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Peck's Sunshine, a fiction by George W. Peck |
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Crossman's Goat |
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_ Mr. Crossman, of Marshall street, is a man who was once a boy himself, if his memory serves him, and no boy of his is going to ask him for anything that is in his power to purchase and be refused. But when his boy asked him to buy a goat Mr. Crossman felt hurt. It was not the expense of the goat that he looked at, but he never had felt that confidence in the uprightness of the moral character of a goat that he wanted to feel. A goat he always associated in his mind with a tramp, and he did not feel like bringing among the truly good children of the neighborhood a goat. He told his boy that he was sorry he had lavished his young and tender affections on a goat, and hoped that he would try and shake off the feeling that his life's happiness would be wrecked if he should refuse to buy him a goat. The boy put his sleeve up over his eyes and began to shed water, and that settled it. Mr. Crossman's religion is opposed to immersion, and when the infant baptism began his proud spirit was conquered, and he told the boy to lead on and he would buy the goat. They went over into the Polack settlement and a Countess there, who takes in washing, was bereaved of the goat, while Mr. Crossman felt that he was a dollar out of pocket. Now that he thinks of it, Mr. Crossman is confident that the old lady winked as he led the goat away by a piece of clothes line, though at the time he looked upon the affair as an honorable business transaction. If he had been buying a horse he would have asked about the habits of the animal, and would probably have taken the animal on trial. But it never occurred to him that there was any cheating in goats. The animal finally pulled Mr. Crossman home, at the end of the clothes line, and was placed in a neighbor's barn at eventide to be ready for the morning's play, refreshed. About 6 o'clock in the morning, Mr. Crossman was looking out of his window when he saw the neighboring lady come out of the barn door head first, and the goat was just taking its head away from her polonaise in a manner that Mr. Crossman considered, with his views of propriety, decidedly impolite. Believing there was some misunderstanding, and that the goat was jealous of a calf that was in the barn, and that the matter could be satisfactorily explained to the goat, Mr. Crossman put the other leg in his trousers, took a cistern pole and went to the front. The goat saw him coming, and rushed out into the yard and stood up on its hind feet and gave the grand hailing sign of distress, and as Mr. Cross-man turned to see if any of the neighbors were up, he felt an earthquake strike him a little below where he had his suspenders tied around his body. Mr. Crossman repeated a portion of the beautiful Easter service and climbed up on an ash barrel, where he stood poking the goat on the ear with the cistern pole, when Mr. Crombie, who lives hard by. and who had come out to split some kindling wood, appeared on the scene. Mr. Crombie is a man who grasps a situation at once, and though he is a man who deliberates much on any great undertaking, when he saw the lady behind the coal box, and Mr. Crossman on the ash barrel, he felt that there was need of a great mind right there, and he took his with him over the fence, in company with a barrel stave and a hatchet. He told Crossman that there was only one way to deal with a goat, and that was to be firm and look him right in the eye. He said Sep. Wintermute, at Whitewater, once had a goat that used to drive the boys all around, but he could do anything with him, by looking him in the eye. He walked toward the goat, with "his eyes sot," and Mr. Crossman says one spell he thought, by the way the goat looked sheepish, that Crombie was a regular lion tamer, but just as he was about to paralyze the animal, Mr. Crombie caught the strings of his drawers, which were dragging on the ground, in the nails of a barrel hoop, and as he stooped down to untangle them the goat kicked him with his head, at a point about two chains and three links in a northwesterly direction from the small of his back. Crombie gave a sigh, said, "I die by the hand of an assassin," and jumped up on a wagon, with the barrel stave and hatchet, and the hoop tangled in his legs. The goat had three of them treed, and was looking for other worlds to conquer, when Mr. Nowell, who was out for a walk, saw the living statues, and came in to hear the news. Mr. Crossmair said he didn't know what had got into the goat, unless it was a tin pail or a lawn mower that was in the barn, but he was evidently mad, and he advised Mr. No-well to go for the police. Nowell said a man that had raised cub bears had no right to be afraid of a goat. He said all you wanted to do, in subduing the spirit of animals, was to gain their confidence. He said he could, in two minutes, so win the affections of that goat that it would follow him about like a dog, and he went up and stroked the animal's head, scratched its ear, and asked them if they could not see they had taken the wrong course with the goat. He said a goat was a good deal like a human being. You could coax, but you could not drive. "Come, Billy," said he, as he moved off, snapping his fingers. It is Mr. Nowell's unbiased opinion that Billy _did_ come. Not that he saw Billy come, but he had a vague suspicion, from a feeling of numbness some two feet from the base of the brain, that William had arrived in that immediate vicinity, and while he was recalling his scattered thoughts and feeling for any pieces of spine that might have become detached from the original column, Billy came again and caught three of Mr. Nowell's fingers in the pile driver. That was talk enough between gentlemen, and Mr. Nowell got his back against a fence and climbed up on top backwards. When he caught his breath he said that was the worst shock he ever experienced since he fell off the step ladder last summer. He said he had rather break a bear to ride any time. At this point Mr. Crombie espied a letter carrier on the other side of the street, and called him over. He told the letter carrier if he would step into the yard and drive the goat in the barn they would all unite in a petition to have the salaries of letter carriers raised. There is no class of citizens more accommodating than our letter carriers, and this one came in and walked up to the goat and pushed the animal with his foot. "This goat seems tame enough," said he, turning around to speak to Mr. Crossman. His words had not more than vaporized in the chill air before the goat had planted two trip hammer blows into the seat of government, and the letter carrier went into the barn, fell over a wheelbarrow, and the letters from his sack were distributed in a box stall. It was a beautiful sight to look upon, and they would have been there till this time had it not been that the Countess happened to come along gathering swill, and the party made up a purse of three dollars for her if she would take the goat away. She took a turnip top from her swill pail, offered it to the goat, and the animal followed her off, bleating and showing every evidence of contentment, and the gentlemen got down from the positions they had assumed, and they shook hands and each took a bloody oath that he would not tell about it, and they repaired to their several homes and used arnica on the spots where the goat had kicked them. The only trouble that is liable to arise out of this is that the postmaster threatens to commence an action against Crossman for obstructing the mails. _ |
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