Tip: Don’t be too ambitious! This diagram of a camel skeleton is from The Philosophy of Natural History, by John Ware, M.D., published in 1860. Click on the image for a larger version that you may use as free clip art.

Build Your Own Cabinet of Curiosities!

Can you imagine a Victorian Lady tinkering around with the skeletal remains of an animal? In a slim volume published in London in the mid 1800′s called “Parlour Recreations for Ladies,” I found this interesting bit of instruction.

TO OBTAIN EXQUISITE SKELETONS OF SMALL ANIMALS

Put any small subject, when killed, either a bird (with the feathers plucked off), a mouse, or a frog, in a box perforated with a number of holes. Let it be properly distended, to prevent the parts from collapsing, or being crushed together by the pressure of the earth. Then place the box, with its contents, in an ant-hole, and in a few days it will have become an exquisitely beautiful and perfect skeleton, by the ants having consumed every part of it, excepting the bones and ligaments. When removed, place it under a glass for a curiosity.

Lost in Thought.

Miss Pansy, my dear pug friend and companion of nearly 14 years, crossed the rainbow bridge on December 16, 2012. I have created a vintage pug image archive in her memory here.  What follows below are my thoughts on the loss of the best dog a girl could have.

It’s a cold afternoon. I’m at the front door, juggling bags, fumbling for my keys. I all but drop the groceries on the floor as I enter the living room…but something isn’t right.

Miss Pansy is not asleep in her bed, nestled in with the wreckage that was her favorite Sponge Bob Squarepants toy. Nor is she standing (in recent months, quite wobbly) by the front door.

Sigh.

Another gloomy day and lonely evening without my best friend.

I lost my dear friend and constant companion to cancer on December 16th, 2012, just a few weeks shy of her 14th birthday.

Bald? No worries! Fighting the chemo blues with a lavender wig and a brand new pug! Little Miss Pansy Saves the Day!

Miss Pansy entered my life while I was undergoing treatment for ovarian cancer. Apathetic and a bit depressed, the notion struck me that perhaps a pug, with it’s jolly face and joie de vivre, would be just the tonic to raise my spirits. Who can have a bad day when the first thing you see upon waking is the winsome grin of a pug?

Being fairly ill and not having the means to travel extensively, my search was limited. I wasn’t able to travel to meet breeders in person or visit shelters. But I did find an honest breeder representative where I came to find Pansy. She was sharing a large open floor pen with a small pack of chihuahuas–little aliens all. Her sleepy eyes rose to meet mine, and I was instantly smitten with the pug bug!

I walked out of the store that day having been sold the whole bill of goods. Books, bowls, food, and looking back, a ridiculously over-sized crate. Contemplating names during our ride home, my first choice was Daisy, which did not meet my mother’s approval as that was her grandmother’s name. I settled on Pansy, which really was much more appropriate, given her small petal ears and pansy flower mask.

Pansy as a Puppy, with Bone

On retiring that first night together, she was placed in her crate and I went off to bed. She began to whimper, such a sad sound! Within four minutes of her being placed in the crate she was in my bed. So much for crate training! From that night on, Pansy slept with me.

Raising Pansy helped me during what was an especially low point in my life. She gave my family something else to think about and care for other than me, and I’d like to think that she helped my young son focus on something positive instead of my being sick. We watched her grow from a wobbly little top heavy sprite into a sturdy self-assured pug with a perfect tail. I often told her that she was a perfect meal. Buttercup ears, pork chop legs, and a danish for a tail. You could elicit a charming head tilt by uttering the three magic words: “walk cheese carrot”. In time she would lose her hearing, but in the early days she could hear a carrot drop a mile away, and the evening chirping of the cardinals outside our house would send her into a barking frenzy.

For a time I worked from home, and Pansy was always right behind me on my chair. She would take up pretty much the entire chair, leaving me with but a sliver. More than once I fell out of the seat. If I really had a lot of work to do, I would just bring in one of the kitchen chairs and let her have the comfy office chair.

Nothing but the best for Miss Pansy!

Pansy Enjoying a Warm Autumn Day.

Pansy never cared to socialize with other dogs, but she wasn’t without animal friends.

Friends in the Sun

One sunny afternoon, while Pansy and I were sunbathing in our driveway, a dapper tuxedo cat sauntered up out of nowhere and rested directly beside her. The stray cat was friendly and took an immediate liking to Miss Pansy. To this day I’m not sure if Mr. Tips (as he was soon named) understood that Pansy was a dog, not a cat. After Tips was formally adopted by us, Tips would cuddle up to Pansy whenever he was cold or just wanted soft ears to lick.

