Tails to Wag (3 page)

Then he let me go and stood looking at me as I rolled on the ground and yelped in agony. He was in such a passion that he did not think that people passing by on the road might hear me. . . .

III

My Kind Deliverer and Miss Laura

There was a young man going by on a bicycle. He heard my screams and springing off his bicycle, came hurrying up the path, and stood among us before Jenkins caught sight of him.

In the midst of my pain, I heard him in say fiercely “What have you been doing to that dog?”

“I've been cuttin' his ears for fightin', my young gentleman,” said Jenkins. “There is no law to prevent that, is there?”

“And there is no law to prevent my giving you a beating,” said the young man, angrily. In a trice he had seized Jenkins by the throat, and was pounding him with all his might. Mrs. Jenkins came and stood at the house door, crying, but making no effort to help her husband.

“Bring me a towel,” the young man cried to her, after he had stretched Jenkins, bruised and frightened, on the ground. She snatched off her apron, and ran down with it, and the young man wrapped me in it, and taking me carefully in his arms, walked down the path to the gate. There were some little boys standing there, watching him, their mouths wide open with astonishment. “Sonny,” he said to the largest of them, “if you will come behind and carry this dog, I will give you a quarter.”

The boy took me, and we set out. I was all smothered up in a cloth, and moaning with pain, but still I looked out occasionally to see which way we were going. We took the road to the town and stopped in front of a house on Washington Street. The young man leaned his bicycle up against the house, took a quarter from his pocket and put it in the boy's hand, and lifting me gently in his arms, went up a lane leading to the back of the house.

There was a small stable there. He went into it, put me down on the floor and uncovered my body. Some boys were playing about the stable, and I heard them say, in horrified tones, “Oh, Cousin Harry, what is the matter with that dog?”

“Hush,” he said. “Don't make a fuss. You, Jack, go down to the kitchen and ask Mary for a basin of warm water and a sponge, and don't let your mother or Laura hear you.”

A few minutes later, the young man had bathed my bleeding ears and tail, and had rubbed something on them that was cool and pleasant, and had bandaged them firmly with strips of cotton. I felt much better and was able to look about me.

I was in a small stable, that was evidently not used for a stable, but more for a play-room. There were various kinds of toys scattered about and a swing and bar, such as boys love to twist about on, in two different corners. In a box against the wall was a guinea pig, looking at me in an interested way. This guinea pig's name was Jeff, and he and I became good friends. A long-haired French rabbit was hopping about, and a tame white rat was perched on the shoulder of one of the boys, and kept his foothold there, no matter how suddenly the boy moved. There were so many boys, and the stable was so small, that I suppose he was afraid he would get stepped on if he went on the floor. He stared hard at me with his little, red eyes, and never even glanced at a queer-looking, gray cat that was watching me, too, from her bed in the back of the vacant horse stall. Out in the sunny yard, some pigeons were pecking at grain, and a spaniel lay asleep in a corner.

I had never seen anything like this before, and my wonder at it almost drove the pain away. Mother and I always chased rats and birds, and once we killed a kitten. While I was puzzling over it, one of the boys cried out, “Here is Laura!”

“Take that rag out of the way,” said Mr. Harry, kicking aside the old apron I had been wrapped in, and that was stained with my blood. One of the boys stuffed it into a barrel, and then they all looked toward the house.

A young girl, holding up one hand to shade her eyes from the sun, was coming up the walk that led from the house to the stable. I thought then that I never had seen such a beautiful girl, and I think so still. She was tall and slender, and had lovely brown eyes and brown hair, and a sweet smile, and just to look at her was enough to make one love her. I stood in the stable door, staring at her with all my might.

“Why, what a funny dog,” she said, and stopped short to looked at me. Up to this, I had not thought what a queer-looking sight I must be. Now I twisted round my head, saw the white bandage on my tail, and knowing I was not a fit spectacle for a pretty young lady like that, I slunk into a corner.

“Poor doggie, have I hurt your feelings?” she said, and with a sweet smile at the boys, she passed by them and came up to the guinea pig's box, behind which I had taken refuge. “What is the matter with your head, good dog?” she said, curiously, as she stooped over me.

