MONGOLA AND HIS BROTHERS 



looked ! His hairs all seemed stuck to one an- 

 other and smoothly plastered down. His tail 

 was covered in the same way and he left a brown 

 streak on the floor. He climbed upon the bed 

 and the white bedspread was spotted and daubed 

 as he crawled over it and looked at me with his 

 little black eyes. He touched my hand with 

 his nose which was sticky and I found that his 

 body was covered with sorghum. It was all 

 plain to me now. A poaching mouse in the 

 pantry had claimed the attention of Mongola. 

 When he had caught it on the pantry shelf he 

 had overturned a jar of home-made molasses or 

 sorghum, so well known to the western farmers. 

 The noise that awakened me was caused by the 

 breaking of the jar and other dishes that chanced 

 to be in its way as it fell. It took several days 

 to get Mongola clean he was already sweet. 

 A number of baths were required before I was 

 able to entirely free his hair of the sticky sor- 

 ghum. 



The winter passed. Mongola was forever 

 getting under some one's feet or into some mis- 

 chief and I had no little difficulty in excusing 

 him. I was constantly begging for his pardon 

 t'97] 



