United States or Armenia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"The old party don't give you a very good send off," said the boss hostler reflectively to Calico, "but I reckon you'll get used to Ajax and the music-chariot before the season's over. Leastways, you're bound to be an ornament to the grand entry." Calico's life with the Grand Occidental began abruptly and vigorously. The driver of the band-wagon knew his business.
Very often was this needed during those first three weeks of practice, for, true to her word, Mlle. Zaretti no longer strapped on Calico's back the broad pad to which he had been accustomed. At first the wooden-soles hurt and made him flinch, but in time the skin became toughened and he minded them not at all, although Mlle. Zaretti was no featherweight. Long before the snow was gone Mlle.
Yet they could not have been more entirely squirrel had their own squirrel mother nurtured them. Calico's milk and love went all to cat in her own kittens, and all to squirrel in these that she adopted. No single hair of theirs turned from its squirrel-gray to any one of Calico's three colors; no single squirrel trait became the least bit catlike.
No sooner was the top up that day than Calico's training began. Well it was that he had learned obedience, for this was to be his one great opportunity. Many a time had Calico circled around the banked ring's outer circumference, but never had he been within it. Neither had he worn before a broad pad.
I saw where you'd passed by the trompled brush. I knew the calico's tread. I saw 't you was off the line an' I blazed that so's the rest'd see and not get scared. We shan't see no more o' them till nightfall, only you an' me we must get home. Don't waste breath talkin' just travel."
Something there was about Calico's markings which stuck in one's mind, as does a haunting memory, intangible but unforgotten.
She would think I had been foraging for her the mother of seven green kittens! and would take my charges as titbits. Still I was determined to try. My neighbor's kittens were enough and to spare. One of Calico's last year's lot still waited a good home; and here were seven more to be cared for.
She saw Harris, buckling his belt as he ran, and the next flash showed him vaulting to Calico's back. The thunder of hoofs drew her eyes to the bed ground where a black mass surged, then bore off up the valley. A scattered line of riders bore down on the herd, two ghostly apparitions among them throwing the cows into a panic of fear. She knew these for riders flapping yellow slickers in the wind.
Wife thinks so much of me that she's jealous of the boys don't want me to stay out with them at night. Don't reckon there's anything more exacting than a rag. But I had to have one. Without calico there ain't much real fun in this life. But enough of calico's society is about the enoughest enough a man can fetch up in his mind.
Word Of The Day