I
“Want to buy him?” asked the stableman, including both boys in his
glance, but appealing more particularly to Jonesie, a healthy,
rosy-cheeked youth of fourteen with a countenance that fairly radiated
candor and innocence. Jonesie viewed the man with polite indifference.
“What for?” he asked. The stableman, tipped back in his chair by the
door marked “Office,” shrugged his shoulders and gave the straw between
his teeth a new tilt.
“Thought maybe you’d like a good sporting animal,” he responded. “In my
time it was considered very swell for young gentlemen to keep dogs.”
“What do you mean ‘sporting animal’?” inquired Jonesie coldly. “Can he
hunt?”
“Can he! Say, son, that dog’s the finest pup on――on rabbits and coons
and――and――――”
“Bears,” suggested Pinky helpfully. He was a slim youth with a
freckled face and carroty hair.
“Huh!” Jonesie refused to be impressed. “Any old dog can hunt. Question
is, can he catch anything except fleas.”
“What are you talking about?” asked the man with a show of anger. “Have
a look at that coat on him, son. If you can find a flea――――”
At that moment the dog, who had been sitting in the doorway interestedly
following the conversation, turned his head suddenly and began a hurried
and very earnest search along the inch and a half of tail that the
dictates of fashion had left to him. Jonesie chuckled.
“No use my looking,” he said. “_He’ll_ catch ’em.”
The stableman refused to notice the dog’s occupation. He also passed
over Jonesie’s remark. “He’s got a skin just like a baby’s, that dog
has. Three months old, and a few days over, gentlemen, and a ten-spot
takes him! What do you say, now? There ain’t a finer-bred fox terrier
in town. He’s got a pedigree as long as his tail!”
“I guess that’s right,” replied Jonesie.
“What’s the good of a rabbit dog when there aren’t any rabbits?” asked
Pinky. “Nor coons, neither. If you’ve got a dog that can kill rats――――”
“Rats? _Rats!_” The stableman almost choked in his excitement. “Now
you’re talking, son! You wouldn’t believe it, I guess, if I told you
how many rats that dog killed yesterday afternoon inside of an hour and
a half, right here in this stable.”
“Right-O!” said Jonesie. “We wouldn’t. So go ahead.”
The stableman fixed him with a glittering eye. “Fourteen,” he said
impressively. “And one got away.”
Pinky brightened. Jonesie looked coldly incredulous. The terrier,
having failed in his hunt, sighed and returned to his rôle of
interested audience. He was really a nice little dog. Clean him up,
thought Jonesie, and he’d look fine. He was all white except for a
dark-brown patch over his left eye and ear, which gave him a peculiarly
philosophical expression. His yellow-brown eyes were bright and
intelligent, and the occasional wag of that pathetic button that
had once been a perfectly good tail showed friendliness. Jonesie was
melting, but you’d never have suspected it. Pinky stooped and snapped
his fingers and said, “Here, pup,” in a coaxing voice. The dog wagged
the remains of his tail frantically, but moved not an inch. Jonesie
frowned.
“Shucks, he don’t even come when he’s called!” he said.
“Not to strangers, he don’t,” replied the stableman triumphantly. “He’s
got to know you first. Sign of a good dog, that is. He won’t never know
but one master.” Then, with a quick glance at Pinky, “Leastway, two,”
he added hurriedly.
“Let’s buy him,” urged Pinky, sotto voce.
“What’s the use? They won’t let you have dogs in dormitories. Besides,
he isn’t worth any ten dollars.”
“We could keep him here at the stable,” said Pinky eagerly. “You’d
board him for us, wouldn’t you?” he asked the stableman. The latter
nodded hesitantly.
“I guess so. I’ve got a stall he could have.”
The boys went over and patted the dog, and the dog licked their hands
and strove to reach their faces with his eager pink tongue. “Nice
dogums,” said Pinky. “Didums want to belong to us?”
The dog replied to the best of his ability that he did, becoming quite
wrought up about it.
“What’s his name?” asked Jonesie.
“Well, I call him Teddy. He ain’t rightly got a name yet.”
“How much would you keep him for if we took him?”
“Well, feed’s high nowadays,” replied the man thoughtfully. “But――say a
dollar and a half a week.”
Pinky whistled and looked doubtfully at his friend. Jonesie smiled
compassionately on the owner of the dog.
“We weren’t thinking of having him fed on steak and mushrooms,” he
explained patiently. “Just dog biscuit and a bone now and then would
do, I guess.”
“Well, say a dollar, then.”
“Say four dollars a month,” returned Jonesie, “and we pay the end of
the month.”
“All right, son. What might your name happen to be?”
“Jones.”
“That so? Thought likely it was Isaacs.”
“You’re a punk thinker, then. How much will you take for the flea-trap?”