“He has a cold in it,” said one of the boys with a laugh; “so we put a nightcap on.” She drew back, and turned very pale. “Cousin Harry, there are drops of blood on this cotton. Who has hurt this dog?”

“Dear Laura,” and the young man coming up, laid his hand on her shoulder, “he got hurt, and I have been bandaging him.”

“Who hurt him?”

“I had rather not tell you.”

“But I wish to know.” Her voice was as gentle as ever, but she spoke so decidedly that the young man was obliged to tell her everything. All the time he was speaking, she kept touching me gently with her fingers. When he had finished his account of rescuing me from Jenkins, she said, quietly:

“You will have the man punished?”

“What is the use? That won't stop him from being cruel.”

“It will put a check on his cruelty.”

“I don't think it would do any good,” said the young man, doggedly.

“Cousin Harry!” and the young girl stood up very straight and tall, her brown eyes flashing, and one hand pointing at me; “Will you let that pass? That animal has been wronged, it looks to you to right it. The coward who has maimed it for life should be punished. A child has a voice to tell its wrong—a poor, dumb creature must suffer in silence; in bitter, bitter silence. And,” eagerly, as the young man tried to interrupt her, “you are doing the man himself an injustice. If he is bad enough to ill-treat his dog, he will ill-treat his wife and children. If he is checked and punished now for his cruelty, he may reform. And even if his wicked heart is not changed, he will be obliged to treat them with outward kindness, through fear of punishment.”

The young man looked convinced, and almost as ashamed as if he had been the one to crop my ears. “What do you want me to do?” he said, slowly, and looking sheepishly at the boys who were staring open-mouthed at him and the young girl.

The girl pulled a little watch from her belt. “I want you to report that man immediately. It is now five o'clock. I will go down to the police station with you, if you like.”

“Very well,” he said, his face brightening, and together they went off to the house.

IV

The Morris Boys Add to My Name

The boys watched them out of sight, then one of them, whose name I afterward learned was Jack, and who came next to Miss Laura in age, gave a low whistle and said, “Doesn't the old lady come out strong when any one or anything gets abused? I'll never forget the day she found me setting Jim on that black cat of the Wilsons. She scolded me, and then she cried, till I didn't know where to look. Plague on it, how was I going to know he'd kill the old cat? I only wanted to drive it out of the yard. Come on, let's look at the dog.”

They all came and bent over me, as I lay on the floor in my corner. I wasn't much used to boys, and I didn't know how they would treat me. But I soon found by the way they handled me and talked to me, that they knew a good deal about dogs, and were accustomed to treat them kindly. It seemed very strange to have them pat me, and call me “good dog.” No one had ever said that to me before today.

“He's not much of a beauty, is he?” said one of the boys, whom they called Tom.

“Not by a long shot,” said Jack Morris, with a laugh. “Not any nearer the beauty mark than yourself, Tom.”

Tom flew at him, and they had a scuffle. The other boys paid no attention to them, but went on looking at me. One of them, a little boy with eyes like Miss Laura's, said, “What did Cousin Harry say the dog's name was?”

“Joe,” answered another boy. “The little chap that carried him home told him.”

“We might call him ‘Ugly Joe' then,” said a lad with a round, fat face, and laughing eyes. I wondered very much who this boy was, and, later on, I found out that he was another of Miss Laura's brothers, and his name was Ned. There seemed to be no end to the Morris boys.

“I don't think Laura would like that,” said Jack Morris, suddenly coming up behind him. He was very hot, and was breathing fast, but his manner was as cool as if he had never left the group about me. He had beaten Tom, who was sitting on a box, ruefully surveying a hole in his jacket. “You see,” he went on, gaspingly, “if you call him ‘Ugly Joe,' her ladyship will say that you are wounding the dear dog's feelings. ‘Beautiful Joe,' would be more to her liking.”

A shout went up from the boys. I didn't wonder that they laughed. Plain-looking I naturally was; but I must have been hideous in those bandages.

“‘Beautiful Joe,' then let it be!” they cried. “Let us go and tell mother, and ask her to give us something for our beauty to eat.”

