"In our potato-pot. Now, you will agree with me that potatoes
dressed with cat's hair is not a very nice dish. The next time
I catch Master Tom in the potato-pot, I will kill him."
"John, you are not in earnest. Mrs. - - would never forgive any
injury done to Tom, who is a great favourite."
"Let her keep him at home, then. Think of the brute coming a mile
through the woods to steal from us all he can find, and then
sleeping off the effects of his depredations in the potato-pot."
I could not help laughing, but I begged John by no means to annoy
Emilia by hurting her cat.
The next day, while sitting in the parlour at work, I heard a
dreadful squall, and rushed to the rescue. John was standing, with a
flushed cheek, grasping a large stick in his hand, and Tom was lying
dead at his feet.
"Oh, the poor cat!"
"Yes, I have killed him; but I am sorry for it now. What will
Mrs. - - say?"
"She must not know it. I have told you the story of the pig that
Jacob killed. You had better bury it with the pig."
John was really sorry for having yielded, in a fit of passion, to do
so cruel a thing; yet a few days after he got into a fresh scrape
with Mrs. - -'s animals.
The hens were laying, up at the barn. John was very fond of fresh
eggs, but some strange dog came daily and sucked the eggs. John had
vowed to kill the first dog he found in the act. Mr. - - had a very
fine bull-dog, which he valued very highly; but with Emilia, Chowder
was an especial favourite. Bitterly had she bemoaned the fate of
Tom, and many were the inquiries she made of us as to his sudden
disappearance.
One afternoon John ran into the room. "My dear Mrs. Moodie, what is
Mrs. - -'s dog like?"
"A large bull-dog, brindled black and white."
"Then, by Jove, I've shot him!"
"John, John! you mean me to quarrel in earnest with my friend.
How could you do it?"
"Why, how the deuce should I know her dog from another? I caught the
big thief in the very act of devouring the eggs from under your
sitting hen, and I shot him dead without another thought. But I will
bury him, and she will never find it out a bit more than she did who
killed the cat."
Some time after this, Emilia returned from a visit at P - -. The
first thing she told me was the loss of the dog. She was so vexed at
it, she had had him advertised, offering a reward for his recovery.
I, of course, was called upon to sympathise with her, which I did
with a very bad grace. "I did not like the beast," I said; "he was
cross and fierce, and I was afraid to go up to her house while he
was there."
"Yes; but to lose him so. It is so provoking; and him such a
valuable animal. I could not tell how deeply she felt the loss.
She would give four dollars to find out who had stolen him."
How near she came to making the grand discovery the sequel will
show.
Instead of burying him with the murdered pig and cat, John had
scratched a shallow grave in the garden, and concealed the dead
brute.
After tea, Emilia requested to look at the garden; and I, perfectly
unconscious that it contained the remains of the murdered Chowder,
led the way. Mrs. - - whilst gathering a handful of fine green-peas,
suddenly stooped, and looking earnestly at the ground, called to me -
"Come here, Susanna, and tell me what has been buried here. It looks
like the tail of a dog."
She might have added, "of my dog." Murder, it seems, will out.
By some strange chance, the grave that covered the mortal remains
of Chowder had been disturbed, and the black tail of the dog was
sticking out.
"What can it be?" said I, with an air of perfect innocence. "Shall I
call Jenny, and dig it up?"
"Oh, no, my dear; it has a shocking smell, but it does look very
much like Chowder's tail."
"Impossible! How could it come among my peas?"
"True. Besides, I saw Chowder, with my own eyes, yesterday,
following a team; and George C - - hopes to recover him for me."
"Indeed! I am glad to hear it. How these mosquitoes sting. Shall we
go back to the house?"
While we returned to the house, John, who had overheard the whole
conversation, hastily disinterred the body of Chowder, and placed
him in the same mysterious grave with Tom and the pig.
Moodie and his friend finished logging-up the eight acres which the
former had cleared the previous winter; besides putting in a crop of
peas and potatoes, and an acre of Indian corn, reserving the fallow
for fall wheat, while we had the promise of a splendid crop of hay
off the sixteen acres that had been cleared in 1834. We were all in
high spirits and everything promised fair, until a very trifling
circumstance again occasioned us much anxiety and trouble, and was
the cause of our losing most of our crop.
Moodie was asked to attend a bee, which was called to construct a
corduroy-bridge over a very bad piece of road. He and J. E - - were
obliged to go that morning with wheat to the mill, but Moodie lent
his yoke of oxen for the work.
The driver selected for them at the bee was the brutal M - -y, a man
noted for his ill-treatment of cattle, especially if the animals did
not belong to him. He gave one of the oxen such a severe blow over
the loins with a handspike that the creature came home perfectly
disabled, just as we wanted his services in the hay-field and
harvest.
