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Brick-Dust: A Remedy for the Blues, and a Something for People to Talk about
Excerpt from Brick-Dust: A Remedy for the Blues, and a Something for People to Talk About
So, between the two, our brick is ground to dust, and somebody will be the gainer.
Any kind of a book is better than talking about your neighbors, when people talk the most about those they know the least of.
So, between the two, our brick is ground to dust, and somebody will be the gainer.
Any kind of a book is better than talking about your neighbors, when people talk the most about those they know the least of.
255 pages, Hardcover
First published June 24, 1871
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February 20, 2026
Brick-Dust (1871)
CAT LYRICS.
CONFOUND the yowling cats!
Why don't they hunt for rats?
Or keep as still as bats
Or moles, out on the flats?
At dead of night
They yowl and fight—
Till one would think they were a match
For the father of cats- old scratch.
They steal all our cream!
They burst on our dream,
As with spitter and sputter
With yowl and with mutter
As out by the gate
One stops with his mate
To give us the devil - a cat serenade !
To waken us up when in bed we are laid.
What are they fit for, the noisy things?
How we wish they were drown-ded
Or into jell pounded
Or all of them turned into new fiddle-strings!
For the mice and the rats,
And some neighbor's brats
And the bricks in our hats
And the child scaring bats
Are not half the bother of night-yowling cats!
As with sca-t-t-tr-r and
y-e-ow!
They cause us to vow
If we get out of bed
Each cat will be dead
That has mounted the shed
And forced us to swear
At all the cats there!
But when the lamp it is lit and we start with a gun
We can't catch the devils, no matter if we run!
You may sing little ditties
To cats and their kitties,
May possibly be able with cats to agree:
But we prefer rats
To the best of your cats,
Be it a pet cat - a he or a she,
Their holes you can fill
The rats you can kill-
Bury all in a heap
Then quietly sleep,
But the devil's companions in numerous numbers
Have so often and oft woke us from our slumbers,
That we prefer brats,
Muskeeters or rats,
To your treacherous, yowling, sputtering cats,
That ought to be plunged in hot-water vats!
,,.... ...,,,,, .... ,,,, .... ,,... ,,.. ,.,,
CAT LYRICS.
CONFOUND the yowling cats!
Why don't they hunt for rats?
Or keep as still as bats
Or moles, out on the flats?
At dead of night
They yowl and fight—
Till one would think they were a match
For the father of cats- old scratch.
They steal all our cream!
They burst on our dream,
As with spitter and sputter
With yowl and with mutter
As out by the gate
One stops with his mate
To give us the devil - a cat serenade !
To waken us up when in bed we are laid.
What are they fit for, the noisy things?
How we wish they were drown-ded
Or into jell pounded
Or all of them turned into new fiddle-strings!
For the mice and the rats,
And some neighbor's brats
And the bricks in our hats
And the child scaring bats
Are not half the bother of night-yowling cats!
As with sca-t-t-tr-r and
y-e-ow!
They cause us to vow
If we get out of bed
Each cat will be dead
That has mounted the shed
And forced us to swear
At all the cats there!
But when the lamp it is lit and we start with a gun
We can't catch the devils, no matter if we run!
You may sing little ditties
To cats and their kitties,
May possibly be able with cats to agree:
But we prefer rats
To the best of your cats,
Be it a pet cat - a he or a she,
Their holes you can fill
The rats you can kill-
Bury all in a heap
Then quietly sleep,
But the devil's companions in numerous numbers
Have so often and oft woke us from our slumbers,
That we prefer brats,
Muskeeters or rats,
To your treacherous, yowling, sputtering cats,
That ought to be plunged in hot-water vats!
,,.... ...,,,,, .... ,,,, .... ,,... ,,.. ,.,,
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