Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 August 1876 — William Goat’s Fourth of July. [ARTICLE]

William Goat’s Fourth of July.

That Monroe street goat proved himself on the Fourtn to be as patriotic as any body in St Louis, at least he made as fine a display of bunting as any house on Fourth street There was a novelty abont hit banting, of course. The bunting on the stores down town showed stripes frequently perpendicular, with a batch of stars in theoorner, while the goat's banting was strictly in a horizontal line, and the only atars connected therewith were those observed suddenly by the various hunters. The goat probably wouldn't have been to patriotic but for the boys. He was nibbling the scant herbage beside the street on the morning of the Fonrth, when he attraoted the attention of a group of the worst youngsters in the ward, and they resolved upon the brilliant expedient of tying a bunch of oraokers to his tail, iust to see what he would do. They surrounded the goat, and, after infinite strategy and a final desperate battle, oaptured him. Then came the task of attaching the bundle of crackers to the animal's tail, and a difficult task it proved. Goats in general have no tail to speak of, and the Monroe street goat in particular is caudally deficient. His tail is on Ivan inch long, perfectly smooth, ana with an unwavering tendency to point toward the senith. The boys tried for halt an hour to fasten on the crackers without success, until finally one boy, who had learned to tie some kind us a sailor's knot, accomplished the feat thoroughly and satisfactorily. Then tb© crackers were ignited and the boya formed a hollow square about the goat awaiting developments. At the first fizz of the burning crackera the animal leaped perpendicularly 5 feet upward and came down stiff-legged, casting at the same time a dreadfully interesting look over hia shoulder at itR rear.. Aa the fizz changed into a flaming sputter it leaped higher still and came down more than before, and then began shying about tideways. The boys, previous to affixing the crackera, had taken the goat into a yard with a high board fenoe abont it so that it couldn't get away, but they still remained in a hollow square to observe the phenomena of the occasion more closely. Soon the first oraoker exploded, and then followed a frightful scene. The goat took in the situation fully, and then became a baneful Nemesis. With a revengeful “bl-a-ab,” and • rash lie knocked a corner boy out of that hollow square and a rod away, and then wheeled like lightning and oharged again. The boys started for that fence in a wild stampede, but not one of them reaohed it. Tho goat shot about like a giant boomerang, and every time he struck a boy that boy went to grass a total wreck. The crackers roared and flamed, and the goat resembled a comet with afirey tail, careering through the air, as he bounded from side to side and smote the hapless boys.. Before the bunch of crackers was half gone every boy was down, and all afraid to get up before the raging beast, save one boy who was lying olose to the fenoe, and thought he might get over before the whirlwind would reach him. He made the attempt, but wasn't quick enough, and dropped just in time to let the goat pass over him with terrible force and pass through the fence like a oannon-ball, carrying off a board as he went. ..The boys rashed to the gap feus and saw a ball of fire far down the street, going at the rate of 1,000 miles an hour, and they saw no more goat on the. Fourth of July. On the next morning, however, the animal was feeding about iu his accustomed haunts, and, but for the blackened stump of a tail and a sinister gleam in his eye, no one would have supposed that it had aided in celebrating the Centennial Fourth. — St- Louis Republican.