h my cows.

On one such occasion I shouted back that I did not want a horse of any
variety, could not engage any fruit trees, did not want the place
photographed, and was just going out to spend the day. I was courteously
but firmly informed that my latest visitor had, singular to relate, no
horse to dispose of, but he "would like fourteen dollars for my dog tax
for the current year!" As he was also sheriff, constable, and justice
of the peace, I did not think it worth while to argue the question,
although I had no more thought of being called up to pay a dog tax than
a hen tax or cat tax. I trembled, lest I should be obliged to enumerate
my entire menagerie--cats, dogs, canaries, rabbits, pigs, ducks, geese,
hens, turkeys, pigeons, peacocks, cows, and horses.

Each kind deserves an entire chapter, and how easy it would be to write
of cats and their admirers from Cambyses to Warner; of dogs and their
friends from Ulysses to Bismarck. I agree with Ik Marvel that a cat is
like a politician, sly and diplomatic; purring--for food; and
affectionate--for a consideration; really caring nothing for friendship
and devotion, except as means to an end. Those who write books and
articles and verse and prose tributes to cats think very differently,
but the cats I have met have been of this type.

And dogs. Are they really so affectionate, or are they also a little
shrewd in licking the hand that feeds them? I dislike to be pessimistic.
But when my dogs come bounding to meet me for a jolly morning greeting
they do seem expectant and hungry rather than affectionate. At other
hours of the day they plead with loving eyes and wagging tails for a
walk or a seat in the carriage or permission to follow the wagon.

But I will not analyze their motives. They fill the house and grounds
with life and frolic, and a farm would be incomplete if they were
missing. Hamerton, in speaking of the one dog, the special pet and dear
companion of one's youth, observes that "the comparative shortness of
the lives of dogs is the only imperfection in the relation between them
and us. If they had lived to three-score and ten, man and dog might have
traveled through life together, but, as it is, we must either have a
succession of affections, or else, when the first is buried in its early
grave, live in a chill condition of dog-less-ness."

I thank him for that expressive compound word. Almost every one might,
like Grace Greenwood and Gautier, write a Histo