Presidential Pets

"Mr. Coolidge and I are particularly fond of pets and had not been married long when we decided that we must have a cat and, of course, the best cats hail from our native state. Accordingly, to Vermont we sent for a cat. A tiny tiger kitten arrived not long after we made our desires known. . . . When we took him out of the box . . . the little thing was so sleepy and tired from long hours . . . on the train that he toppled over drowsily and went to sleep at once." The kitten was named Bounder. He enjoyed playing with water (was apt to jump into tubs drawn for the Coolidges if they failed to watch him), delighted in shooting the chutes (back stairs) in a laundry basket, died of nervous exhaustion after a hilarious Fourth of July.* Thus wrote Mrs. Grace Coolidge in the December American magazine. She told of a handsome Maltese-Angora cat which was anathematized by Calvin Coolidge who, disliking fancy breeds, said: "Anyone can see that his name is Mud." But when Mud's ear became abscessed. Mr. Coolidge dressed and lanced it tenderly.

Other Coolidge pets: Do-Funny, trained troupial, tweaker of ears; Old Bill, thrush; Peter Pan, first Coolidge dog; Paul Pry, half-brother of President Harding's famed Laddie Boy; Rob Roy, Wisconsin sheepherding collie who disliked the White House elevator, who stole dainties from the Red Room tea table and was ever to be seen at the President's side. One Thanksgiving Rebecca, raccoon, was sent to the White House to be eaten, but the First Lady could not bear to kill her, built a pen, found a mate (Reuben) who disliked Rebecca and eventually escaped. When President Coolidge summered at Black Hills he was presented with a white collie puppy. Diana of Wildwood, which he preferred to call Calamity Jane after Martha ("Calamity") Jane Canary Burke, famed Dakota saloonkeeper and roisterer, admirer of Wild Bill Hickok, by whose side she lies, who nursed the miners and, according to Authoress Coolidge, "softened the rigors of pioneer life with the milk of human kindness." At the White House arrived many a beast judged unfit to live therein: from Chihuahua a Mexican bear in a motor van, from Australia a wallaby (small kangaroo), from Africa twin lion cubs named Tax Reduction and Budget Bureau, a duikir (tiny deer), a dozen Pekin ducks just hatched. These animals were sent to the Zoo. Only Tiny Tim. red chowchow, sometimes called Terrible Tim. and a white collie pup now share the Coolidge home at Northampton, Mass.

Duck

Wild ducks usually look where they are flying. Wild ducks seldom fly across Main Street in Miami, Okla. On Thanksgiving Day, a wild duck did fly across Main Street, Miami, struck a wire, fell stunned at the feet of one H. H. Green. He killed it, congratulated himself.

*July 4 is Calvin Coolidge's birthday.

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