The bird that should have been selected as the emblem of our country, the bird of patience, forbearance, perseverance, and the bird of terror when aroused, is the mule.  There is no bird that combines more virtues to the square foot than the mule.  With the mule emblazoned on our banners, we should be a terror to every foe.  We are a nation of uncomplaining hard workers.  We mean to do the fair thing by everybody.  We plod along, doing as we would be done by.  So does the mule.  As a nation we occasionally stick our ears forward, and fan flies off of our forehead.  So does the mule.  We allow parties to get on and ride as long as they behave themselves.  So do does the mule.  But when any nation sticks spurs in our flanks, and tickles our heels with a straw, we come down stiff-legged in front, our ears look to the beautiful beyond, our voice is cut loose, and is still for war, and our subsequent end plays the snare drum on anything that gets in reach of us, and strikes terror to the hearts of all tyrants.  So does the mule.

OUR BLUE-COATED DOG POISONERS.

“Papa, the cruel policeman has murdered little Gip?  He sneaked up and frowed a nice piece of meat to Gip, and Gip he eated it, and fanked the policeman with his tail, and runned after him and teased for more, but the policeman fought Gip had enough, and then Gip stopped and looked sorry he had eaten it, and pretty soon he laid down and died, and the policeman laughed and went off feeling good.  If Dan Sheenan was the policeman any more he wouldn’t poison my dog, would he, pa?”

The above was the greeting the bald-headed Sun man received on Thursday, and a pair of four-year-old brown eyes were full enough of tears to break the heart of a policeman of many years’ standing, and the little, crushed master of the dead King Charles spaniel went to sleep sobbing and believing that policemen were the greatest blot upon the civilization of the nineteenth century.

Here was a little fellow that had from the day he first stood on his feet after the scarlet fever had left him alive, been allowing his heart to become entwined with love for that poor little dog.  For nearly a year the dog had been ready to play with the child when everybody else was tired out, and never once had the dog been cross or backed out of a romp, and the laughter and the barking has many a time been the only sound of happiness in the neighborhood.

If the boy slept too long after dinner, the dog went and rooted around him as much as to say, “Look a here, Mr. Roy, you can’t play this on your partner any longer.  You get up here and we will have a high old time, and don’t you forget it.”  And pretty soon the sound of baby feet and dog’s toe nails would be heard on the stairs, and the circus would commence.

If the dog slept too long of an afternoon, the boy would hunt him out, take hold of his tail with one hand and an ear with the other, and lug him into the parlor, saying, “Gip, too much sleep is what is ruining the dogs in this country.  Now, brace up and play horse with me.”  And then there was fun.