Page:Six months in Kansas.djvu/57

Rh shoulder-blades—nice, snug, table-land that—and "catch me if you can " seems to be the taunt with which they set up anew their night's banquet at your expense.

After all, it is not so much what these "varmints" take, as the manner in which they do it, that we rebel at. Commend me to a bold, pharisaical mosquito, who not only sounds his horn before him but, sipping once for all a sufficiency of blood, which the poorest of us can well enough spare, settles off upon a wall or curtain, content to rest and let others rest, till he feels the want of another meal: a sort of "Robin Hood" robber is this gentleman. While the Messrs. Flea and company are veritable "squatters" on "hitherto unoccupied territory," ostensibly for the " benefit of every race under heaven ; " but really and truly for self-aggrandizement and gain.

With the early morning, we laugh at the type of us emigrants, so plainly drawn in a pocket edition; while at the same time, falling back upon our rights, said to be somehow covered by the United States Constitution, we say, quite boldly, "Gentlemen, these