Who am I to disapprove? And so Pansy ended up with her own pet cat.

Yin and Yang, or, Cold Weather Makes for Strange Bedfellows. Miss Pansy and Mr. Tips.

Mr. Tips, like the rest of us, knows that something doesn’t feel right. They say that cats can tell when someone is ill, and it seemed to me that the weeks up until Pansy’s death, that Tips stayed a little closer. Now that Pansy is gone, Tips has a curious searching look about him, and you can sense that his feline brain is struggling to comprehend the change in our family dynamic. Our evenings were officially ended and the day declared complete by the scooping up of Pansy and calling Tips and Eugene (our most recent resident, for I am a sucker for cats) to bed.

Bouncing a red beach ball on her head, running around the yard like a maniac, and ripping the legs off of more than one Sponge Bob Squarepants doll; her weird fascination with a rubber chicken doll, dubbed “lick-a-chick” for her obsessive habit of licking it; enduring Mr. Tips sometimes inappropriate advances (really, what was with the ear thing?)…these are some of my fond memories of Miss Pansy.

Pansy enjoyed the attention she received from the neighborhood children at Halloween.

Pansy had been blind for a few years, and adapting well to her disability, she never lost her keen sense of fun. She invented a personal game of Hide-and-Seek; she would drop a piece of kibble, “lose” it, and then go off looking for it. When she found it, she would either bark at it, or claw at the rug to get at it, before devouring it with relish, after which she would start all over again with another piece of kibble. She would also leave treats all over the house, which I suspect may have been her way of leaving markers–bread crumbs, if you will–so that she could find her way around the house.

Keeping Watch. Mr. Tips and Eugene keeping close to Miss Pansy.

Pansy was such a tough little dog that I barely noticed that she had grown “old”. She began to decline over Thanksgiving weekend. As anyone with a pug knows, a pug that doesn’t eat is a sick pug; she turned her nose up at her favorite foods, became lethargic, and appeared to have aged a decade in a day. In September, she had excellent blood work prior to having her teeth cleaned and a few skin tags removed; not a cosmetic surgery by any means, one of the skin tags didn’t look right; it had gotten larger than the rest and seemed to have been irritated.

That large skin tag was, in fact, a tumor that was cancerous.

At her age and with money always being an issue, the best I could do was keep her comfortable and watch for any signs that she was suffering. That my companion throughout my own treatment for cancer could now have the same affliction boggled my mind and must certainly be right up there with the greatest ironies of all time.

Pansy Loved Pizza!

With the appetite failing, Pansy returned to the Vet, new blood work suggesting a fast moving cancer.  A subsequent ultrasound revealed a tumor on one of her adrenal glands, possibly indicative of Cushing’s disease.

Pansy was given medicine to help with her sour stomach, the probable cause of food aversion issues. Each meal in those final days was prepared by me, fed to her by hand; each had to be novel; food she enjoyed one day was hated the next. It was suggested by a coworker that perhaps Pansy had a bucket list, and maybe she did; the last little morsel of food that she ate with any degree of gusto was a bit of pizza, which had always been her favorite forbidden treat.

On December 13, 2012. Still hanging in there, on the office chair we shared.

We all had hoped that Pansy would be with us for one last Christmas; a wish not granted. On the evening of Sunday, December 16th, she took a turn for the worse and I had to make that most difficult of decisions. Pansy departed peacefully and with dignity, and some measure of relief as she was so utterly tired. And just that quickly nearly 14 years have passed away in a moment; the running, playful puppy; the comical girl who would do anything for a bit of cheese; the sounding board for my rants…she will be missed beyond measure.

In time, I will seek a new companion. Not a replacement, for there will only be one Miss Pansy. I’ve looked around the web and have discovered so many rescue groups that my next friend will be one in need, perhaps a mature girl who needs a helping hand. In time.

Postscript

Rest in Peace, Pansy and Gretchen

2012 was a bad year for our animal companions. We lost Gretchen on March 10th. I’m not sure that Pansy was ever aware of Gretchen, she had been blind for a few years when I brought Gretchen home after finding her hungry and homeless in West Philadelphia. Pansy would often walk right over the sleeping Gretchen, and Gretchen, being a sweet soul, would ignore the insult and just wander off in search of a less traveled spot.

