“MUX”

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“MUX”

No, “Mux” is not an elegant name—­not to to be compared with Ronald or Claudia, for instance; and I want to say it is not the name of one of my children, though its owner was once a member of my household.  Mux was a tame half-grown coon, with just the ordinary number of rings around his tail, but with the most extraordinary amount of mischief in his little coon soul.  Perhaps he had no real soul, and I should have located his mischief somewhere else.  If so, then I should say in his feet.  I never saw any other feet so expressive.  The essence of the little beast seemed concentrated in his lore paws.  If they made trouble, whose fault was it?  They were designed for trouble.  You could see this purpose in them as plainly as you could see the purpose in a swallow’s wings.  Whenever Mux ran across the yard these paws picked up trouble out of the turf, just as if the grass were trouble-filings, and Mux a kind of four-footed magnet.  He never went far before they clogged and stopped him.

One day, the first day that Mux was given the liberty of the yard, who should he run foul of but Tom!  The struggle had to come sometime, and it was just as well that it came thus early, while Tom and Mux were on an equal footing as to size, for Mux was young and growing.

Tom was boss of the yard.  Every farmer’s dog that went to town by our gate knew enough to pass by on the other side.  Tom had grown a little lordly and opinionated.  He was sleeping in the sun on the shed-step as Mux ambled up.  At sight of the coon Tom rose in more than his usual feline mightiness and cast such a look of surprise, scorn, and annihilating intent upon the interloper as ought to have struck terror to the stoutest heart.  But Mux hardly seemed to understand.  On he came, right into certain destruction, a very lamb of innocence and meekness.  O you unsuspecting little stranger!  Don’t you see this awful monster swelling, swelling into this hideous hump?  No, Mux did not see him.  Tom was raging.  His teeth gleamed; his eyes blazed green; his claws worked in a nervous way that made my flesh creep.  He was vanishing, not, like the Cheshire Cat, into a long lovely grin, but vanishing from a four-legged cat into a yellow, one-legged hump.  All that was left of him now was hump.

Mux was only a few feet away.  Tom began to advance, not directly, but just a trifle on the bias, across Mux’s bows so to speak, as if to give him a broadside.  They were within range.  Tom was heaving to.  I trembled for the young coon.  Suddenly there was a hiss, a flash of yellow in the air, and—­a very big surprise awaiting Thomas!  That little coon was no stupid after all.  He had not rolled up his sleeves, nor doubled up his fists, nor put a chip upon his shoulder; but he knew what was expected of him, just the same.  He snapped instantly upon his back, received the cat with all four of his feet, and gave Mr. Tom such a combing down that his golden fur went flying off like thistle-down in autumn.