“Meaning the dog? Not a cent less’n ten dollars, son.”
“Oh, I thought you wanted to sell him.” Jonesie, hands in pockets,
lounged back to the sidewalk. Pinky regretfully followed. “If I had ten
dollars for a dog,” continued Jonesie sarcastically, “I’d buy a good
one.”
“You couldn’t find a better in this town,” drawled the man indifferently,
keeping, however, a watchful eye on the countenance of the boy.
“Bet I could buy as good a one as that for two and a half,” replied
Jonesie contemptuously. The dog watched the boys anxiously from the
doorway. Pinky, observing, felt his heart melting within him. He tugged
at Jonesie’s sleeve.
“Offer him five,” he whispered. Jonesie shrugged his shoulders.
“Offer it to him yourself,” he said aloud, moving away, “I don’t want
him for any five dollars.”
“Tell you what I will do,” announced the stableman, “I’ll split the
difference and call it seven-fifty. There, that’s a fair offer, ain’t
it?”
Pinky looked undecided. Jonesie, having apparently lost all interest in
the matter, was gazing off up the village street and whistling softly.
“Would you?” whispered Pinky.
“No,” replied Jonesie from the corner of his mouth. “He’ll take five in
a minute. Don’t let on you want him.” Then, aloud and impatiently: “Oh,
come on, Pinky! He doesn’t want to sell; he just wants to talk!”
“Sure I want to sell,” answered the stableman indignantly. “But I don’t
want to make any presents! Talk sense now. What’ll you give me?”
“Five dollars,” exploded Pinky. Jonesie stared at him incredulously.
“Don’t count me in at that price, Pinky,” he warned. “You come with me
and I’ll find you a dog for half the money.”
“Five dollars!” ejaculated the man. “Well, what do you know about
that! Five dollars for a three months’ old fox terrier as can trace
his pedigree back to two champions!” Words appeared to fail him there
and Pinky was beginning to look utterly ashamed of himself when the
stableman found his voice again and inquired: “Cash down?”
“Why――why, not――not all of it!” stammered Pinky. He looked appealingly
at Jonesie. “How much you got?” he asked in a hoarse aside. Jonesie
nonchalantly pulled out a pigskin coin purse and studied its depths.
“I can lend you a dollar and a quarter,” he replied. Pinky brightened
again.
“And I’ve got two,” he said. “Three and a quarter down now and the rest
next week.” He watched the stableman anxiously. The latter nodded.
“All right, son. But the dog stays here until you pay the rest of it.”
“But we don’t pay board for him until he belongs to us,” responded
Jonesie firmly.
“Ho!” The stableman looked at him sourly. “Thought you was out o’
this.”
“No, I’ll go halves with my friend,” replied Jonesie generously. “We’ll
come down and see the dog every day, and if he ain’t a lot fatter
than he is now, we’ll take him away.” The stableman viewed Jonesie
resentfully but said nothing until the money was in hand. Then,
“If you expect an active dog like that to get fat on a dollar a week
you’d better take him right along with you,” he said with deep sarcasm.
“I’ve raised a lot of dogs but I ain’t never seen no miracles!”
After seeing the dog conducted to the empty stall that was to be his
quarters while he remained at the stable, and after petting him awhile,
the boys hurried off to school. On the way up Main Street Pinky said:
“I wonder if he really can catch rats, Jonesie.”
“Search me! I guess so, though. If he can we’d ought to charge Perkins
something for the use of him!”
Pinky laughed. “We got him cheap, though, didn’t we?”
“You mean I did,” corrected Jonesie. “You’d have gone and taken him at
ten dollars if you’d had your way.”
“That’s right,” agreed Pinky humbly. “When he looked at me that way――――”
“Perkins?”
“No, the dog, you silly chump! Say, what’ll we call him?”
“Spot?” asked Jonesie doubtfully. Pinky shook his head.
“Every dog is named Spot――or Teddy. He’s too good a dog to have a name
like that. Let’s think up something decent.”
For the rest of the way there was silence.
A quarter of an hour later Mr. Broadley interrupted Sparrow Bowles with
upraised hand.
“That’s fairly correct, Bowles,” he said. “But pardon me a moment.
Trainor!”
“Yes, sir?”
“You may hand that to me, if you please.”
“What, sir?” asked Pinky innocently from the back of the room.
“That note that Jones just passed you. Hurry, please.”
Pinky dragged himself from his seat, spilling a Latin book on the
floor, and, under the amused regard of the rest of the class, walked
to the platform.
“You are both aware,” went on the instructor as he accepted the piece
of paper, “that passing notes is strictly prohibited at recitations.
You will each do a page of Latin and bring it to me this evening.”
Thereupon Mr. Broadley unfolded the paper and read:
“Ace, you old fool. He’s got only one spot.”