HAW-HAW THE CROW
Ruddy, the dog, looked up into the face of Rick, the boy. If Ruddy could
have talked boy language he would have asked:
"What's the matter? Why are you stopping here instead of running along
among the leaves? Come on, have a race! It's lots of fun! Throw a stick
and I'll go after it!"
That was what Rick and Ruddy had been doing before Rick began to notice
how late it was, or to think about how far he was from home, and to
realize that he had not met his chum, Chot. Chot, whose real name was
Charlie, was a little older than Rick, and knew his way better in the
woods near Weed River and Silver Lake than did Rick.
"Ruddy, I--I guess we're lost," said Rick again.
"Bow-wow!" barked Ruddy. That was all he said that Rick could hear,
and, in a way, the boy understood what that talk meant.
It was as if Ruddy had remarked:
"All right! I'm not afraid as long as I'm with you!"
For though often dogs may become frightened, because of some danger,
they hardly ever show any sign of fear when they are with their
master--be he a boy or man. It was as if the dog felt its master knew
everything, and could get him, or any other dog, out of trouble.
And besides barking, Ruddy was talking in a language Rick could not even
hear, much less understand, though, later on, he grew to know what his
dog meant when he stood with head turned on the side, one ear cocked a
little forward and such a sharp look on his face. After he had barked
once, to say, in dog talk: "All right!" Ruddy had gone on saying, in his
silent, animal way:
"Don't worry, little master, I've been lost lots of times, and I always
found myself. Leave it to me! I'll get you home all right!"
But Rick did not know this, and, for a time, Ruddy did not really think
that Rick was worried or frightened. The dog had had such fun in the
woods, playing with the boy, that he wanted to keep it up. Ruddy wanted
to rustle through the dried leaves. He liked to hear the rattling sound
they made. He wanted to chase more sticks, but Rick did not throw any.
"Ruddy, which way is home?" asked Rick, as he stood in the woods, and
looked about him. "Where do we live?"
Ruddy could not quite get this thought. He looked at Rick, and he saw
that his master was now beginning to be troubled. Dogs know when a
person is in trouble more often than you think, and they can sympathize,
or be sorry, for their master and others. But Ruddy was only a puppy and
his thinking-out of things was not as clear as it became afterward. Just
now he reasoned perhaps his master wanted to have some fun in a new way.
"Well, if he does," thought Ruddy to himself, "there are lots of games I
haven't played with him yet. He doesn't care for chasing cats, so I'll
find something else to chase. There are birds in these woods, I'll
chase some of them!"
Giving a few short barks, and scrabbling about in the leaves, Ruddy
leaped up and down in front of Rick. This was an invitation to come and
play tag. Ruddy knew how to give that invitation, and he had often done
it. That was one of the first games he had learned to play when he lived
in the stable with his father and mother and the other little puppies.
"No, Ruddy," said Rick, as he saw his dog leaping about. "I don't want
to do that now. Let's go home, Ruddy! Let's go home! I don't know the
way, but maybe you do! Let's go home!"
Ruddy knew what that word "home" meant. Once or twice, when he had been
tied up, as Rick and Mazie were about to start for school, the dog had
broken loose and run after the master he loved so well. Then Rick would
turn about and say, very sternly:
"Go home, Ruddy! Go back home!"
He would point to the house, and, with a sad look and with drooping
tail, the red-brown puppy would slink back. He was a good dog to mind,
was Ruddy.
But now Rick was using the word "home" in a different way. Ruddy hardly
understood. Rick had not spoken sternly. He was asking Ruddy a
question--asking him to find the home that, somehow or other, Rick had
lost sight of in the woods.
"Let's go home, Ruddy! Let's go home!" said Rick, over and over.
Still Ruddy did not understand. He leaped about, pawing aside the dried
leaves. He was trying to find another box tortoise. Once he had
uncovered a tortoise in the woods, and Rick had taken it home. That had
been a great discovery for Ruddy.
