Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 August 1881 — Thisllepod’s Dog with Rattles on His Tail. [ARTICLE]

Thisllepod’s Dog with Rattles on His Tail.

“ Say,” said old Mr. Thistlepod, chewing his morsel of navy plug with the rapid intonation of a man who was in earnest. “Say, you know that spotted coach dog of mine that bit his leg with a rattlesnake nigh onto three weeks ago ? Well, ever since he’s been trvin’ to coil himself up all the time, and has eleven rattles growed out on the end of his tail Has for a gospel fact. Nights, when he was around the house, it sounds like a drum corps goin’ by. I declare to goodness I wished I’d brung him in to let you see him. Nero, the dog’s name is,” he went on. “Nero; 6 years old this spring. Raised him myself; you’ve seen him hundreds of times under my wagon.” Surprised that no astonishment was expressed, the old man added : * * You probably remember that shaggy, rough-haired Scotch terrier of Ben Martin’s ? Well, sir, Ben he sent to Philadelphy and got a couple o’ dozen Bilk worms and fed ’em to the dog, an’—ye liain’t seen that terrier since last Saturday, have ye ? Well, Bir, I hope I may die some time if that dog’s hair liafn’t come out the softest, finest silk fringe ye ever saw in your life 1 Silk fringe, with a braid two inches deep along his back, an’ a ball of chenille hangin’ from the end of each ear. Ben’s goin’ to buy up a couple o’ hundred cheap longhaired dogs, feed ’em silk worms and shear ’em every spring.” The editor thought there would be money in it. “ Better’n a gold mine,” the old man said; “an’do you know, while he was feedin’ of him, Ben forgot to take off the dog’s collar, big leather collar.” "And what happened to the collar?” the editor asked, a little wearily. “ Velvet, ” said the old man enthusiastically. “It grew Lyons velvet, with a celluloid buckle. ” The editor promised to make a note of the fact under the head pf “Latest Inventions,” and Thistlepod went away perfectly contented with himself and the rest of mankind.