Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 131, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 June 1910 — A WELCOME LOSS. [ARTICLE]

A WELCOME LOSS.

Grateful beneficiaries are always more or less embarrassing. Henry W. Lucy—for many years connected with the English periodical, Punch —tells, in "Sixty Years in the Wilderness,” of an Irishman who told his father such a piteous tale of want that for some time the Lucy household furnished the man with substantial breakfasts. Deeirious of showing his gratitude, the man gave them a goat. The author, then a lad of 10, finally disposed of theunwelcome visitor. * If he had given us a white elephant It would scarcely have been more embarrassing. There was a strip of garden at the back of the house, and here the goat was installed with a rope around Its neck attached to a stake driven Into the ground. It was late spring time, and the garden looked quite pretty as we tenderly bade the goat good night, placing a cabbage within convenient distance should the animal wake In the night and feel hungry. The early riser, looking out upon the garden the following morning, beheld a painful sight. The prim grass plot was torn up as if a troop qf cavalry had galloped across it. Flower beds ..ere ravaged. Nothing but a wrack of stem and leaf was left behind. Billy, as we‘ fondly called our gueet, had pulled up the stake and passed a pleasant night with the'panßles, wallflowers, white rock, and other cherished flowers. Evidently this wouldn’t do. Beneath the staircase leading to the kitchen theVe was a closet. It was predestined for Billy. But you may bring a goat to the top of a staircase; you can’t be sure he will descend. We ingenionsly overcame the difficulty by one walking

backward down the staircase, holding a carrot at reasonable distance from Billy’s nose. When the goat completed the descent the carrot was thrown into the closet, the goat made haste to follow, we shut and latched the door, and once more were able to breathe freely. An hour later the household was disturbed by piercing shrieks. One of the girls, going upstairs, came upon Billy on the second landing. The beast had butted open the door below the kitchen staircase, and with instinctive hereditary habit climbed the heights beyond. The next morning I volunteered to take the animal out to feed in a field close by. We got there all right, I desperately holding on to the rope round the goat’s neck. Billy evidently appreciated the grass, ate heartily, and, probably cheered by the meal, began ambling round me in distinctly unpleasant fashion. After treading a few measures, the creature bolted. I fell flat on the grass, hoping that my weight, if it did not bring the goat to a halt, would at least hamper it. Billy took no more notice of me than if I’d been a feather. After dragging me along for what seemed a mile, tearing my pinafore to shreds, scratching my hands and knees, the beast . threatened me with worse fate when he reached the highroad. I was constrained to let go the rope. Billy, kicking up in access of delight, speedily disappeared round the turn of the road, and, like ships posted up at Lloyds’, has “not since been heard of.”