Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 July 1896 — FOR THE YOUNG FOLKS. [ARTICLE]

FOR THE YOUNG FOLKS.

A CAT’s QUEER FAMILY. When pussy becomes a mother, with kittens to care for and protect, she usually sets a splendid example for careless human mothers to follow. The maternal devotion shown by even a tramp cat is a pathetic and lovely sight. Just htw much a cat cares for her kittens is often illustrated by the fact of a mother cat adopting strange aud unlikely auimals to look after when her own little ones are killed or taken away from her. The strangest case of this sort on record is now in evidence in the home of Rudolph Paltauf, who lives in the town of Pearl River, N. J. Mr. PaltauPs cat was recently robbed of her litter of kittens aud for days wont about crying piteously. Suddenly she disappeared in the woods, to return last Tuesday with a live baby rabbit in her mouth, which she nursed with the utmost fondness. On the same dav she and another cat went into the woods and brought back five wee bunnies. This queer brood aud the cat mother are the talk of the town, and i>eople are traveling for miles to see the strange sight In Farmer Paltauf s barn. The mother cat’s odd family is getting ou nicely, und it seems the most natural thing in the world for the long-ea-ed kangaroo footed bunnies to be washed, fed and otherwise cured for by their feline mother. NIGHT ON A WAltsmt*. The "First call" is souuded again five minutes before suu lowu, when Ihu ensign aud tlte jack-halyards are maimed, and a stay-light made ready for hoisting to indicate the Hhip’s whereabouts during the night Then the Color-call follows at sundown ub the flag Is lowered, and saluted by all as it reaches the dock. The Assembly Is then Bouuded for evening quarters and muster, but there Is no drill. As a rule, It Is just after Btinsot when the bugle call Is sounded to “Stand by hammocks ” That brings all the crew ou deck, and they stand in silence close out to the ship's side beside the hammock nettiugs, In two ranks fudng the stern, until the boatswain’s male reports to the officer of the deck, “All up and aft.” The latter then orders, “Uncover! —Pipe down!” and in obedience to tills order and the boatswain’s whistle the nettings nre thrown open, and the hammocks are served out and taken below to their proper places. Each hammock has printed on it a number, and that same number is on the hooks below decks where that hammock has to be swung, bo that each man sleeps In the same place every night, and that place Is called Ills “billet.” Unless, now, a boat is called away there will be no moro bugle calls until five minutes of nine o'clock. The period la one of complete relaxation, and is spent by the sailors in saioklng, spinning yarns, singing, plating on musical Instruments, and dancing. At flye minutes of nine the First cull is again sounded as a warning to the crew to prepare to turn Into their hammocks and go to sleep. Then at nine o’clock comes the call known as “Tattoo." This Tattoo Is the survival of an old custom. In the “old navy” It used to last fifteen minutes, and was performed with drum and fife, playing all manner of airs und quicksteps according to the fancy or Ingenuity of the drummer and lifer. It is even said to have been handed down from a period of superstition, when they used to make a hullabaloo after dark to drive the devils out of the ship. At the last note of Tattoo the ship’s bell Is struck twice for nine o’clock, and the boatswain’s whistle sounds “Pipe down.” Every man must then turn Into his hammock, whether lie is sleepy or not, for an inspection is made by the master-at-anus to see that all have done so. Then sounds that last, long, mournful call, “Taps." SPARROW AND RHINOCEROS. It is not easy to astonish a sparrow. You can scare them—"often scared as oft return, a pert, voracious kind”—and make them fly away; but that is only because the sparrow has the hump of selfpreservation very prominentlv develope I, and takes a hint as to personal danger with extraordinary promptitude. But though it may remove its small body out of harm’s way for the time being, it is not disconcerted. You can see that by the way in which it immediately goes on with its toilet. Its nerves have not been shaken—that is evident from its obvious self-possession, and the w.iy it scratches its head and makes a note of the fly which went by. It would not commence at once a frivolous altercation with another of its kind if it had been disconcerted. , And really, it is not to be wondered at that the sparrow should be bevond the reach of astonishment. Think of what it sees, nnd sees quite unconcernedly, in the streets of London. Put a tiger into Fleet Street, or a bear at the bank, and the poor beasts would go crazy with terror. A single omnibus would stampede a troop of lions. Yet a sparrow surveys the approaching fire-engine undismayed, and it sits with ! ts back to the street when a runaway van comes thundering death down liudgftte Hill. The small bird’s life is, in fact, so made up of surprises that it regards the astounding as commonplace. So a flr. sitting down in a train, thinks nothing of finding itself- in the next county when it gets up Its whole existence is volcanic and seismic. It cannot Rcttle on a hand without the hand moving. What would a dog think if, on going into a ten-acre field, the field suddenly turned over? But the fly is not put out of countenance by such “phenomena.” It comes back to the hand again. It is the same with the sparrow. It thinks no more of another wonder than the Seven Champions did of an extra dragon in the day’s work. All the same, I have seen a sparrow totallv confounded and all to pieces. It was, I confess, only a young one, with just the promise of a tall, nothing more; and some odds and ends of fluff still clinging between the red feathers. I was looking at the rhinoceros, which was lying

down close to the railings, and a very sleepv rhinoceros it was Except for slight twitches of tbe tail and an occasional fidget of tbe eara, it was quite motionless. And tbe young sparrow bopping about in the enclosure, coming to the beast, bopped on to it. iooklng in the chinks of its skin for charce grains or insects. And it hopped all along its back on to its head (tbe rhinoceros winked j, and along its head on to the little born, and from the little horn on to the big one, (and it blinked), and then off tbe born on to its nose. And then the rhinoceros snorted. The sparrow was a sight to see. Exploded is no word for it. And it sat all in a heap on the coiner of the house, and chirped the roournfulest chirps. “I hadn’t the smallest notion the thing was alive,” it said. “Oh, dear! oh, dear!” and it wouldn’t be pacified for a long time. Its astonishment had been severe and had got “into the system.” I remembered the story of the boy who sat ou the whale's blow-hole. Behemoth had got stranded on the Shetland coast. While the population were admiring it, an urchin climbed on to the bead of the distressful monster, and exultantly seated his graceless person on its forehead. He had but a short time to enjoy bis triumph, and the next instant the whale, filling itself with air, blew guch a blast through its blow-hole that the boy wag blown up into the air and out to sea. So said the veracious chronicler of the day—and I hope it was true, for little bovs should not, under any circumstances, sit on the blow-hole of whales. Nor young sparrow# on the nostrils of a rhinoceros.