The Universal Reciter. Various
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not think about biting, and I yelled so that the mice would not hear its squeaks and come to its assistance. A man can't handle many mice at once to advantage.
Maria was white as a sheet when she came into the kitchen and asked what she should do—as though I could hold the mouse and plan a campaign at the same time. I told her to think of something, and she thought she would throw things at the intruder; but as there was no earthly chance for her to hit the mouse, while every shot took effect on me, I told her to stop, after she had tried two flat-irons and the coal-scuttle. She paused for breath; but I kept bobbing around. Somehow I felt no inclination to sit down anywhere. "O Joshua," she cried, "I wish you had not killed the cat." Now I submit that the wish was born of the weakness of woman's intellect. How on earth did she suppose a cat could get where that mouse was?—rather have the mouse there alone, anyway, than to have a cat prowling around after it. I reminded Maria of the fact that she was a fool. Then she got the tea-kettle and wanted to scald the mouse. I objected to that process, except as a last resort. Then she got some cheese to coax the mouse down, but I did not dare to let go, for fear it would run up. Matters were getting desperate. I told her to think of something else, and I kept jumping. Just as I was ready to faint with exhaustion, I tripped over an iron, lost my hold, and the mouse fell to the floor, very dead. I had no idea a mouse could be squeezed to death so easy.
That was not the end of the trouble, for before I had recovered my breath a fireman broke in one of the front windows, and a whole company followed him through, and they dradged hose around, and mussed things all over the house, and then the foreman wanted to thrash me because the house was not on fire, and I had hardly got him pacified before a policeman came in and arrested me. Some one had run down and told him I was drunk and was killing Maria. It was all Maria and I could do, by combining our eloquence, to prevent him from marching me off in disgrace, but we finally got matters quieted and the house clear.
Now when mice run out of the cupboard I go outdoors, and let Maria "shoo" them back again. I can kill a mouse, but the fun don't pay for the trouble.
THE DYING HEBREW.
KIMBIE.
The following poem, a favourite with the late Mr. Edwin Forrest, was composed by a young law student, and first published in Boston in 1858.
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