Petting

“ She is a most good-tempered little person, loving to be loved, but equally delighted that others should share the petting. She gives up to everybody, and smiles her way through life; such a comical little mouth it is, to match the comical eyes. All she ever asks with insistence is somewhere to play. Bereft of room to play, Puck might become disagreeable, though a disagreeable Puck is something unimaginable. Yesterday it was needful to keep her in the shade; and as a special policeman-nurse could not be told off to keep watch over her, she was tied by a long string to the nursery door. ”

“ This was a little joke of John's; he used to say that a regular course of “the Birtwick horseballs” would cure almost any vicious horse; these balls, he said, were made up of patience and gentleness, firmness and petting, one pound of each to be mixed up with half a pint of common sense, and given to the horse every day. ”

“ Then another one came; and another. I said to myself—
“Pettingill, there must be kennels near here.”
From a distant butte, against the pale light of the moon, I saw several more, and then came a wailing howl. From near me came a blood-curdling answer. I said to myself—
“Pettingill, those ‘dogs’ are wolves!” The realization was painful. I really believe I grew homesick. In all that waste I could not see a tree. I peered around. Ah! On a not too distant ridge stood a tree.
I stood erect, grasped my gun, and hurried up the slope, spurred onward by the howls of at least a million savage throats. ”

“ Then his arms opened and seemed to swallow the leaping little figure, though his kisses fell with hardly more weight upon the yielded face than had the rose-petals a moment since, so tenderly mindful was his ardour. She submitted, a little as the pampered kitten had before submitted to her own pettings.
“You dear old sobersides, you—how gaunt and careworn you look, and how hungry, and what wild eyes you have to frighten one with! At first I thought you were a crazy man.” ”

“ Then they wants to know where the sheep are.
“You fellers want to be regular shepherds, don’t you?” asks Dirty.
“Oh, certainly,” says Pettingill. “We’re prepared for the worst. I am anxious to get first-hand information on the subject. Professor Middleton and myself are never content to take hearsay evidence for any weighty subject.”
Being as we ain’t never seen the sheep ourselves, we has to trust to luck. We leads them pelicans to the top of a tall butte, and from there we gets a glimpse of the herd. ”

“ THE PIE AND THE PATTY-PAN Pussy-cat sits by the fire—how should she be fair? In walks the little dog—says "Pussy are you there? How do you do Mistress Pussy? Mistress Pussy, how do you do?" "I thank you kindly, little dog, I fare as well as you!" [Old Rhyme] Once upon a time there was a Pussy-cat called Ribby, who invited a little dog called Duchess to tea. "Come in good time, my dear Duchess," said Ribby's letter, "and we will have something so very nice. I am baking it in a pie-dish—a pie-dish with a pink rim. You never tasted anything so good! ”

“ On the morrow, I dragged him to an editor. The great man read, and, rising, gave Pettit his hand. That was a decoration, a wreath of bay, and a guarantee of rent.
And then old Pettit smiled slowly. I call him Gentleman Pettit now to myself. It’s a miserable name to give a man, but it sounds better than it looks in print.
“I see,” said old Pettit, as he took up his story and began tearing it into small strips. “I see the game now. You can’t write with ink, and you can’t write with your own heart’s blood, but you can write with the heart’s blood of some one else. ”

“ Pett and Canada Pete had got this animal harnessed up with odds and ends of rope and leather, they sat down and wiped their brows. Then Mr. Pett started off to notify Mrs. Samantha Spaulding.
Mr. Pett was a man unused to feminine society, except such as he had grown up with from early childhood, and he was of a naturally modest, even bashful disposition. It is not surprising, therefore, that he was startled when, on re-entering the living-room of Canada Pete’s camp, he found himself face to face with a strange lady, and a lady, at that, of a strangeness that he had never conceived of before. ”

“ Since that variegated dog trick was played on him he has been pretty sober till Ma went away, and I happened to think of a dog a boy in the Third Ward has got, that will do tricks. He will jump up and take a man’s hat off, and bring a handkerchief, and all that. So I got the boy to come up on our street, and Monday night, about dark, I got in the house and told the boy when Pa came along to make the dog take his hat, and to pin a handkerchief to Pa’s coat tail and make the dog take that, and then for him and the dog to lite out for home. Well, you’d a dide. ”

