THE CRUEL WOMAN AND THE LUCKLESS DOG--THE BAD BOY WITH A DOG
AND A BLACK EYE-WHERE DID YOU STEAL HIM?--ANGELS DON'T BREAK
DOGS' LEGS--A WOMAN WHO BREAKS DOGS' LEGS HAS NO SHOW WITH
ST. PETER--ANOTHER BURGLAR SCARE--THE GROCERY DELIVERY MAN
SCARED.
“Hello!” said the grocery man to the bad boy, as he came in with a black
eye, leading a hungry looking dog that was walking on three legs, and
had one leg tied up with a red silk handkerchief. “What is this--a part
of your amateur theater? Now you get out of here with that dog, mighty
quick. A boy that hurts dogs so they have to have their legs tied up, is
no friend of mine,” and the grocery man took up a broom to drive the dog
out doors.
“There, you calm, yourself,” says the boy to the grocery man, as the dog
got behind the boy and looked up at the grocery man as though he was
not afraid as long as the bad boy was around. “Set up the crackers and
cheese, sausage, and pickles, and everything this dog wants to eat--he
is a friend of mine--that dog is my guest, and those are my splints on
his broken leg, and that is my handkerchief that my girl gave me, wound
around it, and you touch that dog except in the way of kindness, and
down comes your house.” And the boy doubled up his fists as though he
meant business.
“Poor doggie,” said the grocery man, as he cut off a piece of sausage
and offered it to the dog, which was declined with thanks, expressed by
the wagging tail. “Where did you steal him?”
“I didn't steal him, and he is no cannibal. He won't eat your sausage!”
and the boy put up his elbow as though to ward off on imaginary blow.
“You see, this dog was following off a pet dog that belonged to a woman,
and she tried to shoo him away, but he wouldn't shoo. This dog did not
know that he was a low born, miserable dog, and had no right to move in
the society of an aristocratic pet dog, and he followed right along. He
thought this was a free country, and one dog was as good as another, and
he followed that woman and her pet dog right into her door yard. The pet
dog encouraged this dog, and he went in the yard, and when the woman got
up on the steps she threw a velocipede at this dog and broke his leg,
and then she took up her pet and went in the house so she wouldn't hear
this dog howl. She is a nice woman, and I see her go to meeting every
Sunday with a lot of morocco books in her hands, and once I pumped the
organ in the church where she goes, and she was so pious I thought she
was an angel--but angels don't break dogs' legs. I'll bet when she goes
up to the gate and sees St. Peter open the book and look for the charges
against her, she will tremble as though she had fits. And when St. Peter
runs his finger down the ledger, and stops at the dog column, and turns
and looks at her over his spectacles, and says, “Madam, how about your
stabbing a poor dog with a velocipede, and breaking its leg?” she
will claim it was an accident; but she can't fool Pete. He is on to
everybody's racket, and if they get in there, they have got to have a
clean record.”
“Say, look-a-here,” said the grocery man, as he looked at the boy in
astonishment as he unwound the handkerchief to dress the dog's broken
leg, while the dog looked up in the boy's face with an expression of
thankfulness and confidence that he was an able practitioner in dog
bone-setting, “what kind of talk is that? You talk of heaven as though
its books were kept like the books of a grocery and you speak too
familiarly of St. Peter.”
“Well, I didn't mean any disrespect,” said the boy, as he fixed the
splint on the dog's leg, and tied it with a string, while the dog licked
his hand, “but I learned in Sunday school that up there they watch even
the sparrow's fail, and they wouldn't be apt to get left on a dog bigger
than a whole flock of sparrows, 'specially when the dog's fall was
accompanied with such noise as a velocipede makes when it falls down
stairs. No sir, a woman who throws a velocipede at a poor, homeless dog,
and breaks its leg, may carry a car load of prayer books, and she may
attend to all the sociables, but according to what I have been told, if
she goes sailing up to the gate of New Jerusalem, as though she owned
the whole place, and expects to be ushered into a private box, she will
get left. The man in the box office will tell her she is not on the
list, and that there is a variety show below, where the devil is a star,
and fallen angels are dancing the cancan with sheet-iron tights, on
brimstone lakes, and she can probably crawl under the canvas, but
she can't get in among the angelic hosts until she can satisfactorily
explain that dog story that is told on her. Possibly I have got a raw
way of expressing myself, but I had rather take my chances, if I should
apply for admission up there, with this lame dog under my arm than to
take hers with a pug that hain't got any legs broke. A lame dog and a
clear conscience beats a pet dog, when your conscience feels nervous.
Now I am going to lay this dog in the barrel of dried apples, where your
cat sleeps, and give him a little rest, and I will give you four minutes
to tell me all you know, and you will have three minutes on your hands
with nothing to say. Unbutton your lip and give your teeth a vacation.”
“Well, you _have_ got gall. However, I don't know but you are right that
woman that hurt the dog. Still, it may have been her way of petting a
strange dog. We should try to look upon the charitable side of peoples'
eccentricities. But say, I want to ask you if you have seen anything of
my man that delivers groceries. Saturday night I sent him over to your
house to deliver some things, about ten o'clock, and he has not showed
up since. What do you think has become of him?”
“Well, by gum, that accounts for it. Saturday night, about ten o'clock
we heard somebody in the back yard, around the kitchen door, just as we
were going to bed, and Pa was afraid it was a burglar after the church
money he had collected last Sunday. He had got to turn it over the next
day, to pay the minister's expenses on his vacation, and it made him
nervous to have it around. I peeked out of the window and saw the man,
and I told Pa, and Pa got a revolver and began shooting through the
wire screen to the kitchen window, and I saw the man drop the basket and
begin to climb over the fence real sudden, and I went out and began to
groan, as though somebody was dying in the alley, and I brought in
the basket with the mackerel and green corn, and told Pa that from the
groaning out there I guess he had killed the grocery delivery man, and
I wanted Pa to go out and help me hunt for the body, but he said he was
going to take the midnight train to go out west on some business, and Pa
lit out. I guess your man was scared and went one way and Pa was scared
and went the other. Won't they be astonished when they meet each other
on the other side of the world? Pa will shoot him again when they meet,
if he gives Pa any sass. Pa says when he gets mad he had just as soon
eat as to kill a man.”
“Well, I guess my man has gone off to a Sunday pic-nic or something, and
will come back when he gets sober, but how are your theatricals getting
along?” asked the grocery man.
“O, that scheme is all busted,” said the boy. “At least until the
minister gets back from his vacation. The congregation has noticed a red
spot on his hand for some time, and the ladies said what he needed was
rest. They said if that spot was allowed to go on it might develope into
a pimple, and the minister might die of blood poison, superinduced by
overwork, and they took up a collection, and he has gone. The night they
bid him good bye, the spot on his hand was the subject of much comment.
The wimmen sighed, and said it was lucky they noticed the spot on his
hand before it had sapped his young life away. Pa said Job had more than
four hundred boils worse than that, and he never took a vacation,
and then Ma dried Pa up. She told Pa he had never suffered from blood
poison, and Pa said he could raise cat boils for the market, and never
squeal. Ma see the only way to shut Pa up was to let him go home with
the choir singer. So she bounced him off with her, and he didn't get
home till most 'leven o'clock, but Ma she set up for him. Maybe what she
said to Pa made him go west after peppering your burglar. Well, I must
go home now, 'cause I run the family, since Pa lit out. Say, send some
of your most expensive canned fruit and things over to the house. Darn
the expense.” And the bad boy took the lame dog under his arm and walked
out.