A DOG’S TALE
CHAPTER I
MY FATHER WAS A ST. BERNARD, my mother was a collie, but
I am a Presbyterian. This is what my mother told me, I do
not know these nice distinctions myself. To me they are only
fine large words meaning nothing. My mother had a fondness
for such; she liked to say them, and see other dogs look
surprised and envious, as wondering how she got so much
education. But, indeed, it was not real education; it was only
show: she got the words by listening in the dining-room and
drawing-room when there was company, and by going with
the children to Sunday-school and listening there; and whenever
she heard a large word she said it over to herself many
times, and so was able to keep it until there was a dogmatic
gathering in the neighborhood, then she would get it off,
and surprise and distress them all, from pocket-pup to mastiff,
which rewarded her for all her trouble. If there was a
stranger he was nearly sure to be suspicious, and when he
got his breath again he would ask her what it meant. And
she always told him. He was never expecting this but thought
he would catch her; so when she told him, he was the one
that looked ashamed, whereas he had thought it was going
to be she. The others were always waiting for this, and glad
of it and proud of her, for they knew what was going to
happen, because they had had experience. When she told
the meaning of a big word they were all so taken up with
admiration that it never occurred to any dog to doubt if it
was the right one; and that was natural, because, for one
thing, she answered up so promptly that it seemed like a
dictionary speaking, and for another thing, where could they
find out whether it was right or not? for she was the only
cultivated dog there was. By and by, when I was older, she
brought home the word Unintellectual, one time, and worked
it pretty hard all the week at different gatherings, making
much unhappiness and despondency; and it was at this time
that I noticed that during that week she was asked for the
meaning at eight different assemblages, and flashed out a
fresh definition every time, which showed me that she had
more presence of mind than culture, though I said nothing,of course. She had one word which she always kept on hand,
and ready, like a life-preserver, a kind of emergency word to
strap on when she was likely to get washed overboard in a
sudden way—that was the word Synonymous. When she happened
to fetch out a long word which had had its day weeks
before and its prepared meanings gone to her dump-pile, if
there was a stranger there of course it knocked him groggy for
a couple of minutes, then he would come to, and by that time
she would be away down wind on another tack, and not expecting
anything; so when he’d hail and ask her to cash in, I
(the only dog on the inside of her game) could see her canvas
flicker a moment—but only just a moment—then it would
belly out taut and full, and she would say, as calm as a summer’s
day, “It’s synonymous with supererogation,” or some godless
long reptile of a word like that, and go placidly about and
skim away on the next tack, perfectly comfortable, you know,
and leave that stranger looking profane and embarrassed, and
the initiated slatting the floor with their tails in unison and
their faces transfigured with a holy joy.
And it was the same with phrases. She would drag home a
whole phrase, if it had a grand sound, and play it six nights
and two matinees, and explain it a new way every time—
which she had to, for all she cared for was the phrase; she
wasn’t interested in what it meant, and knew those dogs hadn’t
wit enough to catch her, anyway. Yes, she was a daisy! She
got so she wasn’t afraid of anything, she had such confidence
in the ignorance of those creatures. She even brought anecdotes
that she had heard the family and the dinner-guests
laugh and shout over; and as a rule she got the nub of one
chestnut hitched onto another chestnut, where, of course, it
didn’t fit and hadn’t any point; and when she delivered the
nub she fell over and rolled on the floor and laughed and
barked in the most insane way, while I could see that she was
wondering to herself why it didn’t seem as funny as it did
when she first heard it. But no harm was done; the others
rolled and barked too, privately ashamed of themselves for
not seeing the point, and never suspecting that the fault was
not with them and there wasn’t any to see.
You can see by these things that she was of a rather vain
and frivolous character; still, she had virtues, and enough to
make up, I think. She had a kind heart and gentle ways, and
never harbored resentments for injuries done her, but put them easily out of her mind and forgot them; and she taught
her children her kindly way, and from her we learned also to
be brave and prompt in time of danger, and not to run away,
but face the peril that threatened friend or stranger, and help
him the best we could without stopping to think what the
cost might be to us. And she taught us not by words only,
but by example, and that is the best way and the surest and
the most lasting. Why, the brave things she did, the splendid
things! she was just a soldier; and so modest about it—well,
you couldn’t help admiring her, and you couldn’t help imitating
her; not even a King Charles spaniel could remain
entirely despicable in her society. So, as you see, there was
more to her than her education.
