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Entered according to Act of Congress, in J une, 1867, by J. W. Burke & Cos., in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the So. District of Georgia.
Vol. I.
Written for Burke’s Weekly.
SANCHO AND PHIL.
»ID you ever hear of an
educated eat ? When I
was a little boy I saw a
dog who did so many
■*' wonderful things that he
was known, far and wide, as
the learned dog. Ilis master
C# w as blind of an eye. and wa
Ijy a ventriloquist. You all
know what a ventriloquist is.—
Well, this man who owned the
smart dog was a magician and
ventriloquist, like Signor Blitz, and
the dog helped him in his show.
He stood erect on his hind legs,
and jumped through a hoop, and
stood on his head, and climbed up
and down a ladder, and did many
other things; but the smartest
thing about him was, that he ac
tually knew his letters. All the
letters of the alphabet were spread
out before him on the floor, and he
would pick out one by one, and
give them to his master, until he
had spelled the required word.
For instance, if any one told him
to spell “John Smith,” he would
pick up a J, and then an O, and an
11, and one letter after another, in
regular order, until he handed his
master the last letter, and then he
would give a short bark, as if to
say: “See how smart I am.”
I saw this dog spell a great many
words, and he made fewer mis-
takes than many boys would have done.
He made mistakes, however, now and
then, but when he started to pick up the
wrong letter, a look from his master
would cause him to drop it as if it burnt
him.
But I set out to tell you about a cat.
ou see the two little boys in the picture.
MACON, G-A., JUNE 27, 1868.
Well, their names are Tommy and Eddy
Brooks, and they live in Alabama. Be
fore the war, their father was quite a rich
man, and lived in an elegant house, with
everything around him in abundance, but
the Yankees burned his house, and de
stroyed much of his property, so that he
has had almost to begin life again.
y -
j i — j
Tommy and Eddy were little children
when the w r ar began ;in fact, they are
not old now, one being nine and the
other eleven. The Yankees did not get
to where they lived until the last year of
the war. Their home was between Selma
and Montgomery, and after Gen. Wilson
had taken Selma, Mrs. Brooks and the
two little boys went away off into a part
of the country where they were safe from
the Yankees. After peace was declared,
and it was no longer necessary to stay
away, they went back home, but they
scarcely knew the place. Their beautiful
dwelling had been burned to the ground,
the shade trees cut down, the fences de-
stroyed, and everything was in a
state of ruin.
It was a good while before they
were even comfortable again, but
in the course of time anew house
took the place of the old one, and
things began to put on their old ap
pearance.
There were two things the Yan
kees did not destroy. These were
the old house dog, Sancho, and a
cat named Phil. Sancho and Phil
had been the playmates of Tommy
and Eddy ever since they could
remember, and you may be sure
that they were glad enough when
they got back home to find that
their old friends were still alive.
How they escaped the Yankees I
do not know, but I rather suspect
that master Phil took to the
swamp, and it may be that Sancho
followed him.
Well, Phil was the educated cat
lam going to tell you about. I
don’t mean to say that he has a
very thorough education. In fact,
he is not even as well educated
as the dog I told you about, for he
does not know his letters, but he
is pretty smart for a cat. lie
has a very wise look, and if he isn’t
very smart, he looks as it he is, and that
is nearly as good.
One of Phil’s smart tricks is to sit up
and beg for his dinner, and he will hold
a piece of bread on his nose until you
count one, two, three, and at the word
“three” up goes the bread and down it
No. 52