Humorous stories, American; Short stories, American; United States -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
on about them like this when their dinner disagreed with them.
SUNDAY.--She doesn't work, Sundays, but lies around all tired out, and
likes to have the fish wallow over her; and she makes fool noises to
amuse it, and pretends to chew its paws, and that makes it laugh. I have
not seen a fish before that could laugh. This makes me doubt.... I have
come to like Sunday myself. Superintending all the week tires a body so.
There ought to be more Sundays. In the old days they were tough, but now
they come handy.
WEDNESDAY.--It isn't a fish. I cannot quite make out what it is. It
makes curious devilish noises when not satisfied, and says “goo-goo”
when it is. It is not one of us, for it doesn't walk; it is not a bird,
for it doesn't fly; it is not a frog, for it doesn't hop; it is not
a snake, for it doesn't crawl; I feel sure it is not a fish, though I
cannot get a chance to find out whether it can swim or not. It merely
lies around, and mostly on its back, with its feet up. I have not seen
any other animal do that before. I said I believed it was an enigma; but
she only admired the word without understanding it. In my judgment it is
either an enigma or some kind of a bug. If it dies, I will take it apart
and see what its arrangements are. I never had a thing perplex me so.
THREE MONTHS LATER.--The perplexity augments instead of diminishing. I
sleep but little. It has ceased from lying around, and goes about on
its four legs now. Yet it differs from the other four legged animals,
in that its front legs are unusually short, consequently this causes the
main part of its person to stick up uncomfortably high in the air, and
this is not attractive. It is built much as we are, but its method of
traveling shows that it is not of our breed. The short front legs and
long hind ones indicate that it is a of the kangaroo family, but it is a
marked variation of that species, since the true kangaroo hops, whereas
this one never does. Still it is a curious and interesting variety,
and has not been catalogued before. As I discovered it, I have felt
justified in securing the credit of the discovery by attaching my name
to it, and hence have called it _Kangaroorum Adamiensis_.... It must
have been a young one when it came, for it has grown exceedingly since.
It must be five times as big, now, as it was then, and when discontented
it is able to make from twenty-two to thirty-eight times the noise
it made at first. Coercion does not modify this, but has the contrary
effect. For this reason I discontinued the system. She reconciles it by
persuasion, and by giving it things which she had previously told me she
wouldn't give it. As already observed, I was not at home when it first
came, and she told me she found it in the woods. It seems odd that it
should be the only one, yet it must be so, for I have worn myself out
these many weeks trying to find another one to add to my collection, and
for this to play with; for surely then it would be quieter and we
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