Thus did our Jocko play, for Betsey’s sake, The Grand Domestic Game of Give and Take, Until her rudeness to her friend was such As makes men say “This is a straw too much.” One day he sat, as docile as a lamb, By Betsey-Jane who, upright in her pram, Refused to sleep and went from bad to worse, Kicked off her rug and disobeyed her nurse; And though her Jocko did not speak his mind And only stared to see her so unkind, In Endless Street, some yards from their abode, She picked him up and flung him in the road.
V
On sped the pram nor did the nurse’s pace Leave time to miss our hero from his place. Flat by the curb lay Jocko, still and pale, Till a rude sparrow plucked him by the tail And up he sat;—the sparrow hopped around And eyed him seated sadly on the ground, Propped up against the parapet and grey With grime and dust that in the gutter lay. Then Jocko spoke, he smoothed his sullied fur With one long trembling paw, and thought of her And said, all torn betwixt his love and pain,— “I will go back no more to Betsey-Jane.”
VI
“I will arise and go beyond the din Of towns to where the endless woods begin, There among tangled oaks and lowly ways Of undergrowth to end my dreary days; I will seek acorns, beech-nuts, hips and haws And pluck them down with my prehensile paws; While the grey rabbits, never shy with me, From holes around my sandy-rooted tree Come out to nibble in the gentle rain,— A calmer life than that with Betsey-Jane. Long is the way, but I will make a start, A carrier shall take me in his cart.”
VII
This said, he rose, and sought with feeble pace, For he was stiff and sore, the Market Place; Where, without horses and their shafts turned down, Are ranged the carts that come into the town; Until at dusk, all loaded up, they’re gone. He found the cart that went to Clarendon. Beneath it lay a yellow dog who shook His brazen collar, but his churlish look Passed off when Jocko hailed the man inside Who, loading parcels and not looking, cried,— “We start in Butcher Row, sir, from the Bear. At four o’clock.” Said Jocko “I’ll be there.”
VIII
All was arranged, and he could do no more But pass the time until the clock struck four. He wandered up the Market; far and wide The burly drovers elbowed him aside, The sheep regarded him with mild surprise Behind their hurdles, and the hairy eyes Of families of little porkers stared And cart-horses with braided tresses glared And stamped upon the cobbles. From their shed The calves looked bluntly round and many a head Of penned-up fowls peered through a wiry door,— “Jocko!” they cackled, “we will meet once more!”