Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 276, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 November 1913 — HER FAD-AND HIS [ARTICLE]

HER FAD-AND HIS

By CLYDE PARSONS.

If every man, old or young, has a fad — and we know he has; If every_ woman, old or young, has a fad — and we know she has —why blame Miss Nora Lee for having one, too? It wasn’t a great big fad, and one to keep the police busy and the babies on the block awake o’ nights, but a reasonable fad, and was not seriously objected to even by people with a grouch. , Miss Nora waß not a moving picture fiend; she did not go to ball games more than twice in a season; she did not attend *tbe races at all’. Her fad was—cats —dogs, rabbits? Not at all! She lavished her affections on a goat, and he wasn't anything of a beauty at that. In fact, he was a scrub goat. He was built on the lines of a saw-buck. He was homely from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail. He remained gaunt despite the food set before him. He evinced no gratitude for her love and care, and he wasn’t a bit proud when he was led along the street with yards of blue ribbon streaming in the breeze, and a silver bell around his neck. Mistress and goat were bound to attract attention when they walked out. Adults stared, small boys indulged Tri levity, and dogs seemed to have a longing to try conclusions with ‘■Billy.” However, a fad wouldn’t be much of a fad unless it attracted attention, and while Miss Nora tried to look calm and unconscious, there is no doubt that she felt glows of pride as she caught such remarks as: “Did you ever!” “Can you beat it!" “Why don’t she love a hippo!” “Hasn’t she a father or a mother?” * r A hobble skirt and a pet goat — thunder!” Miss Nora’s father was dead, and her mother’s objections to her fad carried no weight. “Does Billie bite any one?” the daughter would ask. “Of course not" “Does he bark and disturb us?” *“No.” “Does he cost any more to keep than a dog?” “I guess not.” “He isn’t handsome, but isn’t he better looking than a bull dog?” “Y-e-s.” “Then what’s the matter with my keeping a goat?” “It’s so unusual.” “Wasn’t the split skirt unusual two years ago?” Living half p mile away was Mr. Burt Wiltshire. He had a fad. t~Jnstead of leading a goat about the streets, he, led a pig. It was a black pig with a red ribbon for a collar. It had been trained so it could be led like a dog. That pig was also an innovation as well as a fad. The police had tried to suppress it, but the courts had held that it had the same rights as a dog and was not half as dangerous. . . : Like the goat, the pig attracted much attention when out for an airing, and like Miss Nora the young man at the other end of the lead received such expressions from the public as: “Is he an escaped idiot?” “Does he belong to a side-show?” “Can the pig tell fortunes with cards?” It might have ben figured out by a mathematician that there was just one chance in ten thousand that the girl and her goat and the young man and. his pig would ever meet on the--street in a head-on collision. That one icbance came to them. It was so willed by the Destiny that shapes our ends. At nine o’clock one morning Miss Nora and her goat were taking a promenade for their health and other reasons. There was an abandon about them that was charming. That is, they occupied most of the sidewalk, and their motto was, the public be hanged. At the same hour Mr. Burt Wiltshire and his educated black pig set out for their stroll. They had heretofore taken one particular direction. This morning they took a new route. Destiny would have it so. “Get on to the goat!” “Where'd he get the pig!” “That’s the latest thing at Newport!” “Oh, Lord, what things we do Bee .In a town!" As the public exclaimed the human and animal objects gradually approached each other. They finally met There was no record in sacred or profane history to go by —no society rule laid down in the blue or red book. Therefore the jim dandy goat and the educated pig bumped against each other. "Sir!” demanded the girl. “Miss!” replied the man. ’ “You have got a nasty pig there!” "And you have a villain of a goat!” “Don’t you dare let your pig—!" “And your goat—!” It was too late. No work on natural history—no writer on heart throbs in the yellow journals, has told us that when a pig and a goat meet there must be a deadly conflict, but a record has been made with this story. The goat was the attacker but the pig ' stood to bis guns. The goat used his horns and hoofs; the pig used his snout and teeth. “Call your pig off!” "Call your goat off!” “Your pig began the fuss!” “Your goat began it!” “You are no gentleman!” “You are a pice young lady!” k crowd gathered. That crowd

made remarks. It made reiharks to the girl and to the young man. It gave advice to the goat and to the pig. It advised the goat to pin the pig to the fence with his horns and hold him there until life was extinct. It advised the pig to remember Bunker Hill and go in and make a whirlwind finish of iL Not until the police came did each owner gather up the remains of hfs animal and quit the scene of the combat. Their glances expressed nothing but supreme indignation as turned away. It was so plain that they wished each other destruction in some awful form that a chauffeur who had •stoped to witness the affair while the meter went right on recording, felt called upon to express himself: “Gee! but 'sposen he should fall in love with that girl some day! How she would turn him down!” -— r: . And it happened. It was bound to happen., Destiny wouldn’t have missed such a golden opportunity for all the old second hand hats in Boston. A fad is acquired as easily as a cold In the head. Some run about the same length of time —some a little longer. but they are bound to be abandoned for something else. Miss Nora Lee got home from the scene of that traged disgusted with her goat and herself. It wasn’t the same goat with which she so blithely set out an hour before, and she wasn’t the same girl. She found herBelf hoping that the goat would jump the fence and take' himself off to be seen by her no more. Then she would buy a parrot or a tame crow, or a squirrel with a wheel in his cage. She might even turn to a French bulldog or an alligator from Florida. And Mr. Burt Wiltshire reached home to telephone to the nearest butcher: “Say, now, do you want to buy a pig?” “Yep. Got one for sale?” “I have.” “How much?” “If you take him away at once you can have him for two dollars.” “All right—he’s mine.” Mr. • Wiltshire also determined to drop his pig-fad for another.lt might be for a donkey or a camel —he would think it over. And one day two weeks later the girl without the goat and the young man without a pig met face to face on the street. Each wavered. ■ Each halted. Each blushed and was confused. “ —I want to beg your pardon!” he finally managed to Say. “And I want to beg yours,” was the reply. “It was all my pig’s fault.” "I believe my goat began the row.” “It was so sudden that—that —” “The same with me.” “I have sold the pig.” “And my goat has got away, and I don’t want him back.” And then and there came a new fad for each one. It was interest in a human being of the opposite sex. (Copyright, 1913, •by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.)