A post card from Davis to Collins explained the reasons for Michael's
return. "He sings too much to suit my fancy," was Davis's way of putting
it, thereby unwittingly giving the clue to what Collins had vainly
sought, and which Collins as unwittingly failed to grasp. As he told
Johnny:
"From the looks of the beatings he's got no wonder he's been singing.
That's the trouble with these animal people. They don't know how to take
care of their property. They hammer its head off and get grouched
because it ain't an angel of obedience.--Put him away, Johnny. Wash him
clean, and put on the regular dressing wherever the skin's broken. I
give him up myself, but I'll find some place for him in the next bunch of
dogs."
Two weeks later, by sheerest accident, Harris Collins made the discovery
for himself of what Michael was good for. In a spare moment in the
arena, he had sent for him to be tried out by a dog man who needed
several fillers-in. Beyond what he knew, such as at command to stand up,
to lie down, to come here and go there, Michael had done nothing. He had
refused to learn the most elementary things a show-dog should know, and
Collins had left him to go over to another part of the arena where a
monkey band, on a sort of mimic stage, was being arranged and broken in.
Frightened and mutinous, nevertheless the monkeys were compelled to
perform by being tied to their seats and instruments and by being pulled
and jerked from off stage by wires fastened to their bodies. The leader
of the orchestra, an irascible elderly monkey, sat on a revolving stool
to which he was securely attached. When poked from off the stage by
means of long poles, he flew into ecstasies of rage. At the same time,
by a rope arrangement, his chair was whirled around and around. To an
audience the effect would be that he was angered by the blunders of his
fellow-musicians. And to an audience such anger would be highly
ludicrous. As Collins said:
"A monkey band is always a winner. It fetches the laugh, and the money's
in the laugh. Humans just have to laugh at monkeys because they're so
similar and because the human has the advantage and feels himself
superior. Suppose we're walking along the street, you and me, and you
slip and fall down. Of course I laugh. That's because I'm superior to
you. I didn't fall down. Same thing if your hat blows off. I laugh
while you chase it down the street. I'm superior. My hat's still on my
head. Same thing with the monkey band. All the fool things of it make
us feel so superior. We don't see ourselves as foolish. That's why we
pay to see the monkeys behave foolish."
It was scarcely a matter of training the monkeys. Rather was it the
training of the men who operated the concealed mechanisms that made the
monkeys perform. To this Harris Collins was devoting his effort.
"There isn't any reason why you fellows can't make them play a real tune.
It's up to you, just according to how you pull the wires. Come on. It's
worth going in for. Let's try something you all know. And remember, the
regular orchestra will always help you out. Now, what do you all know?
Something simple, and something the audience'll know, too?"
He became absorbed in trying out the idea, and even borrowed a circus
rider whose act was to play the violin while standing on the back of a
galloping horse and to throw somersaults on such precarious platform
while still playing the violin. This man he got merely to play simple
airs in slow time, so that the assistants could keep the time and the air
and pull the wires accordingly.
"Of course, if you make a howling mistake," Collins told them, "that's
when you all pull the wires like mad and poke the leader and whirl him
around. That always brings down the house. They think he's got a real
musical ear and is mad at his orchestra for the discord."
In the midst of the work, Johnny and Michael came along.
"That guy says he wouldn't take him for a gift," Johnny reported to his
employer.
"All right, all right, put him back in the kennels," Collins ordered
hurriedly.--"Now, you fellows, all ready! 'Home, Sweet Home!' Go to it,
Fisher! Now keep the time the rest of you! . . . That's it. With a full
orchestra you're making motions like the tune.--Faster, you, Simmons. You
drag behind all the time."
And the accident happened. Johnny, instead of immediately obeying the
order and taking Michael back to the kennels, lingered in the hope of
seeing the orchestra leader whirled chattering around on his stool. The
violinist, within a yard of where Michael sat squatted on his haunches,
played the notes of "Home, Sweet Home" with loud slow exactitude and
emphasis.
