Catoninetales A Domestic Epic: By Hattie Brown: A young lady of colour lately deceased at the age of 14 [i.e. W. J. Linton] |
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| THE SQUASH
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 | Catoninetales |  |
THE SQUASH
HOW THE SQUASH BECAME A CAT
Wehave a beautiful cat in our possession, so far as one can be said to possess a cat (since the days of witchcraft the title to possession is not quite so clear), a he-cat of the striped or striated kind, striped like a very squash. We were lying the other day on our back in our orchard, staring up into a streaked-apple tree. and thinking, as the apples fell, of little Isaac Newton and the curious upcomes after falls. From Newton's apple tree our thoughts fell off to Darwin, meanwhile Rob lying on our lap, purring out his heart's content, and probably thinking in his feline fashion. Near us was a fence dividing our lot from neighbour Smith's, and, even as we looked, over this fence a wild squash was climbing. How often we had tried to keep it on our own side. Noticing it again, we were puzzled by the strange likeness between the squash (striped too) and Rob, particularly as regarded Rob. It struck me then that both were climbers. Often we had watched them in sunshine and in moonlight, and day or night Rob was just as difficult as the squash to keep on the home side of the fence. Darwin in our thoughts, the question arose — Why this? What is the cause of the
Is it not too the universal tale,
The pancattantrums of all-changing Love?
When crimson-clad Cophetua from his throne
Wooeth the Nut-brown Maid, 'tis burly Rob
And homely Jennie in a new disguise.
Call it also, to point some moral here,
The Glory on the lap of Evening Calm,
The bright serenity of a well-spent life.
So every thing aye meaneth some thing else.
Eheu, Jehu! As the Wise Cat observed
To the Philologist — “Man everywhere
And at all times is man.” Here ends my taile.
If any ask — Why this or that forget?
Let it to a Cat's short memory be set!
| Catoninetales | |