The Sketcher.

Bruce Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 3025, 6 January 1899, Page 3

The Sketcher.

Bascom's Goat. ♦ Bas comb's folks had a baby. It was the first They had been married eighteen years, and had adopted two interesting orphan children of poor bat respectable parents ; and Bascom had willed his property to & lunatic asylum when, lo ! the baby arrived. , There was great rejoicing. Bascom looked upon himself, as » toero. Ditto Mrs. B , ditto Mrs. Boggs and myself, for ttie Bascoms were our bosom friends. We all felt a proprietorship— owned a share, so to speak, In the baby. The doctor said it ought to have goat's milk. [Bascom's soul was absorbed In finding a suitable animal. He advertised thus :—" Wanted— by a small, quiet family— a goat Must be sound, kind, and gentle, and safe for women and children. A good milker, brought up in a pious family, and an animal of good moral character." Next morning all the inhabitants of our street were roused by the menagerie of .goats filing up to Bascom's door. They were of all colours, ages, sizes, and denominations. Mild-eyed, sad-eyed, cross-eyed, ibearded, and beardless ; male, female ; black, white, striped ; horned and hornless. They had cleaned up Mrs. ißascom'e scrubbery, and were engaged on my tomatoes, when we appeared on the scene. When we looked at these goats we realised what advertising is to business. Bascom and I did the bargaining, ■with the two Mrs. B.s to direct us. We secured a perfect animal, warranted to have the temper of a 6aint. Could live on nothing, if she could have a few old rags, and a mustered-out hoopskirt or two to stay her stomach. She was loving and affectionate ; would follow you like a dog, and die on your grave, if you happened to die first She was turned into Bascom's backyard. Her first feat was to gnaw down two young pear trees, by way of getting to business ; and then she devoured the rhubarb plants, and put herself outside a rod of paling fence, and munched some tin cans and old paper boxes ; and then it was time to milk her. iMrs. Boggs and I went over to assist. The goat looked as meek as tMoses, and mild as boileid custard. Mrs. Boggs remarked that her expression -was angelic. Ba-scom had a p'aal ; Mrs. Bascom ha!d the baby. Bascom rolled up his sleeves, took a reef in his suspenders, set his hat firmly on Ibis Ihead, made a circuit round the goat, surveying her fore and aft ; then he drew (nigh and squatted behind her. He laid hold of one of her lacteal contrivances and pulled. Quick as lightning the goat -turned and charged upon Bascom, and he went over as if struck by a forty-pound bombshell. When we picked 'him up, 'he had an oye that wasn't mated to colour, and one leg of his pamtaloons was split from top to •bottom. " Confound her !" cried Bascom, wiping the gravel out of his mouth, " she kicks at both ends like a boomerang. By Jove ! I feel tas if I had been blowed up by dynamite." " A fly must have (bit the poor thing," said Mi's. Bascom sympathetically. " Fly l>e— -busted !" 6aid Bascom, find, having pinned himself together, he took a fresh quid. Mrs. (Bascom remarked "with scorn ■that if she professed to be a man she wouldn't be a coward. She could milk that goat herself if she hadn't the baby. Bascom set down the pail, and took little Joua'thian Irving Henry Boggs Bascom to h3s paternal bosom. Mi's. B. tucked up her skirts, felt her bangs to see if they were secure, and, with the broom in one h'and'ahd the pail in the other, she struck out. " Goaty, goaty, goaty," she cried coaxingly in her swee't-as-sugar courting days' voice. "Come, goaty, come!" Goaty looked at her, stamped its front feet, bowed its head, frouzled up Jts fore top, but didn't budge. iMrs. B. flourished the broom. Goaty was not in terror of the broom. Mrs. B. executed a piece of maisterly strategy, while the goat was off guard after a pair of old boots In the dust heap, and got behind it and squatted. Mrs. Boggs and I and Bajscom and tihe baby closed 4n. ißascom'ts (dog became interested, and joined the circle. It was a thrilling moment Mrs. Bascom got alhold on the right place. She guve a squeeze. The goat was astonished, and laid It on to Bascom. It charged on h'ini with its mouth full of old boots, and, as he went dowu, he hit me, and I hit Mrs. Boggs, and we were struck down like a set of ninepins, with the balby ihawling and the dog barking like mad. The goat chewed off Mrs. Bascom"« front hair, and made fodder of my wife's hoopskirt," My head was jammed into the niilk pail ; Baseom's feet were gouging a bole into my stomach. Then the goat streaked it for Mrs. M'Flmigan's — where she had come from — and skipped into the familiar back yard. She ate up 'Mrs. M'F.'s washing, and finished demolishing neighbour M'Donnelly's overalls, 'which graced his back yard fence. The goat was brought back, but Ba»---com declined. No more goats for him. Mrs. Bascom is confined to the house, waiting for her gums to harden, so that she cam have some new teeth set in where the goat knocked hers out ; and iMr. Bascom hasn't been able to get about Since he milked the goat