Jasper County Democrat, Volume 17, Number 83, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 January 1915 — THE BOWSER CAT AND THE INTERLOPER COLLIDED. [ARTICLE]

THE BOWSER CAT AND THE INTERLOPER COLLIDED.

run a terrible risk of a physical collapse with tbe advent of the first real hot wave?” “No, I didn’t know it I thought you were in splendid health. Only last night I heard you telling Brown”— "Never mind what I told Brown. A man may be at death’s door and yet not like to have people talking about it and sympathizing. 1 may look well and have a good appetite, but the fact remains that a puff would blow out the flame of life. I have kept this fact from you for weeks and weeks, but I feel you ought to know it” “And the hammock is going to save you from being puffed out?” she asked asthefamily cat came out from under the piano to take a hand in the game. “I hope and trust it is. Acting under the advice of one of the best doctors in town, I am going to try to harden myself up before the hot weather becomes too oppressive. I shall put that hammock up in the back yard this evening.” “And that will harden you?” Adam Is His Hero.

“And 1 shall pass the night in the hammock—many nights. The doctor says I must have a free circulation of air and that instead of avoiding the night dews I must revel in them, so to say. - Man was never born to sleep in a bed as we do. Adam rested at night under a tree. So did all the other men for hundreds of years. Whenever you find the hardiest men you find men who keep in tbe open air by day and night. I have coddled myself up too much.” “Well, when you have a sore throat, a cold in'the bead and are aching with from head to heel, perhaps you’ll keep on coddling!” she answered. "Any doctor who told you such stuff for truth is an idiot!” “There you go!” exclaimed Mr. Bowiser as he began to pace up and down the room, followed by/he cat, “1 might have known you wouldn't talk sense. I never start in to better my health but you oppose the idea. If you are hoping 1 may collapse on the street and be brought home as dead as a doornail, why don’t you say so and have done with it?”

Mrs. Bowser Scents Trouble Again. “Go ahead with your hammock cure,” she quietly replied. “If the doctor said it would harden you up then of course it will. Don’t put the blame off on me, however.” “Blame? Blame? How can 1 blame you?” “I don’t know, but you probaMs will.” “I’ll probably do nothing of the kind. By George, but I wonder if there is

another such aggravating woman on the face of the earth!” Mrs Bowser had nothing more to say. Mr. Bowser kicked things out of his way as he walked, and the cat rubbed against a leg of the piano and saw fun ahead. Half an hour later the hammock was slung between two of the clothesline posts. It was a fairly dark evening, and Mrrßowser congratulated himself that noue of the neighbors had g3t on to his little scheme. At 1 o’clock lie was ready to try the cure. He tried to draw Mrs. Bowser into an argument about it, but she kept clear and went upstairs as he started out. Bareheaded and with coat and vest off, he fell into the hammock with a grunt of satisfaction and began counting the stars in the vault above. Unnoticed by him, the cat had followed at his heels. The night cure was nothing new to her, and she went wandering about the yard in search of summer novelties. Ten minutes had ! passed, and Mr. Bowser had just indulged in a sneeze which, set the mock swinging when the head of a neighbor’s cat appeared above the fence. For a few brief seconds the Bowser cat and the intertoper exchanging glances of hate and ; distrust and defiance, and then on top of the fence they collided. “By the great horn spoon!” ejaculated Mr. Bowser as he rolled about and finally fell out of the hammock. By the time he had hit the earth the interloper was a licked feline and was heard scrambling over a fence three yards below. Enter a Canine Intruder.,

,It was evident that the cure had a few drawbacks, but after cussing softly to himself for a minute the patient climbed back into the hammock and tried to make himself believe that he already felt better. He shut his eyes tightly, determined to sleep, and the of a second sneeze was being faintly felt when there was a yell and a hiss, and the cat went up the fence and over it like a flash, and a dog was left whining and growling within ten feet of the hammock. The canine had crept under the. alley fence, and the Bowser cat hadn’t waited to ask any questions. “By thunder! Can’t a man find five minutes’ peace in his own back yard?” shouted Mr. Bowser as he rolled out and looked for a clothes prop as a weapon of offense. He ran that dog three times across the yard before the animal could find the hole he came in at and get out again, and when he returned to the hammock the romance of the night was gone. If he hadn’t caught sight of Mrs. Bowser peering from one of the back windows he might have decided to call things off until the next night That settled matters, however. He dropped into the hammock and huddled himself up, and the cat came back and sat on the fence and looked down upon him with guardian eyes. Ten minutes stole quietly away, and the crickets had begun to sing low and drowsily, when something fell from the sky with a great slash and clatter and missed Mr. Bowser and his hammock by only a few inches. “Something” Was an Old Bucket. “By the club footed king, but who did that?” he demanded as he rolled out to find that the “something” was an old pail. He had scarcely uttered the word when an Early Rose potato whizzed by his ear and struck the fence with a bang, and it was followed by a Florida, cabbage stalk, which emitted a moaning sound as it grazed the top of his head. The cat realized that she wasn’t in it and took a skip, but Mr. Bowser wasn’t to be bluffed.

“Yoq reptiles, I’ll have you jugged for this!” he shouted as he looked around and failed to locate any one. “Do you know”— Then there were missiles which he believed to be onions and tomatoes and green corn cobs and ancient lemons, and all he could do was to jump up aud down and demand that his hidden foes stand forth and be slaughtered. He thought he caught sight of some one on the alley fence, and he made a wild charge, but he had no sooner reached it than the ' heavens rained tin cans, bottles, old hats and shoes, and he was compelled to turn and flee for his life. Mrs. Bowser came downstairs to find him in the sitting room, white faced, big eyed and panting, and after a look at him she said: • “Have you got hardened up for the hot wave as quick as this?” A “Woman, how dare you look me In the face?” he demanded as he turned on her. “Don’t you suppose I know all about your little, plot to have me killed, murdered, assassinated in my own back yard? I say, dare you”— “You’d better eqme to bed,” she quietly replied, and she went upstairs, and he slowly followed and hadn’t another word to say.