A Story From the Stockyards: JOE GETLER AND HIS CATS

From: ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF THE UNION STOCKYARDS: SKETCH-BOOK OF FAMILIAR FACES AND PLACES AT THE YARDS by W. Jos. Grand. Copyright 1896

A PERSONAGE of great importance at the stockyards, and without an account of whom no history of the place would be complete, is Smut, the enormous tortoise-shell cat, dear to the heart of Joe Getler, the good-looking bachelor who looks after the interests of the Wabash Railway at the shipping pens.

Joe is "great" on cats and has invested heavily in the breeding business, and says, in his good-natured way, "Yes, there's money in cats." Smut is an immense creature, of great dignity of presence and haughty demeanor, as becomes a prime favorite and the forebear of a long line of honorable descendants. She is a regular breeder, presenting her owner with a new family about every three months, having seldom leas than nine kittens to the Jitter. All of her progeny are taken with alacrity by Joe's friends among the commission men, being often promised and sold before they are born. Her sons and daughters are distributed all over Englewood, to the number of 100,it is estimated, and their fame has gone abroad in the land. The cherished felines are known as "Getler's cats," and are supposed to inherit their mother's shrewdness and skill in the hunt.

Smut is a terror to rats and likes nothing better than a still hunt after game. She is by no means of the "new" order of females and attends carefully to her domestic duties, but when not imperatively engaged in these she can be seen at most hours of the day and night in a death-chase after her foes. She has made her home in the tagging shanty for the past three years, and has cleared a circle of rats all about her for a radius of one-fourth of a mile. She not uncommonly ventures up in the packing-houses, a half-mile or so away, after her prey. Another pet taste of hers is an epicurean love for sparrows, and in pursuit of these dainty morsels Smut has developed some strange traits, for a cat. When her master starts off in his spare moments with his gun to shoot sparrows for his favorite, Smut trots along behind him as alert as a trained hunter, and when the birds fall after the crack of the rifle, Smut will retrieve them with an attention to the business in hand worthy of the most carefully practiced retrieving dog.

Joe met with a great sorrow in the sad loss of "Nig,"another feline pet, about twelve months ago, and in honor to Nig's memory has established a cemetery with a conventional mound in the center, and a headstone in Nig's commemoration with the appropriate inscription of "Nig: Requiesce in Pace." Joe sees to it most carefully that this "grave is kept green," and in summer it is watered faithfully and decked with flowers.

There goes a story at Joe's expense, though no one will actually swear to its truth, that one night soon after the advent of one of Smut's numerous families Joe was disturbed by a most prodigious caterwauling, whioh he terms a Thomas concert, in front of his sleeping-quarters, and going out to look into the matter he saw four great cats of the male persuasion squatted in a sort of square, and howling for dear life. Joe had been reading in the early evening an account of the customs of the Fiji or some other islands where each woman has several husbands, and questions of descent are settled among the several benedicts by electing one of them to stand in the place of father to the off-spring. This must have come into Joe's mind, for after driving away the vociferous felines he was overheard by a passer-by to say, with a chuckling laugh, "Well, them darned cats must have met to elect a father."