Year: 1872

l was doing comfortably in my easy
chair and dreaming of the good TINES
which L hope are coming, when there fell
upon my ears most startling scream. Il
was the voice Of my Maria Ann in agony.
The voice came from the kitchen, aud to
the kitchen I rushed. The idolized form of
my Maria was perched on chair, and she
was fourishjng an iron spoon in all direc-
tionS. and shouting " shoe" in a general
manner at everything in the room. To my
anxious inquiries as to what was the mat
ter, she screamed " Oh, Joshua, mouse,
shoe -what-shOo-a great, va, shoo-
horrid mouse, and-shew-it ran right
out of the cupboard, shoe, 90 way. o,
Lord. joshua, shoe, kill it, oh, my shoe"


All that fuss, you see. about one little,
harmless mouse. Some women are so
afraid ofmice. Maria Is | got the poker
and set myself to poke that mouse, aud
ny wife Jumped down and ran off into
another room. | found the mouse in
corner under the sink. The first time |
hit it [ didn't poke 1t any on account of
getting the poker all tangled up in lot of
dishes IN the sink !; and l didn't hit it any
more, because the mouse would not stay
still. Ii ran right toward me, and | nat
urally jumped as anybody would, but |
am not afraid of mice, and when the
internal thing ran up inside the leg of my
pantalo0ns, [ yelled to Maria because [
was afraid it would gnaw a hole in my
garment. There IS something real disa-
greeable about having a mouse inside the
leg OF ones pantaloOns, especiallyif if there
is nothing between you and the mouse. Its
toes are cold, and its fur tickles, and its
tail feels Gravity. aud there is nothing plea
SAINT about it, and you are all the time
afraid it will try to gnaw out, and begin
on you instead Of on the cloth. That mouse
was next to me. | could feel its every
motion with startling and suggestive dis
tinctiveness. For these reasons yelled to
Maria, and as the case seemed urgent to
me, may have yelled with a certain de-
gree of vigor, but 1 deny that yelled FIRE,
and if catch the boy who thought l did,
shall infict punishment on his person.


did not lose my presence ofmind for an
instant. l caught the mouse just as it was
clambering over ny knee, and by pressing
firmly on the outside of the cloth | kept
the animal a prisoner on the inside. / kept
jumping around with all my might to con-
fuse it, 50 that it would not think about
biting and yelled so that the other mice
could not hear its squeaks and come to its
assistance. 4 man can't handle many
mice at once, to advantage


Maria was as white as a sheet when she
came into the kitchen and asked what she
could do-as though | could hold the mouse
and plan a campaign at the same time.
told her to think of something, and she
thought she would throw things at the in
truder but as there was no earthly chance
for her to hit the mouse, while every shot
took effect on me, | told her to stop, after
she had tried two sad-irons and the coal
scuttle She paused for breath but L
kept no inclination to sit down anywhere.
% Oh, Joshua, she cried, &" wish you had
not killed the cat" Now submit that
the wish was born of the weakness of
woman's intellect. How on earth did she
suppose cat could get where that mouse
was ?-rather have the mouse there alone,
anyway, then TO have cat prowllng around
after it. | reminded Maria Of the fact
that she was fool. Then she got the
tea-kettle and wanted to scald the mouse.
[ objected to that process, except as last
resort Then she got some cheese to coax
the mouse down, but L did not dare let go
for fear it would run up. Matters were
getting desperate. | told her to think of
something else, and kept jumping, Just