Our Family Pet
Our Family Pet. Mountain lion with prey.
Regular readers of this blog may have noticed a certain penchant for, shall we say, inappropriate subject matter or the tasteless treatment of solemn subjects. Just as some Victorian youths were said to have been driven insane by novel-reading, I might plead that I am a victim of 19th-century journalism. After all, one can only read so many jokes about cholera, widows, and suicide before they begin to warp a character already weakened by an intimate association with the Victorian tabloid press, tight-lacing, and drink.
But that rationalization scarcely excuses the following drollery:
A NOVEL FAMILY CEMETERY;
OR,
OUR FAMILY PET.
The other morning, while Mr. Cole, the proprietor of the circus and menagerie of that name, was standing on the steps of the “Russ house,” San Francisco, a tall, bald-headed man approached and said— “Be you the animal man, mister?”
Mr. Cole admitted that such was the fact.
“Then,” proceeded the party from the mountains, “I think I’ll get you to make me an offer for a California lion I’ve got.”
“Good specimen, eh?” asked the circus master.
“Good? Well, I should say so; measures eleven feet from the tip of his nose to his tail; caught him myself when a cub; just four years old to-morrow.”
“Hem! Good appetite?”
“Appetite! Jee-rusalem! Appetite; well, that’s the point. That’s just why I’m parting with Jay. I call him Jay Gould, because he takes in everything. If it wasn’t for his appetite, and the queer little things it makes him do, I wouldn’t part with him for a fortune.”
“Is he savage? ’’
“Well, no. I don’t know as I should call J. savage exactly; has a habit of gnawing up things, so to speak. In fact, the neighbours up at Bladder’s Peak have gotten to be be fussy of late that I can’t so much as unchain J. G. for a little fresh air without their getting grumpy over it. Now, for instance about three months after Jay got to be as big as a boarding-house sofa, I came home one day from a picnic and found he had eaten up old Aunt Maria, who had been left at home to mind the house, Leastwise she was nowhere to be found, and as Jay Gould seemed sorter bulgy like, and kept coughing up hairpins and false teeth for a day or two, we suspicioned the whole thing.”
“Maternal aunt?” inquired the showman.
“Exactly. My wife took on dreadfully, and wanted me to shoot Jay right off, but I told her that he probably suffered a good deal as it was, and that as most likely he’d catch rheumatism from the remains, we’d better call it square.’’
“And did she?”
“Well, she got reconciled after a while, as Jay seemed so fond of playing with the children. One morning soon after that my wife’s mother—whole family lived with me, you see—didn’t come down to breakfast. As all her false hair was hanging over a chair back, and Gould crawled out from under the bed licking his chops, we saw at once it was another visitation of providence, and that the heavy hand of affliction was again upon us.”
“Look’d that way, didn’t it?”
“Well, as you may suppose, the old lady (that’s my wife) pranced around a good deal then, and got down the breechloader right away. But just then arrived a gold medal the S.P.C.A. Society awarded on account of my forbearance in the Aunt Maria business, and so I got her calmed down after a while.”
“Pacified her, eh?”
“Yes, I managed to arrange a reprieve for Jay. You see I was awful fond of pets and tender-hearted, you understand. I argued that the poor animal didn’t know he was doing wrong—merciful man, be merciful to his beast, &c.—that smothered things over for another month.”
“What happened then?”
“Well, one day I sent Tommy, our youngest boy, down to the store for some sugar, and he took Gould along for company. Now, whether it was that Jay was fond of sugar or not, I don’t know, but he came home alone, and as soon as we noticed a peculiar kind of bulge on his ribs, about as big as Tommy, we concluded that the dread archer had marked another Skidmore—my name is Skidmore—-for his own. The whole family took on like mad, and Mrs. Skid. was just about to shove the powder-keg under J. G., and touch it off herself, when I pointed out that it wouldn’t do to desecrate our offspring’s tomb in that way. So I just had the burial service read over the lion, and tied crape round his neck for thirty days.”
“After that you kept the animal chained?”
“ Well, no, The fact is I set out to get a chain several times, but one thing and other prevented, until one day last week I actually missed the old lady herself. I looked around for her a couple of days, when somehow of a sudden I sorter intentioned where she was. I gave Gould about half a pound of emetic right away, but all we could get out of him was a pair of high-heeled boots and a chest-protector. It was too late! too late! We put the shoes and things in a coffin, and had Jay led behind the hearse to the cemetery. Wanted to have as much of the corpse present as possible, don’t you see. We had the animal all decorated with flowers and things as fine as you please. Folks said it was the touchinest thing that ever took place in them parts,” and the bereaved husband sighed heavily.
“Don’t wonder you want to sell the beast,” remarked the menagerie man after a pause.
“Well, I sorter do and I sorter don’t,” said Mr. Skidmore, abstractedly.
“There’s so many memories and things clustering round J. G. Seems kinder like parting with one’s family burying lot, as it were. On the other hand, though, now that the old lady’s gone, I feel as if the beast had—-well, outlived his usefulness, so to speak. So, suppose I just have his box hauled round to your show after the performance this afternoon and see if I can’t strike a bargain?”
“All right,”’ said the manager; “I’m going up Salt Lake way after a while, and perhaps I can work him off for big money to some of the Mormon elders.”
“There’s a mint of coin in him as a family pet,” said the other earnestly.
And after striking the circus proprietor for a season deadhead, the widower shouldered his umbrella and drifted sadly down the street.
The Two Worlds 16 October 1891: p. 580
Although it is extremely doubtful that the writer of the television sketch ever read this piece, which was widely anthologized in books of recitations like One Hundred Choice Selections in Poetry and Prose, it reminds me of that triumph of tastelessness from Monty Python, “The Undertaker’s Sketch.” Except for the cannibalism, of course.
Chris Woodyard is the author of The Victorian Book of the Dead, The Ghost Wore Black, The Headless Horror, The Face in the Window, and the 7-volume Haunted Ohio series. She is also the chronicler of the adventures of that amiable murderess Mrs Daffodil in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales. The books are available in paperback and for Kindle. Indexes and fact sheets for all of these books may be found by searching hauntedohiobooks.com. Join her on FB at Haunted Ohio by Chris Woodyard or The Victorian Book of the Dead. And visit her newest blog, The Victorian Book of the Dead.