CHAPTER II
WHEN I WAS WELL GROWN, at last, I was sold and taken away,
and I never saw her again. She was broken-hearted, and so
was I, and we cried; but she comforted me as well as she
could, and said we were sent into this world for a wise and
good purpose, and must do our duties without repining,
take our life as we might find it, live it for the best good of
others, and never mind about the results; they were not our
affair. She said men who did like this would have a noble
and beautiful reward by and by in another world, and although
we animals would not go there, to do well and right
without reward would give to our brief lives a worthiness
and dignity which in itself would be a reward. She had gathered
these things from time to time when she had gone to
the Sunday-school with the children, and had laid them up
in her memory more carefully than she had done with those
other words and phrases; and she had studied them deeply,
for her good and ours. One may see by this that she had a
wise and thoughtful head, for all there was so much lightness
and vanity in it.
So we said our farewells, and looked our last upon each
other through our tears; and the last thing she said—keeping
it for the last to make me remember it the better, I think—
was, “In memory of me, when there is a time of danger to
another do not think of yourself, think of your mother, and
do as she would do.”
Do you think I could forget that? No.
CHAPTER III
IT WAS SUCH A CHARMING HOME!—my new one; a fine great
house, with pictures, and delicate decorations, and rich furniture,
and no gloom anywhere, but all the wilderness of
dainty colors lit up with flooding sunshine; and the spacious
grounds around it, and the great garden—oh, greensward,
and noble trees, and flowers, no end! And I was the same as
a member of the family; and they loved me, and petted me,
and did not give me a new name, but called me by my old
one that was dear to me because my mother had given it
me—Aileen Mavoureen. She got it out of a song; and the
Grays knew that song, and said it was a beautiful name.
Mrs. Gray was thirty, and so sweet and so lovely, you cannot
imagine it; and Sadie was ten, and just like her mother, just a
darling slender little copy of her, with auburn tails down her
back, and short frocks; and the baby was a year old, and plump
and dimpled, and fond of me, and never could get enough of
hauling on my tail, and hugging me, and laughing out its
innocent happiness; and Mr. Gray was thirty-eight, and tall
and slender and handsome, a little bald in front, alert, quick
in his movements, business-like, prompt, decided, unsentimental,
and with that kind of trim-chiseled face that just seems
to glint and sparkle with frosty intellectuality! He was a renowned
scientist. I do not know what the word means, but
my mother would know how to use it and get effects. She
would know how to depress a rat-terrier with it and make a
lap-dog look sorry he came. But that is not the best one; the
best one was Laboratory. My mother could organize a Trust
on that one that would skin the tax-collars off the whole herd.
The laboratory was not a book, or a picture, or a place to wash
your hands in, as the college president’s dog said—no, that is
the lavatory; the laboratory is quite different, and is filled with
jars, and bottles, and electrics, and wires, and strange machines;
and every week other scientists came there and sat in the place,
and used the machines, and discussed, and made what they
called experiments and discoveries; and often I came, too, and
stood around and listened, and tried to learn, for the sake of
my mother, and in loving memory of her, although it was a
pain to me, as realizing what she was losing out of her life and
I gaining nothing at all; for try as I might, I was never able to
make anything out of it at all.Other times I lay on the floor in the mistress’s work-room
and slept, she gently using me for a foot-stool, knowing it
pleased me, for it was a caress; other times I spent an hour in
the nursery, and got well tousled and made happy; other
times I watched by the crib there, when the baby was asleep
and the nurse out for a few minutes on the baby’s affairs;
other times I romped and raced through the grounds and
the garden with Sadie till we were tired out, then slumbered
on the grass in the shade of a tree while she read her book;
other times I went visiting among the neighbor dogs—for
there were some most pleasant ones not far away, and one
very handsome and courteous and graceful one, a curly-haired
Irish setter by the name of Robin Adair, who was a Presbyterian
like me, and belonged to the Scotch minister.
The servants in our house were all kind to me and were
fond of me, and so, as you see, mine was a pleasant life.
There could not be a happier dog that I was, nor a gratefuler
one. I will say this for myself, for it is only the truth: I tried
in all ways to do well and right, and honor my mother’s
memory and her teachings, and earn the happiness that had
come to me, as best I could.
By and by came my little puppy, and then my cup was
full, my happiness was perfect. It was the dearest little waddling
thing, and so smooth and soft and velvety, and had
such cunning little awkward paws, and such affectionate eyes,
and such a sweet and innocent face; and it made me so proud
to see how the children and their mother adored it, and
fondled it, and exclaimed over every little wonderful thing it
did. It did seem to me that life was just too lovely to—
Then came the winter. One day I was standing a watch in
the nursery. That is to say, I was asleep on the bed. The baby
was asleep in the crib, which was alongside the bed, on the
side next the fireplace. It was the kind of crib that has a lofty
tent over it made of gauzy stuff that you can see through.
