Essay On Cats
By Joe Cone
No. 2
C – A – T. That spells cat. Cats are much different than dorgs only they have one skin, one head, two eyes, two ears, short hair, four legs and a tail (unless it has been disconnected by a hay cutter, like a cat I knew once,) just the same, but they were invented for a different purpose altogether, tho’ there is a string of connection running indirectly through the whole animal race. Cats were made, some people think, to be worried and chased up a tree, and dorgs were gotten up for that purpose. But a cat has her fort if it is up a tree. Cats were made to chase rats and chase each other, dorgs to chase cats, cows to chase dorgs, (when dorgs don’t turn and chase them,) horses and bulls to chase cows and boys to chase the whole business, so you can see, animals are pretty much all alike after all.
This essay is to be entirely prose construction as there is nothing poetical about cats. Cats are harsh, cold and matter of fact creatures, devoid of much feline. There is more untruth and pure cussedness than poetry in cats. They abound in all thickly settled localities, passing their leisure moments on low roofed sheds and back fences and make voice culture a specialty. Some cats, like individuals, have luxurious surroundings, yet will mix with the common herd, bringing disgrace and marks of ill-usage home upon their persons. Some are in more moderate circumstances, and some are poor, homeless, friendless, and having not wherewith to lay their heads. This latter class can be detected by a keen ear while they are undergoing their regular hours of voice culture.
There are several kinds of cats, namely: Tom cats, she cats, catechisms, pole cat, cataracts, fishcats categories, wild cats, catamounts, good cats, catalogs, bad cats, catsupa and cat-with-nine-tails and many others, tho’ I have never seen one of the latter. I have seen one with nine lives, tho’. My uncle had it. He drowned it three times, shot it twice, poisoned it once, set fire to it once, then gave it to a fiddle string maker way down in the country and one Sunday morning “the cat came back.” Uncle let it alone after that. I don’t know wht kind of cat is the worst, I’m sure, but some kind make better pets than others. Cats were born I suppose, mostly, for the fiddle string business, and the plainer food they are kept on the better they become for said purpose.
Properly speaking, Tom cats and she cats are felines, taken from the Greek, I suppose, and if so is, of course all greek to me, but I never heard what lines pole cats come under, tho’ they have at times been seen to come under clothes lines.
Cats and rats sound pretty much alike, but all the same the two are never on very good terms. A rat will run from a cat unless he is kitty-cornered, then he will try the ratty art of self-defense. Cats are kept mainly in the milky way, and a certain number of cows have to be raised each year to supply the great, growing cat populace. Young canary bird, in an undressed state, is a side dish and considered very toothsome by cats possessing rare tastes. Catnip, too, is something of a luxury, especially so to pussys who are so unfortunate as to be obliged to live in the heart of a great Metropolis. Our cat Nip used to eat it a lot, and one day he gave me a great nip on my finger after I had stuck it into a jar of mincemeat, so father that night nipped his bright and youthful career in the bud.
There isn’t much more to know about cats, unless it is that they are often useful as burglar alarms. When a small army of cats ceases its midnight chant suddenly in the midst of a double forte passage then you know for sure that someone is around. In conclusion I would say that “our cat is the best cat we ever saw.” She can do lots of things. She done Mrs. Wicker’s old cat in about a minute yesterday when he chased her. But that wasn’t anything very much for her to do of course, for she has done so many cats around here that she has got her paw well in you see. I always liked cats and think everybody ought to. There is something very sympathetic in the heart of man towards a melancholy cat.
Conn. Valley Ad. Jan. 6, ‘94
For the fun of it:
Reverse side of printed Essay
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