Harper's Young People, March 16, 1880 Part 3

Some fine specimens were formerly in the Jardin des Plantes at Paris.

They ate all kinds of vegetables and gra.s.s, and slept nearly all day, generally lying half in and half out of the big water tank provided for them.

The hippopotamus is supposed by many to be identical with the behemoth of Scripture, which is described as a beast "that lieth under the shady trees, in the covert of the reed and fens." It is also spoken of as one that "eateth gra.s.s as an ox," and that "drinketh up a river," and the "willows of the brook compa.s.s him about."

THE CAT'S-MEAT MAN.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PREPARING CAT'S MEAT IN FULTON MARKET.]

In one corner of Fulton Market in New York city is the snug little stall of the cat's-meat man. He is a jolly, merry-looking fellow, as you may see by his picture; and he sings and whistles as he works. In the morning he goes about the streets feeding his cats; but his afternoons are devoted to preparing their food for the next day.

Most of this food is raw meat, which, with a sharp knife, he cuts up into very small pieces, until several hundred pounds are thus prepared.

Sometimes a small portion of the meat is boiled; but this cooked meat is only intended for cats who are not very well, and who need something more delicate than raw meat. Once a week--on Thursdays--the cat's-meat man cuts up fish instead of meat; for on Fridays all his cats have a meal of fish, of which they are very fond, and which is very good for them.

After the meat or fish has been nicely cut into bits, it is all done up in small brown-paper parcels, each of which weighs a pound; and these parcels are packed into great strong baskets. Each basket holds forty or fifty of these pound packages, and is pretty heavy for the cat's-meat man to carry.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STARTING OUT]

Bright and early in the morning, soon after sunrise, the cat's-meat man begins to feed his cats, starting out from the market with a big basket of meat on his shoulder, and threading his way through the crooked streets and lanes of the lower part of the city to the homes of his little customers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SOME DOWN-TOWN CATS.]

Everywhere the cats and kittens are anxiously waiting and watching for him, and sometimes they run out and meet him at the corners half a block or more away from their homes. Often when he is feeding the cats on one side of the street, those living on the other side run across, and rubbing against his legs, mewing and purring, seem to beg him to hurry and get over to their side. Of course these cats do not belong to the cat's-meat man, though he takes just as much interest in them, and is just as fond of them, as though they were his own. They are the cats that live in the stores and warehouses of the lower portion of the city, where they are kept as a protection against the armies of fierce rats that come up from the wharves, and do terrible damage wherever the cats are not too strong for them. For this reason the cats are highly prized and well cared for in this part of the city, and the cat's-meat man finds plenty of work to do in feeding them. He is paid for this by the owners of the cats, and as he has about four hundred customers his business is quite a thriving one.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MORNING CALL.]

The cats all know and love him, and are generally expecting him; but if he opens the door of a store where one of his cats lives, and she is not to be seen, he calls "Pss-pss-pss," and the kitty comes racing down stairs, or from some distant corner, so fast that she nearly tumbles head over heels in her hurry to get at her breakfast.

Some of the cats are only fed every other day, and they know just as well as anybody when it is "off day," as the cat's-meat man calls it. On these off days they lie perfectly still as he pa.s.ses, paying no attention to him; but on the days they are to be fed, these "every-other-day cats" are the most eager of all, and travel the greatest distances to meet their friend.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CARLO.]

Besides the cats, several dogs are fed daily by the cat's-meat man, and of these the most interesting is Carlo. Carlo used to be a sailor dog, but now he lives quietly in a store on Old Slip. His first master was a sea-captain, with whom Carlo made voyages to many different parts of the world. At last his kind master, who was as fond of Carlo as though he had been an only child, became very sick with a terrible fever, and when his ship reached New York, he was taken to a hospital to die. Carlo went to the hospital with him, and just before the dying sailor breathed his last, he begged a kind gentleman who stood beside his bed to take care of Carlo. The gentleman promised to do so, and has ever since kept his promise by giving Carlo a good home in his store, and paying the cat's-meat man to feed him every day. Carlo repays this kindness by keeping the store free from rats, and his reputation as a famous ratter has spread far and wide through the neighborhood.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A CHARITY CAT.]