"Maybe I can find another one of those funny, crawling things, that look
like a stone, and which pull in their legs, head and tail as soon as I
bark at them," thought Ruddy as he pawed among the leaves. "I'll try to
find another. Maybe that's what Rick wants."
"No, I don't want anything like that!" said Rick, as he saw what his dog
was doing. "No more turtles, Ruddy. Let's go home! I don't know which
way it is, or I'd go. I'm all turned around, and if I go the wrong way
I'll be more lost than I am now. Where is home, Ruddy?"
Rick was getting more and more uneasy. He was not exactly frightened,
for he had often read of people becoming lost and spending a night in
the woods.
"I won't mind that so much as long as Ruddy is with me," thought the
boy. "But I'd rather be home. Maybe I can make Chot hear me now!"
He called and called again, Ruddy mingling his bark with the voice of
his master. And though Rick seemed to call more loudly than did Ruddy,
the dog's bark was heard farther. It is said that the bark of a dog can
be heard farther than any other sound, and men who have gone up in
balloons say that the last sounds that come to them, from the earth
below, that seems to be dropping away beneath them, are the barkings of
dogs. A dog's bark can be heard several miles.
But though Ruddy's bark was carried farther through the woods than was
Rick's calling, those who heard Ruddy's "bow-wows" did not pay any
attention to them. A dog barks so often, and so much, that few persons
give any heed to it. All barks are alike to them, though there are
really several different kinds, and each one means something different
in dog language.
"It's no use," said Rick, after he had called aloud and shouted several
times. "I guess Chot didn't come, or else he's lost too. We're both
lost! I wonder what I can do to get home?"
He sat down on a log. Ruddy came up and put his cold nose close to
Rick's face. As plainly as he could the dog was asking:
"What's the matter? Can't I help?"
"I want to go home, Ruddy! I want to go home!" said Rick. If he had been
an older boy he might have started off by himself and have tried to find
his home. But he was afraid of going the wrong way now. If only Ruddy
would lead him!
As for the dog, if he had been by himself he would, as soon as he was
ready, have trotted off in the direction of Belemere, and have gone
straight to Rick's house. Once a dog has settled himself in a home he
can, nearly always, find his way back to it, and sometimes even when he
has been taken many miles away, in an automobile or a train. But, just
now, Ruddy did not know that Rick wanted to go home.
"I guess he wants me to scare up a bird for him to chase," thought
Ruddy, dog-fashion, of course. "That is the kind of fun he wants.
There's no fun sitting on a log and doing nothing. I'll chase a bird!"
Several times that day, on their walk through the woods, Ruddy had
scrambled among the bushes and frightened out birds who were perched on
the low branches of trees. Ruddy was a hunting dog and, in times past,
the members of his family had thus driven birds out into the open for
hunters to shoot at. Ruddy did not quite understand why Rick did not
shoot at these birds. But of course Rick would not do that, even if he
had had a gun; which he had not.
"I'll scare up some other birds," said Ruddy to himself. "That's what he
must want."
With a cheerful bark, he plunged in among the bushes. Several birds
flew out, and Ruddy barked all the louder. But instead of chasing after
these fluttering creatures, as the dog expected he would, Rick sat on
the log.
"Bow-wow!" barked Ruddy.
That meant, as plainly as he could say it:
"Come on! Help me catch a bird!"
"No! None of that," said Rick. "We must go home, Ruddy. Where is home,
Ruddy?"
It took the dog some little time to find out what his master really
wanted, and then it came to Ruddy in a flash. But perhaps it was more
because the dog, himself, was getting hungry, and knew it was time for
his supper to be given him in his kennel. He knew where that was, of
course. That was "home" to him, and now he began to feel that it was
time to go there.
Ruddy circled about in the leaves. His nose was close to the ground, and
many smells came to him. Here a rabbit had leaped along, and over there
a squirrel had jumped to the ground after a nut that had fallen from a
tree. Ruddy knew these smells very well indeed, and another time he
would have followed them along until he had come to where the rabbit was
in his burrow, or the squirrel was perched high in some hollow tree.
