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.