Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 July 1884 — One of His Nine Lives. [ARTICLE]

One of His Nine Lives.

“I had a rooster onct as lickt a cat.” The hero of this re markable statement stood in the middle of a group of admiring hearers, and his twinkling ey s flashed defiance. “Don’t believe it, do you ? It’s a fatet, though. I us* t’ live over here in Darby township. I had a farm lot up thar—potato patch, barn, chickens, and all th’ fixin’s. One o’ the chickens I hed wuz a corker—a reg’lar ol’ he devil rooster, he wuz—an’ he an’ th’ cat wuz alwnz a fightin’, but alwnz at a distance, ’s tho’ th’ wuz afeard o’ each other. “One day I wuz a-sittin’ under a tree, never thinkin’ o’ nothin’, when all o’ a suddint a n outlandish hollerin’ like as tho’ it warn’t nothin’ human, an’ when I ups an’ goes int’ th’ barn-yard, what d’ yer ’spose I sees ? Why that tornal cat a-roilin’ over aud over, an’ the rooster a-rollin’ and a-rollin’, and both a-rollin’ over t’other, an’ all th’ time a-howlin’ an’ a-screechin, an’ the fur an* the feathers a-flyin’—on y th’ rooster wuz nearly alwuz on top and the cat underneath like.

“An’ thar th’ kept it up fur nigh a’ nour—me not a-interferin’, but jist a-watchin’t’ sea th’ fun out. All of a suddint th’ oat goes t’ shiverin’, an’ th* rooster catches ’im i’ th’ eye, an’ Mr. Cat falls back dead as—as—a screwdriver.” The interest of the crowd a 3 the old man,proceeded was intense.. “An’ th’ rooster —why he jumps up an’ crows like mad—and ruffles his feathers—that is what wuz left on ’em, an’ walks away, proud as all-fired creation. Afer th’ rooster goes away the cat opens one eye kinder sly like” and looked around, as much as to say ” “I thought you said the cat was dead,” remonstrated a doubter, whose incredlous looks betraye4 a want of confidence in the narrative. The old man grinned. “So he was,” he chuokled; “but he only lost one o’ his lives, and when the rooster’d dis’pesred he ups an’ walks away with t’other eight os lively as a half drowned kitten.”— Philadelphia Times,