But Ruddy had something else to do now. He was smelling among the leaves
to catch the scent that led back along the way he and Rick had come--the
trail back home--that is what Ruddy was smelling for. In a few moments
it came to him. He knew he could find it when he wanted it, and here it
was--through the clump of pines, down past where the willows drooped
over the brook, up the hill, down a little hollow and then out on the
road past Silver Lake and Weed River--that was the way home.
Ruddy knew it, even if Rick did not. With a bark the dog began to lead
the way.
"Bow-wow!" he said again, and this time it was quite a different bark.
It was as if he said:
"Come along, Master! Now I know what you want! Home, of course! I'll
lead you home. I know the path very well!"
Ruddy ran on ahead a little way and then turned around and waited for
Rick to come to him. This time the boy understood. His dog was not
playing in the leaves now, flushing birds or digging for turtles.
"Home, Ruddy! Home!" said Rick.
And straight toward home Ruddy led Rick.
As the two walked on, Ruddy keeping a little ahead all the while, it
grew darker. Night was fast settling down, though it would be lighter
once they were out from among the trees. As they neared the edge of the
woods Rick halted and looked about.
"Maybe Chot is in here, and he may be lost, too," he thought. "I'd
better call him."
So he did, and Ruddy joined in with loud barks, but the other boy did
not answer. As Rick learned, later, Chot had not gone to the woods at
all. So, after waiting a bit, and calling once or twice, Ruddy helping,
Rick walked on with his dog.
Suddenly, as they were nearing a path, which Rick remembered now as the
one he had followed into the woods, Ruddy, with a loud bark, sprang
toward something that fluttered among the low branches of a tree.
A black object flew out, uttering a loud:
"Haw! Haw! Haw!"
"A crow!" cried Rick. "It's a crow!"
And so it was. Again sounded the loud:
"Haw! Haw! Haw!"
Crows really utter that cry, rather than "Caw!" as most persons think.
Listen the next time you hear crows, and see if this is not so.
"Bow-wow!" barked the dog.
"Haw! Haw!" croaked the crow.
It fluttered on through the bushes and then fell to the ground.
"Its wing is broken!" cried Rick. "Somebody must have shot it, and it
can't fly!"
With an eager bark Ruddy rushed toward the bird which was scrabbling
around among the leaves in a little hollow on the ground. The crow
seemed to be all tired out, and could not even flutter now. Rick cried
aloud:
"Don't kill it, Ruddy! Don't kill it!"
He rushed up to save the black bird, hardly knowing why he was doing it,
for he had been told, with truth, that crows eat the eggs of other, and
better birds, as well as destroy the farmer's corn.
"Maybe I can tame this crow and get him to talk," said Rick. "Down,
Ruddy! Down!"
The dog knew what this meant. He stopped barking; he stopped trying to
bite the crow, and stood off to one side. Careful to keep his hands away
from the sharp, strong beak, Rick picked up the crow. It was a young
one, and a drooping wing showed it was hurt.
"You're going to be my crow!" said Rick. "I'll call you Haw-Haw, and
take you home. Ruddy, don't hurt this crow! I'm going to tame him!"
He held the black bird out in his hands for Ruddy to look at.
"Haw! Haw!" the crow cried, rather feebly.
"Bow-wow!" barked Ruddy.
[Illustration: Rick picked up the crow!]
Perhaps they were talking to one another in that mysterious animal
language. At any rate Ruddy seemed to understand what Rick had said, and
never after that did he try to hurt Haw-Haw. As for the crow--well,
I'll tell you more about him presently.
"Now we got to go home, Ruddy," said Rick. "Mother will be worried about
me. We got to go home!"
And Ruddy, holding his head on one side, looked at Rick and at Haw-Haw
and then, with a short bark, led the way out of the woods, and along the
path to Belemere.
"Now we're all right," said Rick to himself. "I'm not lost any more, and
I've got a new pet! I wonder if you'll talk?" he asked the crow with the
broken wing.