The Menagerie

Horowhenua Chronicle, 27 July 1916, Page 3

The Menagerie

(By Walt Mason)

All living creatures beem to throng tlio road thai. 1 would tour along, in my tin chugmobile; they'll leave tlieir home* and travel tar, to throw themselves beneath my oar, and bust a costly wheel. All thorough fares, with mule.s and goats, audi sheep and hens and calves and tor evermore aa'o packed; 1 just collided with a cow— against her adamantine brow my radiator cracked. The cows will ieave the tender grace to block the road where 1 muct pass, upon my road to town; the hogs will leave the sparkling bwill to make a standi on yonder hill, and turn me upside down. Anon 1 equash a farmer's hen, that surely wasn't worth a yen, when it was in its prime; but now 1 hear the owner's howl: "You killed my rare imported fowl, of pedigree sublime I" I jog along and break the filafcs of dogs and ducks and geese and eats, and: always when they die, tho prioe goes up to beat the band; r 'they were the finest in the land I hear the owners cry. The way the farmers' beasts run loose is certainly a great abuse, it is no more a joke; and if I travel west or east, at every corner there's a beast that's suffering to croak.