The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-01-16

l Kind reader. meet my friends. the | Goats. They are not rich, for, al-
 though NJ. Goat has been an able and energetic business man all his life
 and Mrs Goat has been Q thrifty l housekeeper, they have never been able to get much ahead because they l have always had sucn a horde of | parasites to support.
 l Ever since they mad a homo they have run free hotel. They have l literally been eaten out of house and
 home by self-invited guests, by forty seventh cousins, who always cashed I In the blood relationship for board l and lodgings, and by old friends, who I suddenly remembered, when they happened to be in> their town, how | they loved the goats and hated to pay for their own beds and meals. Any of their, many -acquaintances, who wished to take a vacation with out expense, or have an operation performed, or go to the opera, or see | the sights of the city. just wished himself or herself on the Goats. and arrived bag and baggage to camp in | the spare bedroom. And that was all | there was to it; a pleasant and economical arrangement so Tar as the guests were concerned. And If 1t was inconvenient to the Goats and they had to sleep around on cots and
  the food that the deadbeats gobbled up, why, nobody bothered about that. And the Goats never bleated.
 They never made q move to chuck these grafters out, not even when rich Cousin Susan, who could have
 bought the family up hundred times over, came and stayed SIX months wore Mother Goat to
 frazzle requiring to be waited upon
 and ran them into debt because she couldn't eat anything but the, most expensive foods. No, they felt that 1t would be a stain on their escutcheon | to assert themselves little, and so they lived up to the Goat coat-of- arms, which is a doormat couchant, with everybody trampling over 1t.
 By and by the eldest Miss Goat got married. Her husband proved 10 | be a bumptiousy egotistical, opinion ated fellow, and when he was about the whole Goat family had to walk on eggs and suppress all of their own opinions and tastes to avoid | irritating him. Indeed, when their daughter married the Goats acquired a new son, as the phrase goes, be- and holidays the young couple ar rived to. take dinner with papa and mamma. It was so sweet to be all | Altogether at such times, and 1t was also so economical and saved them the work and worry.
 N>Then the son Billy got married. Not being born a Goat, Billy's wife had not the suffer and -be-strong complex in her. On the contrary. she was go- getter, and what she wanted she had
 to have. Therefore Father Goat was often called on for money to help pay
 Mrr. Williams bills, which had to be
 met regardless of what sacrifice It l I'd al | Mrs. William died, and, of course,
 Billy took his motherless children. one of them a tiny baby, back home l for mother and sister to take care or.
 They did 1t for a few years until Billy married again, although 1t re- duced\ poor. worn-out mother .to physical wreck. The family didn't approve of Williams choice of sec | ond wife, but, with the Goat faculty | for swallowing anything, they ao-
 cepted her and felt that at least one burden would be removed from them and that William would take his children and set up his own home. It now appears, however, that the
 second wife refuses to be bothered with stepchildren. and so William has brought his brood back for mother l and sister to rear and support. It takes all the money he can make to
 provide for his wife and her relatives,
 whom she has saddled upon him.
 l Mother Goat says that no sacrifice lis too great to make for her darling son, nor does she hesitate to offer
 up as a burnt offering her unmar- ried daughter, Nanny Goat, who la bors in an office all day to make the money to help maintain the fam l iIy, and who comes home at night and does most of the housework.
 But Nanny is beginning to show un- Goatlike traits. She does not see
 why. she should work to feed a lot
 of bum company who sponge on them