_To Editor Woman’s Page who do so much to make home-life less homely._
Hon. Dear Sir:
Mrs. Benjoman Barnum of Pyramid Park, Penn, is the latest lady to
turn me loose. Whether she are a relationship to Hon. P. T. Barnum
(deceased) I am not aware enough to say, but she have got a very
menagerie mind. Her home is a tame zoo full of animals. I am sure, if
she had a bigger parlour, she would keep a elephant.
“Togo,” she report to me when she hired me off the Fineheimer
Employment Bureau, “nothing make home so lively as several Pets.”
“I notice this,” is bright reply for me. “You are the most pettish lady
I ever worked for.”
She did not seem to assimilate them words I said, yet they was
truthful. Her home resembled Mr. Noah’s Houseboat in variety of
4-foot, 2-foot & 1-foot beasts it contained. By actual stastistics Mrs.
Barnum possessed the following list of live Pets, which she support
from sweethearted reasons of kindness:
1 Dog of waggish ways & barking vocabulary. His name was Julius Siezer,
but Neighbours call him “Git Out!” because he dug mines in their flower
beds. I forgot his nationality, but his complexion was Irish; 1 Cat
entitled Florence who earned her food by purring for it. Her feet was
deliciously full of thorns; 1 Parrot called Robt. Burns because his
soul was in his talk; 1 cannary-bird name Dick. He didn’t seem to have
no resemblance to his name; 2 Goldfish Twins, Harry & Carry who spent
their days idly swimming in glass & saying nothing.
Mrs. Barnum formerly had one husband who went dead. I congratulate him.
When all those Pets is going at once, dog-bark, cat-mew, parrot-shriek
and cannary-bird warbul, it sound like a brass band composed of
dish-pans & steam whistles.
“I love my dum friends,” explan Mrs. Barnum to me with kind-eye
expression.
“I love them most when they are most dum,” I repartee, suppressing
my ears from those scrambled sounds. “If you could teach those
goldy-fishes to sing, the harmonium would be complete.”
While I said thus that dog Siezer approach up and bit me on leg.
“He do this in fun,” say Mrs. Barnum.
“So glad to hear!” I negotiate. “Dogs never hurts so much when they
bite humorously.”
“If you wish for to be employed in this home you must be keeper as well
as housekeeper,” she tell off. “Promptly at noon o’clock each day the
annimals must be fed. Each have his peculiaristic diet, which he crave
for health. Siezer must have bone, Florence require cream, Robt. Burns
expect apple, Dick ask for seed, while Harry & Carry demand fishfood. I
should rather see anything than that my Pets go hungry.”
I assimulate her words and do what best I can. It require tack and
courage to chaperone those Pets. They are all cannibles by appetite
and would love to eat each other for their food qualities. When Hon.
Seizer, the dog, are unloosed from his mesh he start forthly with
waggish expression of tail and attemp to gobble Hon. Florence, the cat.
This delusive mammal are too speedful for that dog, so she elope with
hissy noise to mantel-piece where she set growelling with enlarged
fur. When Hon. Siezer are absent attending other duties, Hon. Florence
set hour by hour gazing upward at Hon. Dick, the cannary-bird, and
wishing she had a baloon to obtain him with. When I approach this
talented cat she make purr-song and slide around my ankles, requesting
that I should give her Dick for lunch. I must refuse, out of politeness
for Dick. Sometime Hon. Florence prefer fish. Then she walk up
wallpaper like a fly and thusly arrive to shelf where Harry & Carry are
swimming selfishly around in their toy ocean.
Hon. Robt. Burns, the parrot, are less particular. He like any sort
of food, as long as it are alive. One day he observe me and say with
tender squawk, “O darling, come, come to your own sailor boy!” I come.
When I approach sifficiently close, Oh, nipp! Hon. Parrot remove off
¼ from my ear and set there looking satisfied. I sorrow to think he
could talk so tender, yet act so tough!
Last Thursday A. M. Mrs. Barnum approach to me. She did not know it was
my last day with her. Neither did I. Life is so surprised!
“Togo,” she instruct, “I am going over to Aunt Jane’s to set by a sick
bedside.”
“Are Aunt Jane diseased?” I require.
“No. It are her cat what has influenza of the diagram,” she tell. “I
shall be gone 1 hour time. Remember, while I are away my pets must be
fed. Do not neglect this. I would rather anything than that they should
go hungry.”