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“Well, I hope he’s got his tail feathered out ag’in,” said Israel, dryly.”I do’no’ but what hair’d grow as well as feathers in a speretooal state, and I never see a pictur’ of an angel but what hed consider’ble many feathers.”

Miss Lucinda looked rather confounded. But humanity had one little revenge on her in the shape of her cat, a beautiful Maltese, with great yellow eyes, fur as soft as velvet, and silvery paws as lovely to look at as they were thistly to touch. Toby certainly pleaded hard for Miss Lucinda’s theory of a soul; but his was no good one: some tricksy and malign little spirit had lent him his share of intellect, and he used it to the entire subjugation of Miss Lucinda. When he was hungry, he was as well-mannered and as amiable as a good child,—he would coax, and purr, and lick her fingers with his pretty red tongue, like a “perfect love”; but when he had his fill, and needed no more, then came Miss Lucinda’s time of torment. If she attempted to caress him, he bit and scratched like a young tiger, he sprang at her from the floor and fastened on her arm with real fury; if he cried at the window and was not directly let in, as soon as he had achieved entrance his first manÔøΩuvre was to dash at her ankles and bite them, if he could, as punishment for her tardiness. This skirmishing was his favorite mode of attack; if he was turned out of the closet, or off the pillow up stairs, he retreated under the bed and made frantic sallies at her feet, till the poor woman got actually nervous, and if he was in the room made a flying leap as far as she could to her bed, to escape those keen claws. Indeed, old Israel found her more than once sitting in the middle of the kitchen-floor with Toby crouched for a spring under the table, his poor mistress afraid to move, for fear of her unlucky ankles. And this literally cat-ridden woman was hazed about and ruled over by her feline tyrant to that extent that he occupied the easiest chair, the softest cushion, the middle of the bed, and the front of the fire, not only undisturbed, but caressed. This is a veritable history, beloved reader, and I offer it as a warning and an example: if you will be an old maid, or if you can’t help it, take to petting children, or donkeys, or even a respectable cow, but beware of domestic tyranny in any shape but man’s!

No wonder Miss Lucinda took kind
ly to the pig, who had a house of his own, and a servant, as it were, to the avoidance of all trouble on her part,—the pig who capered for joy when she or Fun approached, and had so much expression in his physiognomy that one almost expected to see him smile. Many a sympathizing conference Miss Lucinda held with Israel over the perfections of Piggy, as he leaned against the sty and looked over at his favorite after this last chore was accomplished.

“I say for’t,” exclaimed the old man, one day, “I b’lieve that cre’tur’ knows enough to be professor in a college. Why, he talks! he re’lly doos: a leetle through his nose, maybe, but no more’n Dr. Colton allers doos,—’n’ I declare he appears to have abaout as much sense. I never see the equal of him. I thought he’d ‘a’ larfed right out yesterday, when I gin him that mess o’ corn: he got up onto his forelegs on the trough, an’ he winked them knowin’ eyes o’ his’n, an’ waggled his tail, an’ then he set off an’ capered round till he come bunt up ag’inst the boards. I tell you, that sorter sobered him; he gin a growlin’ grunt, an’ shook his ears, an’ looked sideways at me, and then he put to and eet up that corn as sober as a judge. I swan! he does beat the Dutch!”