A Goat In A Frame
by
Laramie has a seal brown goat, with iron gray chin whiskers and a breath like new mown hay.
He has not had as hard a winter as the majority of stock on the Rocky mountains, because he is of a domestic turn of mind and tries to make man his friend. Though social in his nature, he never intrudes himself on people after they have intimated with a shotgun that they are weary of him.
When the world seems cold and dark to him, and everybody turns coldly away from him, he does not steal away by himself and die of corroding grief; he just lies down on the sidewalk in the sun and fills the air with the seductive fragrance of which he is the sole proprietor.
One day, just as he had eaten his midday meal of boot heels and cold sliced atmosphere and kerosene barrel staves, he saw a man going along the street with a large looking glass under his arm.
The goat watched the man, and saw him set the mirror down by a gate and go inside the house after some more things that he was moving. Then the goat stammered with his tail a few times and went up to see if he could eat the mirror.
When he got pretty close to it, he saw a hungry-looking goat apparently coming toward him, so he backed off a few yards and went for him. There was a loud crash, and when the man came out he saw a full length portrait of a goat with a heavy, black walnut frame around it, going down the street with a great deal of apparent relish.
Then the man said something derogatory about the goat, and seemed offended about something.
Goats are not timid in their nature and are easily domesticated.
There are two kinds of goat–the cashmere goat and the plain goat. The former is worked up into cashmere shawls and cashmere bouquet. The latter is not.
The cashmere bouquet of commerce is not made of the common goat. It is a good thing that it is not.
A goat that has always been treated with uniform kindness and never betrayed, may be taught to eat out of the hand. Also out of the flour barrel or the ice-cream freezer.