They all trooped out of the stable, and I was very sorry, for when they were with me, I did not mind so much the tingling in my ears, and the terrible pain in my back. They soon brought me some nice food, but I could not touch it; so they went away to their play, and I lay in the box they put me in, trembling with pain, and wishing that the pretty young lady was there, to stroke me with her gentle fingers.

By-and-by it got dark. The boys finished their play, and went into the house, and I saw lights twinkling in the windows. I felt lonely and miserable in this strange place. I would not have gone back to Jenkins' for the world, still it was the only home I had known, and though I felt that I should be happy here, I had not yet gotten used to the change. Then the pain all through my body was dreadful. My head seemed to be on fire, and there were sharp, darting pains up and down my backbone. I did not dare to howl, lest I should make the big dog, Jim, angry. He was sleeping in a kennel, out in the yard.

The stable was very quiet. Up in the loft above, some rabbits that I had heard running about had now gone to sleep. The guinea pig was nestling in the corner of his box, and the cat and the tame rat had scampered into the house long ago.

At last I could bear the pain no longer, I sat up in my box and looked about me. I felt as if I was going to die, and, though I was very weak, there was something inside me that made me feel as if I wanted to crawl away somewhere out of sight. I slunk out into the yard, and along the stable wall, where there was a thick clump of raspberry bushes. I crept in among them and lay down in the damp earth. I tried to scratch off my bandages, but they were fastened on too firmly, and I could not do it. I thought about my poor mother, and wished she was here to lick my sore ears. Though she was so unhappy herself, she never wanted to see me suffer. If I had not disobeyed her, I would not now be suffering so much pain. She had told me again and again not to snap at Jenkins, for it made him worse.

In the midst of my trouble I heard a soft voice calling, “Joe! Joe!” It was Miss Laura's voice, but I felt as if there were weights on my paws, and I could not go to her.

“Joe! Joe!” she said, again. She was going up the walk to the stable, holding up a lighted lamp in her hand. She had on a white dress, and I watched her till she disappeared in the stable. She did not stay long in there. She came out and stood on the gravel. “Joe, Joe, Beautiful Joe, where are you? You are hiding somewhere, but I shall find you.” Then she came right to the spot where I was. “Poor doggie,” she said, stooping down and patting me. “Are you very miserable, and did you crawl away to die? I have had dogs do that before, but I am not going to let you die, Joe.” And she set her lamp on the ground, and took me in her arms.

I was very thin then, not nearly so fat as I am now, still I was quite an armful for her. But she did not seem to find me heavy. She took me right into the house, through the back door, and down a long flight of steps, across a hall, and into a snug kitchen.

“For the land sakes, Miss Laura,” said a woman who was bending over a stove, “what have you got there?”

“A poor sick dog, Mary,” said Miss Laura, seating herself on a chair. “Will you please warm a little milk for him? And have you a box or a basket down here that he can lie in?”

“I guess so,” said the woman; “but he's awful dirty; you're not going to let him sleep in the house, are you?”

“Only for to-night. He is very ill. A dreadful thing happened to him, Mary.” And Miss Laura went on to tell her how my ears had been cut off.

“Oh, that's the dog the boys were talking about,” said the woman. “Poor creature, he's welcome to all I can do for him.” She opened a closet door, and brought out a box, and folded a piece of blanket for me to lie on. Then she heated some milk in a saucepan, and poured it in a saucer, and watched me while Miss Laura went upstairs to get a little bottle of something that would make me sleep. They poured a few drops of this medicine into the milk and offered it to me.

I lapped a little, but I could not finish it, even though Miss Laura coaxed me very gently to do so. She dipped her finger in the milk and held it out to me, and though I did not want it, I could not be ungrateful enough to refuse to lick her finger as often as she offered it to me. After the milk was gone, Mary lifted up my box, and carried me into the washroom that was off the kitchen.

I soon fell sound asleep, and could not rouse myself through the night, even though I both smelled and heard some one coming near me several times. The next morning I found out that it was Miss Laura. Whenever there was a sick animal in the house, no matter if it was only the tame rat, she would get up two or three times in the night, to see if there was anything she could do to make it more comfortable.