscionable deg.
The dog, all unaware OF impending
trouble, lay with his nose between his fore
paws and his eyes peacefully shut, only an
occasionally twitched, lazily looping ear
betokening the presence OF life il his huge
| carcass.
The solitary member Of the club who
happened to be looking from the window
behind the cat and her family saw the
signs of approaching conflict and rose
hurriedy TO assist in the repulse Of the
canine invader. But before he could
move away from his chair he saw demon
strated again, In the club yard, the truth
of the well-known military axiom that
the Lord is not always on the side Of the
strongest battalions. Perhaps the mill
tary axiom runs the other way, but if it
does il does not fit this case.
Tabitha lit upon the nose of that snoozing
dog with suddenness and actually that
changed sleeping dreams to waking realities
| III Ille sIllducSL p'rSllJt iIdCliOl Vi llHlt.
Before the astonished kittens could let out
yowl or ruifle the soft hair on their silky
backs their mother had the enemy in full
| flight There was no mastery retreat
business about that defeat; il was a rout
and the routed went over the picket fence
on the full run, with a parting dig from
Tabi,ha as he cleared the top.
Then mother Tabitha stalked proudly
back to her family on the piazza Not to
| resume the morning. instruction, though
gested other things. il one dog came
there perhaps others cid also. Even the
outskirts of her precincts must be main
tanned inviolate from such intrusion, and
Tabitha promptly mounted guard.
Never was such dog Oh aser since time
began IA that aforetime nondescrpt half
scIlded, mongrel black cat, with the crooked
stump tail. Fat and sleek, as she had be-
come, with new fur coming in to replace the
patches denlided in early warfare, the
lessons learned In that earlier rough and
tumble existence have afforded much
amusement to her bcnefactor club members
Now scarcely IA morning passes that she
does not find opportunity to exhibit her
skill and prowess Be he never SO big. no
dog approaches her baiiwick and gets
awav unScatbed
Her attack is not heralded by spits and
yowls. 1t is simple, direct and swift as the
avengers. Straight for the tender nose
she goes. and il that fails, for the back OF
the head. 1.-the and agile as a ferret, her
small body finds ample room between the
pickets of the fence for the hawk like dart
which lands her full force on her unsus-
pecting enemy. Claws and teeth then do