Many stray cats watch for the coming of the cat's-meat man, for they know that he will befriend them, and many a tidbit does he give to some lean hungry creature as he merrily trudges along through the winter snow-drifts.

At certain corners the cat's-meat man is met by one of his a.s.sistants, with whom he exchanges his empty basket for a full one. These halting-places are well known to all the forlorn and homeless cats and dogs, and at them a number of these always await his approach. He most always throws them a few bits from his well-filled basket, for which they seem very grateful, though they look as if they would be very glad of more.

Besides feeding cats and dogs, the cat's-meat man cares for them when they are sick, preparing special food for his patients, and sometimes giving them small doses of medicine. So, you see, the cat's-meat man is a real benefactor, and it is no wonder that all the cats and dogs in the lower part of the city watch for his coming, and are glad when they see him.

MY TARTAR.

BY DAVID KER.

Most of us have read descriptions and seen pictures of those sallow, flat-faced, narrow-eyed, round-headed hobgoblins who, under the name of Tartars (a wrong one, too, for it should be Tatare), used to amuse themselves by conquering Eastern Europe every now and then some hundreds of years ago. But it is not every one who has had the pleasure of travelling alone with one of these fellows over nearly a thousand miles of Asiatic desert in time of war--a pleasure which I enjoyed to the full in 1873.

And a very queer journey it was. First came a range of steep rocky hills (marked on the map as the Ural Mountains), where we had to get out and walk whenever we went up hill, and to hold tight to the sides of our wagon, for fear of being thrown out and smashed, whenever we went down hill. Then we got out on the great plains, where we came upon a post-house of dried mud (the only house there was) once in three or four hours; and here we used to change horses by sending out a Cossack with his la.s.so to see if he could catch any running loose on the prairie; for there are no stables in that country.

Next came a sand desert, where we harnessed three camels to our wagon instead of horses. Here the people lived in tents instead of mud houses, while a hot wind blew all day, and a cold wind all night. One fine evening we had a sand-storm, which almost buried us, wagon and all; and the sand stuck so to my Tartar's yellow face that he looked just like a peppered omelet.

After this came a "rolling prairie," where the people lived in holes under the ground, popping up like rabbits every now and then as we pa.s.sed. Beyond it was a large fresh-water lake (called by the Russians "Aralskoe More," or Sea of Aral), where the mosquitoes fell upon us in good earnest. Here we were both boxed up in a mud fort for seven weeks by a Cossack captain, on suspicion of being spies, like Joseph's brethren. When we got out again, we had to go up a great river (called the Syr-Daria, or _Clear_ Stream, though it was the dirtiest I ever saw), fringed with thickets, and huge reeds taller than a man, where the mosquitoes were doubled, and we had the chance of meeting a tiger or two as well. Then came some more deserts, and then some more mountains; and so at last we got to the capital of the country--a big mud-walled town called Tashkent, or Stone Village--I suppose because there is not a single stone within twenty miles of it.

All this while, Murad (for so my Tartar was named) had been like a man of stone. He never complained; he never smiled; he never got angry. When our food and water ran out; when the sand-flies and mosquitoes bit us all over; when we lost our way on the prairie at midnight in a pouring rain; when the jolting of our wagon b.u.mped us about till we were all bruises from head to foot; when we had to sit for hours upon a sand-heap waiting for horses, with the sun toasting us black all the time; when our wheels came off, or our camels ran away--honest Murad's heavy, mustard-colored face never changed a whit. At every fresh mishap he only shrugged his shoulders, saying, "It is my _kismet_" (fate); and when he had said that, he seemed quite satisfied. I never even saw him laugh but _once_. That once, however, I had good reason to remember; and this was how it happened.

On getting to Tashkent we took up our quarters at a native hotel (_caravanserai_ they call it there), where we were kindly allowed a stone floor to sleep on, provided we brought our own beds and our own food along with us. However, we were pretty well used to that sort of thing by this time; so I got out my camp-kettle, and proceeded to make tea, while Murad, like Mother Hubbard in the song,

"Went to the baker's to buy him some bread."