“ The stranger looked again at Pete, then back at Venetia. Finally he tied a handkerchief over the dog's mouth, and began to examine him carefully.
"Let's see what there's left of you after the mix-up, Mr. Doggie. We'll give you the benefit of our best attention and skill,—more'n most folks ever get in this world,—because you are the pet of a nice young lady. If you were just an alley-cat, you wouldn't even get the chloroform. Well, Miss, he'd have about one chance in a hundred, after he had that hind leg cut off."
"Are you a doctor? Do you think that you could cure him? ”

“ Look sharp you! If the wrong dog starts when I call, he gets none at all. Now then, Pete!'
"The dog in the cap made a jump and one snap, and the meat was gone.
"'Now then, Hop!' said [Pg 156] the man; and the dog in the girl's hat got it; and then it was Pete's turn, while poor Bob with the bow-legs, who lost the three cents, kept up a kind of soft howl and a sob, as if his heart would break.
"All this time I did think I must die for want of food, and I made up my mind to [Pg 157] stand on my hind-legs till the show-man gave me some meat too. ”

“ Booker and Goldie spent most of the afternoon in hiding under the couch.
When my kittens had been played with long enough, I went into my basket, and mistress understood just what I meant by it.
“Children,” said she, “you see the kittens’ mother thinks her babies have had enough play for the present, and she has gone to her basket to invite them to come to her to have some dinner and to take a nap. Now set all the kittens down on the floor and see what they will do.” ”

“ Can't I recover damages for assault and battery from Potts? What I chopped off belonged to me, recollect. I owned an undivided half of that setter pup, from the tip of his tail clear up to his third rib, and I had a right to cut away as much of it as I'd a mind to; while Potts, being sole owner of the dog's head, is responsible when he bites anybody, or when he barks at nights. ”

“ The story in its origin does appear to have been simply that of a Greek expedition bent on military commerce in the Black Sea, the first organized fur trading voyage in recorded history.
From the ancient Greeks, too, comes the English word which describes the fur skin of an animal. Pelt, a contraction of peltry from the old Anglo-French pelterie, is derived from the Greek pelta. A pelta was a half shield made of the skin of an animal. It was carried by the warriors of Greece and later by the Romans. A foot soldier armed with a pelta and a short spear or javelin was called a peltast. ”

“ The guest did not in the least understand what she was doing, and respectfully asked her what it all meant.
“This is what is called pestle worship,” she replied. “I do it as a daily duty, and this pestle is intended to break the head of some human being in honour of a goddess, whose feet are most devoutly worshipped by my husband. Every day as soon as he returns from his bath in the river, he takes this pestle, which I am ordered to keep ready for him before his return, and with it breaks the head of any human being whom he has managed to get hold of by inviting him to a meal. ”

“ The child who is 'pussy' stands in the centre of the ring, and the others say:—
Pussy cat, pussy cat looking so spry,
Might very soon catch us, if she would but try.
Two children then beckon to each other and exchange places. (If a ring is formed, the two children should come from opposite sides of it.) As they are crossing, 'pussy' tries to catch one of them; if she succeeds, the child who is caught stands in the centre, and the old 'pussy' takes her place in the ring or corner. [76] ”

“ On these occasions the appearance of that strange animal, the horse, strung with tinkling bells and packing unbelievable wealth on his back, created more awe among the savages than the bearded white man himself. ”

“ As the last snowy petal left its stem, leaving it looking so bare and pitiful nestling in among the leaves as though ashamed of its nakedness, a hard sob of anguish escaped his lips, for it seemed as if each petal contained a part of the soul of his loved one, and leaning his face against the sash, he [380] gave himself up to the crushing sorrow that submerged his soul and plunged him once more into black despair. ”