As a way to work through the pain of losing two great furry friends this year, I created a memorial tree in their honor. It doesn’t brighten up the room as much as their presence, but it has helped.

Pansy and Gretchen Memorial Tree

The ornaments were made using spare dollhouse windows, gold spray paint, and press on plastic jewels to frame photo prints made using an inexpensive color printer (Canon Pixma iP2702, under $30 at my local K-mart).

A Batch of Ornaments, Ready to Hang

Thank you for visiting this memorial. Why not stop by Miss Pansy’s Vintage Pug Image Archive and help yourself to some great free pug clip art?

Assorted Victorian Era Scrap for Sale.

I’ve posted an assortment of authentic Victorian era scrap and ephemera in my Etsy shop, MissMary.Etsy.com. Stop by while the getting is good.

Free clipart image of Victorian children rolling a snowball. Click on the picture for a larger view.

The Snow Ball

Hurray! hurrah! for the snow. What a big ball we have made! Little Ned has his wheelbarrow to help carry the snow. Kitty and Bess have not got their hats; they will catch cold, I fear. Nurse does not know they are out; but they are good little girls, and will go in when she calls them.

These old-fashioned Victorian Santa pinback buttons are available for a limited time in my Etsy shop, RetroButtons.etsy.com.

This set of six vibrant Victorian Christmas Santa Claus pinback buttons are now available in my Etsy shop. This is a seasonal item and quantities are limited.

The Santa images are reproduced from vintage Victorian Christmas postcards and old German scrap from my personal collection. Here Santa carries his sack stuffed with old-fashioned toys; he wears a crown of holly; and he carries a snow covered Christmas tree.

Besides being fun to wear during the Christmas holiday season, these buttons can be used as an embellishment on Christmas cards and gift tags. They look great on stockings too!

Little May. Original Victorian woodcut that illustrated this story. Click on the image for a larger version that you can use as free clip art.

An eccentric old woman who lives with chickens and a thoughtful little girl are the subject of this story from the Victorian Christmas book “Here and There and Everywhere: Illustrated Stories and Poems for Little Folks” published in 1895. I’ve restored both illustrations from the story — charming Victorian woodcuts both — that you may use as royalty-free clip art.

Breakfast was late, to be sure, but the children did not want any; it was enough to feast their eyes upon what came out of their Christmas stockings.

On the floor sat little May and Paul, still in their night-dresses, just perfectly happy with their hearts’ desires, — a doll and a go-cart.

But this was the third time their mother had said, “Now, let me dress you, my dears, and you shall have your toys beside you at the breakfast-table.”

Little May jumped up briskly, and was soon ready. Paul followed suit, though it was trying to have him cling so to that horse and cart, as if they could follow him through his sleeves.

“Well, I’m thankful,” said the weary mother, “that you are dressed at last. What, if children had as many arms or legs as caterpillars?”

It was a happy sight, as we all know, — bright little faces at the Christmas-table!

What if dolls and carts may get broken the next day, the children’s delight is so gay while it does last?

This morning, May’s mother wanted to teach her another kind of happiness, — that of making other people happy. So she asked her how she would like to put aside her doll for a little while, and take a mince-pie to Mrs. Fowler, a poor old lady who lived quite alone in a little, brown house at the end of the long village street.

There was just half a sigh at first, but somehow the real Christmas feeling filled the little girl’s heart, and made her want to make somebody else as happy as she herself was.

In a minute she raced out of the room, and then came back to be wrapped up like a little Red Ridinghood in her winter scarlet.

When she was fairly out of doors, she stood breathless a moment at the beauty of everything, for last night the first real snow-storm had come, covering with its soft white all the unlovely frozen ground, draping the skeleton trees with down and diamonds, and, best of all, making first-rate sleighing.

As the child printed her new rubber-boots daintily upon the untrodden snow by the roadside, she thought how very nice it would be to ride instead; and, suddenly, as if a fairy had flown from the snow-crystals and granted her wish, up the hill dashed a horse and sleigh. Not alone, however. The pretty young lady in the sleigh was Squire Denny’s daughter, Jennie, and the driver was Jennie’s brother, Ralph, just returned from California.

Little May’s eyes were not for them so much as for the great prancing gray horse, and the gay sleigh, just a dazzle of gilt and red, and jingling bells.

Miss Denny had to speak twice before May fairly understood.

“Would you like to ride with us, dear? We are going the rounds to collect goodies for poor Mrs. Fowler. Won’t you come, too? And do you think your mother would like to send anything?”

