A NEW BANGLE FOR PRINCE
A woman screamed somewhere from above. She was doubtless looking
down upon the corner and saw the frightened children scatter and the
grey-white bulldog charging upon the fallen Sade. That scream seemed to
awaken Carolyn May.
She was no more courageous at heart, perhaps, than many of her
mates--many, even, of those who ran. Carolyn had been held spellbound
by the frightful picture of the bulldog attacking the red-haired girl.
But the woman's scream and the straining of Prince at his leash,
awoke his little mistress. Prince had dragged her half way across the
sidewalk before she could beseech him to stop.
"Prince! Prince! You mustn't!"
Prince had usually quite ignored the saloon man's bulldog. He had taken
that creature's measure long since. The bulldog never even growled at
Prince as he passed by the corner.
But suddenly Carolyn May's brave comrade took a vital interest in the
bigger brute. He dragged the little girl on as the bulldog made his
second dash for the unfortunate Sade.
The red-haired girl was helpless. With all her daring and impishness,
her courage had never compassed such peril as this. She was first a
victim of her own terror, and now the victim of the bulldog's rage.
"Come away from dot--you Fritz!" commanded the dog's owner, wheezingly,
and at last fearful of what the beast might do.
For all the man might do to balk the bulldog's intention, however, he
might as well have been a mile away from his corner store. There was
just one individual who could save the red-haired girl. Carolyn May
suddenly realized that.
"Oh, Prince!" she cried, and let go of the loop of Prince's leash.
With a challenging roar--something between a bark and a growl--Prince
charged along the sidewalk. He dived fairly between the saloonkeeper's
bowed legs, and that astonished and frightened merchant was cast
ponderously on his back upon the sidewalk, his short legs in the air.
Prince perhaps had long since in his doggish mind decided just how he
should tackle the white bulldog if ever he came to a clinch with him.
The bulldog wore a broad, rivet-studded collar which defended his most
vulnerable part--the throat.
But there was another hold which quickly brings a fighting dog to grief
unless he is a thoroughbred. It will never be known what inspired
Prince to seize the white bulldog by one fore paw!
The dog was on top of the fallen child, his slobbering jaws open. He
would have seized the tender morsel in another second had not Prince
made his grab first.
In a riot of doggish sounds the two animals rolled over and over on the
sidewalk. The bulldog forgot his prey; but Prince did not forget his
object. He hung on with grimness, growling all the while and grinding
his antagonist's flesh and bones between his clamped jaws.
The women and children near by scattered; even the red-haired girl
found renewed strength to rise and flee. But certain men ran up,
surrounding the fighting dogs in an eager group. The bulldog's owner
had risen and was yelling distractedly for somebody to "pull dot dog
off'n Fritz."
Carolyn May saw a policeman running across the avenue toward the spot,
his stick gripped aggressively in his hand. He was a young, lean,
nattily uniformed policeman, one of the recently appointed patrolmen
whose lack of bulk and brute strength is made up to them in training,
science, and brains.
Carolyn May knew this policeman. She did not want him to misunderstand
the situation and consider Prince at fault.
"Oh, it's my dog! You know my dog, Mr. Policeman! And he isn't off his
leash!"
"I get you, little girl," said the officer with twinkling eyes and
pushed his way into the centre of the wrangle.
The owner of the bulldog was not very successfully kicking at Prince.
The bulldog was searching his soul for sounds to tell how bad he felt,
while Prince was still holding on. The officer bent over the struggling
dogs and dealt a single skilful blow with his stick.
"Blockhead!" squealed the fat saloonkeeper. "You haf hit mein Fritz
yet!"
"That's the one I meant to hit, Gus," said the officer, grimly, as the
white bulldog rolled over and immediately ceased struggling.
Prince, seeing his antagonist _hors de combat_, unclamped his jaws and
stood back, eying his rival sharply, but not offering to attack again.
The officer secured the end of the leash and put it into Carolyn May's
hand.
"You've been warned often enough, Gus, to keep your dog both muzzled
and on a leash. He might have chewed that red-haired kid to sausage
meat. You take your Fritz inside your saloon, or I'll call up the dog
wagon."
The ill-mannered bulldog was twitching with all four feet and otherwise
gave signs of returning consciousness. His owner took the policeman's
advice, while the crowd thronged admiringly about Carolyn May and her
dog.
Her fright having passed, Prince's mistress was very proud of him. Even
the policeman patted him, for he knew Prince quite as well as he did
Carolyn May.
"That's a fine dawg," declared one woman from the tenement near by, her
arms akimbo as she looked at Prince, and who had a little plaid shawl
pinned tightly across her ample bosom. "Sure that mangy cur of Gus's
ought to been killed long ago. Would you sell your dawg, little girl?"
"Oh, no, ma'am! I couldn't sell Princey," Carolyn May cried. "Why, he'd
be broken-hearted, I guess, if I did that."
Prince shook himself and his bangles jangled. He was undoubtedly proud.
He knew well enough when he was being praised.
"Sure the dawg should have a new bangle for the battle he fought,"
said the woman who wished to buy him. "With the date on it, an'
commemoratin' his battle wid Gus's cur-dog. I'll give a quarter towards
it myself."
"And I'll make the medal and engrave it," declared the man who made
keys and mended locks in the little shop next the corner saloon.