“ ON PEDICATION SO much for copulation in the normal way. We will now discuss another mode of pleasure,—that due to introduction of the member into the anus. A man who exercises his member in the anus, be it of a man or a woman, pedicates; he is called a pederast, pedicon, drawk [20] , and the other party, who allows himself to be invaded in that way, is called the patient, cinaedus, catamite [21] , minion, effeminate; if adult or worn out, he is named exolete. ”

“ When the mother petrel leaves the chick, she, for the most part, continually circles round in the neighbourhood, and almost at every circle looks in at it, sometimes waking it up as it lies asleep, causing it to give an impatient little snap of the bill towards her. ”

“ It appears that Peter had a way of playing with the old ram, who was always ready to butt at any one who got in his way. When seeing the ram coming, Peter would get down on his hands and knees and pretend that he was going to have a butting match with the sheep. And when the latter would come full tilt at him, Peter would dodge his head so as to miss the ram, and the latter would jump over the boy, turn around angrily, shake his head and start for another butt at Peter.
This kind of play was repeated sometimes for an hour or more, to the great amusement of both whites and blacks. ”

“ During this amatory performance the cock stretches out his neck, raises and spreads out his wings like a fan, ruffles his feathers, and assumes an appearance which has been compared to that of an angry turkey. A call, which has been expressed by the words peller, peller, peller, is uttered with continually increasing rapidity, and concludes with a gulp and an indrawing of the breath, when the bird throws up his head, closes his eyes, and appears to be in a paroxysm of passion. ”

“ Pettit, the junior partner, myself, and a woman servant. The second partner (Fisher,) was a tailor, who superintended thirty or forty men, constantly employed in a large workshop on the attic story, in making gentlemen's clothes, and ladies' riding-habits. The stair-case to the upper apartments communicated with the shop, and had a door at the bottom, which when Mr. Pettit and the servant were gone to bed, I could fasten with a bolt so as to leave me at liberty to range the shop, and examine every part of its contents. ”

“ One caresses his cock, while another counts the scales on the feet of his, and extends the wings. See this fellow, rage in his face and heart, carrying by the legs his cock, deplumed and dead. The animal which for months has been tended night and day, on which such brilliant hopes were built, will bring a peseta and make a stew. ”

“ It was no small task to carry each one down the stairs, for they were now several weeks old; but you know a mother will endure almost any hardship for the sake of her babies.
The poor little things had their rest so broken, that when mistress and Bettie came down they were still sound asleep, and I went up-stairs to get my breakfast at the usual time.
As soon as mistress missed my kittens she and Bettie began hunting for them in every nook and corner, and they looked behind the kindling pile several times ”

“ She would be always pluming the feathers of her daughter, cackling loudly, and calling to strange chickens to come and admire the lovely back and smooth wings of her child.
COCK-A-DOODLE-DO!
6. The young cocks from next door sat on the railings to chatter, and even [Pg 112] forgot to quarrel. They stared at Miss Betty as she walked with her beak in the air, and they made rude remarks.
7. "Why don't you grow a pair of spurs and learn to crow?" they called out. When Mrs. Dorking, Betty's mother, heard these speeches from the young cocks she flew into a great passion. ”

“ The panting pack, first on the scene, leap on the frightened and weeping women with furious growls, licking their faces and hands, sniffing at their forms, and baying from all quarters, until, driven from thence, they rush into the single apartment, leap on the beds, drag them to the floor, and falling to, with the fury of wild beasts disappointed of their prey, tear them into shreds. ”

“ Then mistress spread an old comfortable on the floor in a sheltered corner of her room, and placed a market-basket in the middle of it, in the bottom of which was a bag full of stones to keep it from falling over when the kittens should climb up on the side of it. Mistress then put the kittens on the comfortable, and in an instant they began hobbling around and in and out of the basket. I lay on the comfortable with them, and watched them with great pleasure. Whenever one got far enough away from the “gym” (as Guy called the basket) to feel lonesome, he would whine ”

“ Pott’s person was a bodyguard of one, a young lady whose ostensible employment was to preside over her toilet, but who rendered herself useful in a variety of ways, and in none more so than in the particular department of constantly aiding and abetting her mistress in every wish and inclination opposed to the desires of the unhappy Pott. ”