“Are you?” said the astonished fowler. “What brings you here?”
“Bad company,” said Joe, promptly.
It is needless to say Joe was soon given back to his master.
ORIGIN OF THE NAME PUSSY.
Did you ever think why we call the cat “puss?” A great many years ago the people of Egypt, who have many idol gods, worshiped the cat. They thought she was like the moon, because she was more active at night, and because her eyes changed, just as the moon changes, which is sometimes full and sometimes only a little bright crescent, or half moon, as we say. Did you ever notice your pussy’s eyes to see how they change? So these people made an idol with the cat’s head, and named it Pasht, the same name they gave to the moon; for the word means “the face of the moon.” That word has been changed to “pas,” or “pus,” and has come at last to be “puss,” the name which almost everyone gives to the cat. Puss and pussycat are pet names for kitty everywhere. Whoever thought of it as given to her thousands of years ago, and that then people bowed down and prayed to her?
PATSY BRYAN.
Patsy Bryan was a little street peddler. Patsy was always ragged, often hungry, yet kept a brave heart and wore a happy look.
His father was dead, his mother drank, and Patsy’s scanty earnings went a long way toward maintaining the family, which consisted of his mother, himself, a younger sister, and a cripple brother. Poor Patsy had never been to church or Sunday school, and was little better than a heathen.
One Sunday afternoon, however, Patsy strayed by a large building in which a mission Sunday school was in session, and hearing the singing, he stepped in to see what was going on. He was kindly invited to enter a class, and soon found himself quite at home amid a number of boys of his own age.