Carolyn May never knew all those who subscribed to Prince's new bangle,
or just how it was done. But a few days later the "key man" came to
the Camerons' door and brought a very shiny medal and attached it to
Prince's collar. On it was stamped:
PRINCE: A GOOD DOG
From His Friends
Already a silver plate on Prince's collar commemorated "the brave deed"
he had performed at the Corners in saving Miss Minnie, Carolyn's dearly
beloved school teacher, from being robbed by a tramp.
"That dog," remarked Mr. Cameron, "will soon have more medals than a
dock policeman."
But this is quite ahead of our story. The red-haired girl had run home.
But Carolyn May had to go on to the delicatessen store and buy the
articles her mother had sent her for. And as though there had not been
enough excitement for one afternoon, she looked up curiously at the
woman beside her when she stood at the counter, and--
It was the pale lady with her baby in her arms!
"Oh, my _dear_!" gasped Carolyn May. "This is just the most _wonderful_
day! Do you know what Princey just did?" and she proceeded to tell the
pale lady all.
Prince stood by "smiling" and with his tongue hanging out (Carolyn
never _could_ break him of that habit--which she felt was not exactly
polite--especially when he was happy) and the baby must needs maul his
ears and muzzle again.
"I am quite sure he is a very brave and kind dog," the woman said; for
if she had a secret reason for not wishing to meet Carolyn again, how
could she hurt the child's feelings? Carolyn was quite determined to be
friends with her.
"Prince loves your baby a whole lot," the little girl said wistfully,
"and I know he would like to come to see him."
"You must bring Prince, then," said the pale lady, seriously. Yet her
eyes danced. "I will tell you how to get to where I live, Carolyn May.
But you must first ask your mother if you may come."
"Oh, yes," agreed the little girl quickly. "I couldn't go anywhere
without asking mother first. But I know she'll let me come, and if
nothing happens we will come tomorrow afternoon."
"Very well."
The pale lady told her how to find the house and what floor she lived
on and in which tenement on that floor. It was on Park Avenue, but in
that section where the railroad is tracked on an elevated structure and
where the houses are very poor and unpleasantly situated. These facts
made slight impression on Carolyn's mind, however; and she went home
more excited over finding the pale lady again than about Prince's fight
with the white bulldog.
The news of the latter semi-tragic happening had travelled before her.
Mrs. Cameron was on the point of setting forth to hunt for her little
daughter, for the children in the block were wildly excited over the
escape of the red-haired girl from the jaws of the bulldog. It was not
often that Mrs. Cameron allowed herself to be so worried regarding
Carolyn, for with Prince by her side the child was able to take
complete care of herself in any emergency.
The red-haired girl was reported to be in hysterics; and she was
screaming that Carolyn May was being eaten up by Gus's big dog.
"Why, of course not!" Carolyn said disgustedly. "Prince wouldn't have
let him, anyway. And he never even tried to bite me. Dear me! you can't
really believe a word that red-haired girl says--not even when she's
_historical_."
But Prince had won for Carolyn deliverance from one great annoyance.
After what had happened even the ill-bred Sade could not bring herself
to the point of making faces at the brave dog's mistress. On the
way to school one day she presented Carolyn with a huge hothouse
tomato--brilliantly scarlet and embarrassingly juicy.
This peace offering Carolyn felt herself obliged to accept; yet she
had not the first idea what use to make of it. She never ate tomatoes
except with a dressing on them that her mamma made. She could not eat
it "raw" in any case, for if she tried to set her teeth in it the
juice would surely squirt out all over her dress "and everything."
Sade, embarrassed by her own generous impulse, ran shrieking away the
moment she had placed the tomato in Carolyn's hand; so the latter could
not give it back. And she could not make up her mind to give it to any
of her other schoolmates.
To drop it in the gutter was against Carolyn's idea of civic neatness.
So she found herself entering the schoolhouse with the plump and
overripe tomato still in her possession.
There was Miss Solomons. Public school teachers, especially those of
the lower grades, are the recipients of all manner of gifts from their
loyal and adoring pupils. Sometimes the ledge of Miss Solomons' desk
held a long row of such bestowed articles of commerce, and there were
several gifts there now.
The red-haired girl was not in Carolyn May's grade and would never
know. The little girl marched up to Miss Solomons' desk and gravely
deposited the big and squashy tomato with the collection of gifts
already on parade.
"This is for you, Miss Solomons," she said seriously, and went on to
her seat.
The startled Miss Solomons was sure after that that Carolyn May was
more "quaint" than ever.
"What shall we do," asked Hannah Cameron of her husband, "about letting
Carolyn May go to call on her 'pale lady,' as she calls the woman? You
know, that block is in a very poor and dirty section."
"Um! Maybe. But the pale lady is not likely to be a dirty lady, even
if she is poor. Otherwise I could not imagine Joe Bassett's extreme
chivalry in her case. For, after all is said and done, dirt cannot
inspire such feelings. Nor does Carolyn May ever take one of her sudden
and violent fancies for anybody who is not clean and neatly dressed."
"Yes. I know," admitted his wife, but continuing in deep thought.
"Besides," added Carolyn's father, "there's Prince. Prince has a
deep-rooted prejudice against people who are ragged and dirty. With
Prince I have no doubt she will be as safe on that particular block as
on any other in New York."