150 
FOREST AND STREAM 
-i ‘ 
“Whippin' The Cat” 
A New Uncle Lisha Peggs Work Shop Story 
By Rowland E. Robinson 
An unpublished story by one of Forest and Stream 's most famous former contributors, now deceased. 
The manuscript was discovered recently in Forest and Stream's library. The story will prove a treat 
to the admirers of a w> iter the popularity of whose books is steadily increasing. ‘ ‘ Whippin ’ the Cat, it 
may be explained, is a Yankee term for one who traveled around the neighborhood working at his trade. 
“O, it’ll all come right, Lisher, you see if it 
don’t,” Aunt Jerusha said with exasperating 
hopefulness. 
“Good airth an’ seas! What’s a goin’ tu—” he 
began in impatient outburst which his wife sud¬ 
denly suppressed by a cautionary motion and 
word. 
“Hark! Who is 't a hollerin’ ?” Both of 
them now realized that the rumble and clatter 
of an approaching wagon had ceased in front 
of the house and some one was calling lustily 
with variations of emphasis. 
“Lisher Paiggs! E—lisher’, E —li—sher 
Paiggs!” 
“Why, if 't ain’t Joel Bartlett.” Aunt Jerusha 
looked across the kitchen through the open outer 
door and saw a middle-aged man in Quaker garb 
of coarse brown cloth and ingeniously ugly 
pattern. The sleeves of the single-breasted, 
straight-collared coat were short and scant. Its 
cut away skirts narrow, stiff and angular. It 
was evidently the owner’s best, for no other 
would be worn with the well-kept broad brimmed 
hat of fine drab fur. The shrewd expression 
of his smoothly shaven face was considerably 
lessened by the manner of wearing his hair 
combed down over the broad forehead and cut 
straight across an inch above the shaggy brows, 
beneath which his keen gray eyes shone with a 
gleam of impatience. He stood in the wagon 
holding the reins with one hand and resting the 
NCLE LISHA PEGGS, the old 
cobbler, was sweeping the floor 
of his shop, which was an un¬ 
usual occupation for him to be 
engaged in. It was not that 
feminine hands sometimes per¬ 
formed it, for they were never 
permitted to disturb the dis¬ 
orderly order of the place, nor subjected to 
the temptation of sacrificing one precious scrap 
on the altar of neatness. The sweeping was never 
done by anyone but himself and then only when 
there was nothing else to do. He was not mak¬ 
ing what could be called by any stretch of cour¬ 
tesy a “clean sweep” but only clearing the ac¬ 
cumulated litter from the main lines of travel 
and the places most frequented by customers and 
guests. From such parts of the floor the rubbish 
was pushed with the shop broom, which through 
varied service had become more a scraper than 
a sweeper, into a heap in an especially allotted 
corner and in lesser piles under the fixed articles 
of furniture, the shoe bench and the box stove. 
Now he stooped laboriously, using the broc m 
as a support, to pick up a scrap of sole leather or 
bit of upper leather that might serve for a lift 
or patch and tossed them into their appointed 
place. 
As he turned about and viewed with satis¬ 
faction the ground he had gone over, the door 
opening into the kitchen was pushed ajar and the 
kindly old face of Aunt Jerusha appeared, wear¬ 
ing an expression of amused interest. 
“Wal, Lisher, haow be you gettin’ along?” she 
asked. “Why! you’re slickin’ up turribly.” 
“Oh, I do’ know,” he said, still reviewing the 
result of his labors with modest pride, “It 
don’t pay over ’n above tu be tew slick.” 
“You le’ me sweep aout for ye, father,” she 
said, venturing a step beyond the threshold. 
“No, I won’t nuther, let nob’dy. It don’t want 
tu be swep’ aout, only jest swep uip, an’ not get 
ev’ything scattered hither an’ yon so nob’dy can’t 
find nuthin’. I wouldn’t be a 'foolin’ away my 
time a sweepin’ if I had a stitch o’ work tu du, 
but I ham’t an’ I do’ know what ’s the matter 
ails all the folks erless they made uip the’ minds 
tu go a barefoot.” 
“Wal, father, I s’pose most ev’ybody’s busy a 
hayin’. They’ll be cornin’ tu get shod up for 
winter afore long.” 
“I do’ know ’bout’t. I oonsait it’s them durn’d 
store boots an’ shoes ’ats tu the bottom on’t; 
them ready made, half made, slung tugether 
consarns, folks hes took tu wearin’. I sh’d think 
’spectable folks ’ould be 'shamed tu be seen 
with em on, the paigs a grtinnin’ julluk a Jessie* 
cat ’twixt soles an’ uppers, afore they be’n wore 
a week. But they hainit, an’ I do’ know what the 
country ’s cornin’ tu.” 
*A Yankee conception of “Ches-hlre oat.” 