By this time our daily mess of food had become a _mess_ in every sense.

b.u.mped and jolted about as we had been, it was no uncommon thing for me to find my bottle of cold tea standing on its head with the cork out, my soda powders fraternizing with the salt and pepper, and my brown loaf taking a bath in the contents of a broken ink-bottle, the splinters of which would be acting as seasoning to the mashed remains of a Bologna sausage. I was not surprised, therefore, to discover a piece of chocolate half buried in my last packet of tea, and by way of experiment I decided to boil the two together, and try how they agreed.

But apparently they didn't agree at all, for I had hardly taken a sip of my first tumbler[1] when I became aware of the most horrible and astounding taste imaginable, as if a whole apothecary's shop had been boiled down into that one gla.s.s. The second tumbler was, if possible, even worse than the first; but this time I noticed a white froth on the top, such as I had never seen upon any tea before. A frightful suspicion suddenly occurred to me. I emptied out my camp-kettle, and discovered--with what emotion I need not say--that the supposed chocolate was nothing less than a piece of brown _soap_!

Just at that eventful moment in came my Tartar. One glance at the soap, my distorted visage, and the froth in the gla.s.s, told him the whole story; and the effect was magical. To throw himself on the floor, to kick up his heels in a kind of convulsive ecstasy, to burst into a succession of shrill, crowing screams, like a pleased baby, was the work of a moment; and he kept on kicking and crowing, till, provoked as I was, I could not help laughing along with him. Then he suddenly sprang up and stood before me with his usual solemn face, as if it were somebody else who had been doing all this, and _he_ were utterly shocked at him. But he never afterward alluded to the occurrence, nor did I ever again see him laugh, or even smile.

FOOTNOTES:

1 The Russians drink tea in tumblers, with lemon-juice instead of milk.

[Begun in No. 17 of HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE, February 24.]

BIDDY O'DOLAN.

BY MRS. ZADEL B. GUSTAFSON.

CHAPTER IV.

Little Katy Kegan had the blackest hair and eyes you ever saw, and she was very pretty, with color like the cream and red of the lady-apples packed in tempting pyramids in the fruit stalls. She was the kind of girl who keeps you always expecting, without your knowing what it is you expect. Katy was very bright, quick as a dart in her motions, but as rough and sharp as a p.r.i.c.kly-brier if things didn't go to suit her. She had all the bad habits which friendless little children learn from living on the streets, with no one to care what they do or how they feel. She was saucy and bold, and used very bad words, and thought it smart to steal fruit and pea-nuts when she could; and she would tell a lie about her thefts, or indeed about anything else, as glibly as a toad swallows a fly. If you ever saw that done, you know that it is pretty swiftly done; and just as a toad, when it has swallowed a fly, looks as if it had never so much as heard of such an insect, so Katy, when she told a lie, would look straight at you, and smile with an air of such innocence that you would find it hard to not believe her. These sad faults were Katy's misfortunes. She did not know how wrong they were.

But you can see, if you think a moment, that such habits would be a great trouble in the way of her finding a home, because good people would not like to take a little child with such naughty ways into their homes, to be with their own dear children. Still, Katy's pretty face and bright mind, and the love she was so quick to give to any one who was kind to her, made people feel like trying to see what they could do for her.

Three times Mr. Kennedy placed Katy in good homes, in the care of n.o.ble people, who wished to help him in such work. In each instance Katy had been loved, because she was so bright and sweet and lovable when she felt like being so; but her sudden fits of anger, and the strange and naughty things she would say and do, made her new friends feel anxious and troubled. Yet Katy had never been sent away from these homes.

Perhaps she might have been, but she never waited for that; she ran away of her own accord each time, without saying a word about it, and nothing that Biddy or Mr. Kennedy could say could make Katy agree to go back when once she had run away.

One day Miss Kennedy, who had thought a great deal about this willful child, said to her brother, "Don't be discouraged about Katy; you and Biddy will save the dear little thing yet."