And Michael could not help it. No more could he help it than could he
help responding with a snarl when threatened by a club; no more could he
help it than when he had spoiled the turn of Dick and Daisy Bell when
swept by the strains of "Roll Me Down to Rio"; no more could he help it
than could Jerry, on the deck of the _Ariel_, help singing when Villa
Kennan put her arms around him, smothered him deliciously in her cloud of
hair, and sang his memory back into time and the fellowship of the
ancient pack. As with Jerry, was it with Michael. Music was a drug of
dream. He, too, remembered the lost pack and sought it, seeing the bare
hills of snow and the stars glimmering overhead through the frosty
darkness of night, hearing the faint answering howls from other hills as
the pack assembled. Lost the pack was, through the thousands of years
Michael's ancestors had lived by the fires of men; yet remembered always
it was when the magic of rhythm poured through him and flooded his being
with visions and sensations of that Otherwhere which in his own life he
had never known.
Compounded with the waking dream of Otherwhere, was the memory of Steward
and the love of Steward, with whom he had learned to sing the very series
of notes that now were being reproduced by the circus-rider violinist.
And Michael's jaw dropped down, his throat vibrated, his forefeet made
restless little movements as if in the body he were running, as truly he
was running in the mind, back to Steward, back through all the ages to
the lost pack, and with the shadowy lost pack itself across the snowy
wastes and through the forest aisles in the hunt of the meat.
The spectral forms of the lost pack were all about him as he sang and ran
in open-eyed dream; the violinist paused in surprise; the men poked the
monkey leader of the monkey orchestra and whirled him about wildly raging
on his revolving stool; and Johnny laughed. But Harris Collins took
note. He had heard Michael accurately follow the air. He had heard him
sing--not merely howl, but _sing_.
Silence fell. The monkey leader ceased revolving and chattering. The
men who had poked him held poles and wires suspended in their hands. The
rest of the monkey orchestra merely shivered in apprehension of what next
atrocity should be perpetrated. The violinist stared. Johnny still
heaved from his laughter. But Harris Collins pondered, scratched his
head, and continued to ponder.
"You can't tell me . . . " he began vaguely. "I know it. I heard it.
That dog carried the tune. Didn't he now? I leave it to all of you.
Didn't he? The damned dog sang. I'll stake my life on it.--Hold on, you
fellows; rest the monkeys off. This is worth following up.--Mr.
Violinist, play that over again, now, 'Home, Sweet Home,'--let her go.
Press her strong, and loud, and slow.--Now watch, all of you, and listen,
and tell me if I'm crazy, or if that dog ain't carrying the tune.--There!
What d'ye call it? Ain't it?"
There was no discussion. Michael's jaw dropped and his forefeet began
their restless lifting after several measures had been played. And
Harris Collins stepped close to him and sang with him and in accord.
"Harry Del Mar was right when he said that dog was the limit and sold his
troupe. He knew. The dog's a dog Caruso. No howling chorus of mutts
such as Kingman used to carry around with him, but a real singer, a
soloist. No wonder he wouldn't learn tricks. He had his specially all
the time. And just to think of it! I as good as gave him away to that
dog-killing Wilton Davis. Only he came back.--Johnny, take extra care of
him after this. Bring him up to the house this afternoon, and I'll give
him a real try-out. My daughter plays the violin. We'll see what music
he'll sing with her. There's a mint of money in him, take it from me."
* * * * *
Thus was Michael discovered. The afternoon's try-out was partially
successful. After vainly attempting strange music on him, Collins found
that he could sing, and would sing, "God Save the King" and "Sweet Bye
and Bye." Many hours of many days were spent in the quest. Vainly he
tried to teach Michael new airs. Michael put no heart of love in the
effort and sullenly abstained. But whenever one of the songs he had
learned from Steward was played, he responded. He could not help
responding. The magic was stronger than he. In the end, Collins
discovered five of the six songs he knew: "God Save the King," "Sweet Bye
and Bye," "Lead, Kindly Light," "Home, Sweet Home," and "Roll Me Down to
Rio." Michael never sang "Shenandoah," because Collins and Collins's
daughter did not know the old sea-chanty and therefore were unable to
suggest it to him.
"Five songs are enough, if he won't never learn another note," Collins
concluded. "They'll make him a bill-topper anywhere. There's a mint in
him. Hang me if I wouldn't take him out on the road myself if only I was
young and footloose."