May, for answer, showed them her mince-pie; then Mr. Ralph lifted the little girl into the sleigh  turned a charmingly short corner, then dashed off towards Mrs. Fowler’s little cottage.

At last, the gray horse stood still, and Miss Jennie, little May, and the rest of the “goodies,” were unloaded at Mrs. Fowler’s door.

The first creak of the hinges roused a cackling, crowing, and fluttering, and they found themselves with a dusty crowd of hens. In the midst of all was a little chirruping old woman, much like a motherly hen herself, as she cried, “Cut, cut, cut! There, there! Go to your roost again and show your manners. Let the good people in, will you?”

“Ralph, I declare for’t! You didn’t lose the crinkles out of your pooty hair while you was abroad. What! Something for Christmas! Nice turkey, all roasted, too. Well, I’m obleeged to you, I’m sure.”

“Marthy-Jane, — I won’t ‘Jennie’ you! No, no! That’s a name for a bar-main, — tell you ‘ma I’m obleeged to her for her victuals, and to you for bringing them. And little May, too! Your ‘ma is another good one. Present my duty to all the good neighbors that remembered the lone, old woman. Not so lonesome, either, as I might be. My hens are my children, — roost on my foot-board, wake up before you want ‘em, just like children; want their breakfast, too, before it’s ready for them, and never appear their best before strangers, — like children again. But, there, chickens will be children! My black Polly there, I might say, is my favorite child, — can’t help it.”

“Haven’t you some curiosities to show us, auntie?” Said Miss Jennie.

“Not as I know of,” replied the old lady, rather crossly. “There’s the same old things you’ve seen, — the petrified toad, the skin of the sea-serpent, the bottle of holy water” (“I saw her myself when she filled that bottle from the Kennebec,” whispered Miss Jennie, impolitely); “then,” continued Mrs. Fowler, “there’s a piece of the boat Arnold, the treasoner, sailed to Canada in. You know it got around down by my shoemack bush, and slivered off a piece.” And the old lady looked up with innocent eyes as she gave this bit of history.

“She has told that story so many times,” thought Ralph, “that she believes it herself.”

“But what’s under here, auntie?” said Miss Jennie, gently touching the curiously-covered table.

“Shu! shu! child! That’s a show! Admission ten cents; children half price.”

Tickets, with reserved seats, were secured at once.

“Well, then,” said the old lady, taking off the cover, “if you must know, it is American History to instruct the villagers — (drive that little bantam away, will you, Marthy-Jane)? — there, then. This is George Washington holding up —”

“Not a hatchet, I hope,” interrupted Ralph.

“It is presumed he kept it even when he was a president; and, at any rate,” continued the old lady, who disliked interruption, “it gives me a chance to teach little boys to let cherry-trees alone.

“Most of the characters are in pasteboard, but the prominent ones I make out of dough.

Original Victorian woodcut illustration from the story. To use as clip art, click on the image for the larger version.

“The military men are my favorites, for they look well on a horse; but there’s no rhyme or reason in mounting a lawyer, or a tailor, or any such character. General Scott, now! What a fine appearance he makes. I wish I could give these great men a voice; but the most I can do is to make them move.” And, then, in some mysterious way, she caused the General’s horse to cross the parade-ground.

“This is the best of all,” said the old lady, as she started up another dough-puppet, who bore a small hat, which he jerked back and forth among historical Americans; and then, coming to the verge of the stage, held it appealingly to Mr. Ralph and Miss Jennie. They took it, and filled it with silver coin.

“Oh, did you not notice Benjamin Franklin, with his kite. Where is Franklin? O! That sly Polly! She has eaten him ‘most up!” It was too true. The great philosopher had come to an untimely end.

The visitors hastened to leave, knowing that the old lady’s temper could not bear much.

Charming to be out again in the snow and sunshine, with the dancing bells.

Not till little May stood by her own door did she think of her Christmas-doll. But it was all the more precious, because she had forgotten it for a little while in striving to make some one else happy.

I’ve added them to my recently re-launched novelty pinback button shop on Etsy, RetroButtons.

Glass tile pendants featuring vintage illustrations printed on parchment. Now available at RetroButtons.

A set of six colorful vintage circus art pinback buttons.

Old-fashioned images of clowns adapted from vintage circus poster art have been transformed into this colorful set of six 1-inch clown pinback buttons. You’ll find them in my novelty button shop, RetroButtons.