The nurse was out, and we two sleepers were alone. A spark
from the wood-fire was shot out, and it lit on the slope of
the tent. I suppose a quiet interval followed, then a scream
from the baby awoke me, and there was that tent flaming up
toward the ceiling! Before I could think, I sprang to the floor
in my fright, and in a second was half-way to the door; but
in the next half-second my mother’s farewell was sounding
in my ears, and I was back on the bed again. I reached my head through the flames and dragged the baby out by the
waist-band, and tugged it along, and we fell to the floor together
in a cloud of smoke; I snatched a new hold, and
dragged the screaming little creature along and out at the
door and around the bend of the hall, and was still tugging
away, all excited and happy and proud, when the master’s
voice shouted:
“Begone you cursed beast!” and I jumped to save myself;
but he was furiously quick, and chased me up, striking furiously
at me with his cane, I dodging this way and that, in
terror, and at last a strong blow fell upon my left foreleg,
which made me shriek and fall, for the moment, helpless;
the came went up for another blow, but never descended,
for the nurse’s voice rang wildly out, “The nursery’s on fire!”
and the master rushed away in that direction, and my other
bones were saved.
The pain was cruel, but, no matter, I must not lose any
time; he might come back at any moment; so I limped on
three legs to the other end of the hall, where there was a dark
little stairway leading up into a garret where old boxes and
such things were kept, as I had heard say, and where people
seldom went. I managed to climb up there, then I searched
my way through the dark among the piles of things, and hid
in the secretest place I could find. It was foolish to be afraid
there, yet still I was; so afraid that I held in and hardly even
whimpered, though it would have been such a comfort to
whimper, because that eases the pain, you know. But I could
lick my leg, and that did some good.
For half an hour there was a commotion downstairs, and
shoutings, and rushing footsteps, and then there was quiet
again. Quiet for some minutes, and that was grateful to my
spirit, for then my fears began to go down; and fears are
worse than pains—oh, much worse. Then came a sound
that froze me. They were calling me—calling me by name—
hunting for me!
It was muffled by distance, but that could not take the
terror out of it, and it was the most dreadful sound to me
that I had ever heard. It went all about, everywhere, down
there: along the halls, through all the rooms, in both stories,
and in the basement and the cellar; then outside, and farther
and farther away—then back, and all about the house again,
and I thought it would never, never stop. But at last it did,hours and hours after the vague twilight of the garret had
long ago been blotted out by black darkness.
Then in that blessed stillness my terrors fell little by little
away, and I was at peace and slept. It was a good rest I had,
but I woke before the twilight had come again. I was feeling
fairly comfortable, and I could think out a plan now. I made
a very good one; which was, to creep down, all the way down
the back stairs, and hide behind the cellar door, and slip out
and escape when the iceman came at dawn, while he was
inside filling the refrigerator; then I would hide all day, and
start on my journey when night came; my journey to—well,
anywhere where they would not know me and betray me to
the master. I was feeling almost cheerful now; then suddenly
I thought: Why, what would life be without my puppy!
That was despair. There was no plan for me; I saw that; I
must say where I was; stay, and wait, and take what might
come—it was not my affair; that was what life is—my mother
had said it. Then—well, then the calling began again! All
my sorrows came back. I said to myself, the master will never
forgive. I did not know what I had done to make him so
bitter and so unforgiving, yet I judged it was something a
dog could not understand, but which was clear to a man and
dreadful.
They called and called—days and nights, it seemed to me.
So long that the hunger and thirst near drove me mad, and
I recognized that I was getting very weak. When you are this
way you sleep a great deal, and I did. Once I woke in an
awful fright—it seemed to me that the calling was right there
in the garret! And so it was: it was Sadie’s voice, and she was
crying; my name was falling from her lips all broken, poor
thing, and I could not believe my ears for the joy of it when
I heard her say:
“Come back to us—oh, come back to us, and forgive—it
is all so sad without our—”
I broke in with such a grateful little yelp, and the next
moment Sadie was plunging and stumbling through the darkness
and the lumber and shouting for the family to hear,
“She’s found, she’s found!”
The days that followed—well, they were wonderful. The
mother and Sadie and the servants—why, they just seemed
to worship me. They couldn’t seem to make me a bed that
was fine enough; and as for food, they couldn’t be satisfied with anything but game and delicacies that were out of season;
and every day the friends and neighbors flocked in to
hear about my heroism—that was the name they called it
by, and it means agriculture. I remember my mother pulling
it on a kennel once, and explaining it in that way, but didn’t
say what agriculture was, except that it was synonymous with
intramural incandescence; and a dozen times a day Mrs. Gray
and Sadie would tell the tale to new-comers, and say I risked
my life to say the baby’s, and both of us had burns to prove
it, and then the company would pass me around and pet me
and exclaim about me, and you could see the pride in the
eyes of Sadie and her mother; and when the people wanted
to know what made me limp, they looked ashamed and
changed the subject, and sometimes when people hunted
them this way and that way with questions about it, it looked
to me as if they were going to cry.
