Custer County Republican. (Broken Bow, Neb.) 1882-1921, 1906-09-06
Fortune for a
Cat SQuGICher

ndh eOulu DrlnB lnJO use, III any
neighborhood. on occasion.
I'm this advanced age throwing bot
ties and bootjacks and old shoes at
The offending cats seems crude and
nnscientiflc method and then it Is in
effectual. Why, l have known a cat
to be hit square in the midriff and
actually knocked off fence by large
and heavy and fairly thrown Hessian
or it might have been Wellington
boot and not only to escape being
annihilated or even silenced by the
same, but even to emit at the instant
of the boots impinging upon it
shrieks louder than any to which it
had given vent before Recovering
itself from the ground and scramblng
up on the fence again, it gave forth
long, waving, ear-piercing, blood-cur-
ding, hair-raising screams, to which
all previous screams seemed but as
the gentle murmuring of lutte.
mo. You see, the cats have got
so used to boots and bottles and boot
jacks and bricks-singular, sort of,
isn't it. that all the things we throw
at cats begin with the same letter, the
letter By Ever think of that?-have
got so used to them that they pay no
attention to them whatever unless
they are actually hit. and how often
does that happen?
II forget how many tons of lead it
takes actually to kill a soldier in bat
tie, and the proportion of misses to
hits Is about the same-larger prob.
ably, really-in throwing things at
cats. Think of the frightful waste Of
ammunition in this warfare and then
consider that in this war on cats when
we do hit the mark it only makes the
cat scream the louder!
"Oh, my, no! Bottles, bootjacks,
boots and bricks are more than me-
diaeval, they are positively ancient
and worse than useless as a means Of
warfare on bowling cats. True, we
derive a certain satisfaction from
hurting these missiles, but that is the
only result; they do no good, and
what we really want now is some
thing effective.
There is the cat guard, composed
of strips of wood with long, sharp
spikes sticking up through, which we
nail on the tops of fences to keep cats
away, good thing as far as it goes,
but there's the rub; it doesn't go far
enough. We live for a year in one
neighborhood where everybody
around puts cat guards on his fences
and where we hear no cats, but then
we may move to some other neighbor-
hood where nobody puts up cat guards
and the cats reign supreme.
II won't attempt to describe to you
their wild wailings and sweeping
screams. couldn't, for that matter,
if l tried. And why should l anyway,
when we-that is to say, the people
living in the block around this range
of back yards-are here to suffer?
When that midnight-or it may be l
or 1880 a. m.-concert begins, the
whole block wakes and shudders and
then gets mad and some jewellers
there are around that try to stop it.
Il hear a window go up somewhere
and know that somebody is sticking
his head out, and then | hear him
saying to the cats as fiercely as he
can between his clinched teeth: 'Ssst!
sssst! sssst!' but even in my anguish
this always makes me laugh, for you
might as well try to stop comet by
sissing at it, and, in fact, 1 think it
makes the cats laugh, too.
Then pretty soon, the cats keep
ing on bowling, we hear something
slam against the fence with an old
time, familiar clatter-it sounds like
a boot or brush or bottle, thrown
probably by some old man sticking
to oldtime ways, but as far as pro-
ducing results is concerned, it might
as well have been thrown up in the
air. And then
'Gerzoom!'
That sounded as if it might have
been a chair or table or even re-
frigerator or something like that, for
it struck the fence with a mighty
crash and shook every cat off to the
ground, and then for a brief space
there Was silence, but minute later
they were all up again, screaming
their weird, wailing, waving scream
louder than ever.
"And then somewhere down the
hiock-bless you, my brother, I'd like
to know you and shake you by the
haud-there is man who fires gun
it play be only a pistol, but it
sounds like q gun-to brighten the
cats.
Its singular about the effect of
that gun-sometimes the cats only
howl the louder when they hear it,
but sometimes at the report they stop.
And that has suggested to my next
door neighbor. somewhat sanguin'
airy man. that we might rig up gat-
ling gun in the yard or a mitrailleuse
or something of that sort, where it
would sweep the fence tops and so