Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 August 1891 — The Musk-Rat. [ARTICLE]

The Musk-Rat.

Josh Billings. jr The musk-rat is bigger than a squirrel, and smaller than a woodchuk.and iz az unlike them as aßockaway klam and a lobster are different from each other. He iz amphibiuss, and kan live on land a good deal longer than he kap liv under the water. He feeds upon roots, herbs, and soft klams, and smell like the wake of a fashionable woman out on parade. He bilds houses in the winter, about az big az flour barrels all over the marshes and enters them from the cellar. Hiz phur is worth 25 cents, and ain’t Uyely in the market at that. Yu can ketch them in almost enny kind ov a trap tnat has got a way tew get into it. They are not kunning, and aint difficult tew suit. When i was a boy i trapped every winter for musk-rats, and bought the fust pare ov skates i ever owned with their skins. I hav seen them in winter setting up on end on the ice, cluss beside their holes,az stiff azan exclamashun point, and when they seen me they change ends and point down like a semicolon, and that was the last of them. The musk-rat haz a flat tale, with no more phur on it than a file has. I don’t dispize musk-rat —oh, no! —but i don’t worship him. He haz but phew sins to answer for; the chief oue is digging holes in the bank of the Erie kanal, and letting the water bx-eak out. He will have tew answer for this sumtime. I luv all the animals, all the bugs, all the beasts, all the,.finsex, all the katterpillars, bekauze they are so natral. They are as mutch, if not more, an evidence tew me ov the existance, the power, and the luv ov an overruling providence, as man iz. I kau see as mutch fust class natur in an angleworm, akording tew the square inch,as i kan see in au elephant.

I luv tew go phooling around amung the animiles of all kind in a warm day; i had rather set down bi the side ov an ant-hill and see the whole swarm pitch onto a lazy kuss who won’t work, and and run him out of the diggins. than to set six hours at the opera and applaud v hat i don’t understand, and weep at the spot whare the rest do, and pay 3 dollars for the privilege ov doing it. I