And this was not all the glory; no, the master’s friends
came, a whole twenty of the most distinguished people, and
had me in the laboratory, and discussed me as if I was a kind
of discovery; and some of them said it was wonderful in a
dumb beast, the finest exhibition of instinct they could call
to mind; but the master said, with vehemence, “It’s far above
instinct; it’s reason, and many a man, privileged to be saved
and go with you and me to a better world by right of its
possession, has less of it that this poor silly quadruped that’s
foreordained to perish”; and then he laughed, and said: “Why,
look at me—I’m a sarcasm! bless you, with all my grand
intelligence, the only think I inferred was that the dog had
gone mad and was destroying the child, whereas but for the
beast’s intelligence—it’s reason, I tell you!—the child would
have perished!”
They disputed and disputed, andI was the very center of
subject of it all, and I wished my mother could know that
this grand honor had come to me; it would have made her
proud.
Then they discussed optics, as they called it, and whether
a certain injury to the brain would produce blindness or
not, but they could not agree about it, and said they must
test it by experiment by and by; and next they discussed
plants, and that interested me, because in the summer Sadie
and I had planted seeds—I helped her dig the holes, you
know—and after days and days a little shrub or a flower came up there, and it was a wonder how that could happen;
but it did, and I wished I could talk—I would have told
those people about it and shown then how much I knew,
and been all alive with the subject; but I didn’t care for the
optics; it was dull, and when the came back to it again it
bored me, and I went to sleep.
Pretty soon it was spring, and sunny and pleasant and lovely,
and the sweet mother and the children patted me and the
puppy good-by, and went away on a journey and a visit to
their kin, and the master wasn’t any company for us, but we
played together and had good times, and the servants were
kind and friendly, so we got along quite happily and counted
the days and waited for the family.
And one day those men came again, and said, now for the
test, and they took the puppy to the laboratory, and I limped
three-leggedly along, too, feeling proud, for any attention
shown to the puppy was a pleasure to me, of course. They
discussed and experimented, and then suddenly the puppy
shrieked, and they set him on the floor, and he went staggering
around, with his head all bloody, and the master clapped
his hands and shouted:
“There, I’ve won—confess it! He’s a blind as a bat!”
And they all said:
“It’s so—you’ve proved your theory, and suffering humanity
owes you a great debt from henceforth,” and they crowded
around him, and wrung his hand cordially and thankfully,
and praised him.
But I hardly saw or heard these things, for I ran at once to
my little darling, and snuggled close to it where it lay, and
licked the blood, and it put its head against mine, whimpering
softly, and I knew in my heart it was a comfort to it in its
pain and trouble to feel its mother’s touch, though it could
not see me. Then it dropped down, presently, and its little
velvet nose rested upon the floor, and it was still, and did not
move any more.
Soon the master stopped discussing a moment, and rang
in the footman, and said, “Bury it in the far corner of the
garden,” and then went on with the discussion, and I trotted
after the footman, very happy and grateful, for I knew the
puppy was out of its pain now, because it was asleep. We
went far down the garden to the farthest end, where the
children and the nurse and the puppy and I used to play in the summer in the shade of a great elm, and there the footman
dug a hole, and I saw he was going to plant the puppy,
and I was glad, because it would grow and come up a fine
handsome dog, like Robin Adair, and be a beautiful surprise
for the family when they came home; so I tried to help him
dig, but my lame leg was no good, being stiff, you know, and
you have to have two, or it is no use. When the footman had
finished and covered little Robin up, he patted my head,
and there were tears in his eyes, and he said: “Poor little
doggie, you saved his child!”
I have watched two whole weeks, and he doesn’t come up!
This last week a fright has been stealing upon me. I think
there is something terrible about this. I do not know what it
is, but the fear makes me sick, and I cannot eat, though the
servants bring me the best of food; and they pet me so, and
even come in the night, and cry, and say, “Poor doggie—do
give it up and come home; don’t break our hearts!” and all
this terrifies me the more, and makes me sure something has
happened. And I am so weak; since yesterday I cannot stand
on my feet anymore. And within this hour the servants, looking
toward the sun where it was sinking out of sight and the
night chill coming on, said things I could not understand,
but they carried something cold to my heart.
“Those poor creatures! They do not suspect. They will come
home in the morning, and eagerly ask for the little doggie
that did the brave deed, and who of us will be strong enough
to say the truth to them: ‘The humble little friend is gone
where go the beasts that perish.’”
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