BEANIE LOSES HIS HOME
A week or two went by, and I was as happy as a king--maybe I’d better
say a president, as kings don’t seem to be getting much fun out of life
at present.
I had had many homes, many masters and mistresses, but never a master
like this one. He just suited me. I often used to wonder what it
was about him that made me like him so much. I had seen men just as
handsome, just as amiable, just as lovable--there was something I could
not explain about it. When he looked at me with his deep-set grey eyes,
I felt that I could die for him. He was my man affinity. He understood
me, and he never believed anything against me unless it was very fully
proved, and then--he always forgave me.
His confidence in me made me want to be a better dog, and I stopped
nipping Beanie on the sly, and gave up stealing Mrs. Granton’s gloves
and chewing them up.
I didn’t like her, and she didn’t like me. What could you make of a
woman who insisted upon being called “Clossie” instead of Claudia,
which was her real name. Claudia has some dignity to it, but
Clossie--it didn’t sound to me like a lady, and master just hated it,
but he had to say it.
They didn’t get on very well together. I often heard the servants
talking about it. Louis was for mistress, and the cook and the waitress
and the girl who came to do mistress’s hair and finger-nails were for
master.
“She’s a fraud,” said cook emphatically. “A woman her age ain’t got no
business lazing in bed till all hours of the morning, and when she gets
up, what does she do? Fools round, putting in time, and then travels
down town and wastes money shopping, or goes to the theatre.”
“She don’t do nothing for nobody all day long,” the waitress would
break in. “It’s self, self, self--do I look pretty--is my skin all
right--am I getting old--bah! I’d like to give her a job scouring
brasses.”
Then Louis would stand up for her. “The old man’s clever (I regret
to say they usually called master the old man, and mistress Mrs.
Putty-Face). Why don’t he make more of her? If she was my wife, I’d
teach her things. Why don’t he point out things on the river when we’re
motoring, and do he ever read to her of an evening?”
He never did, but the maids wouldn’t tell him this, so Louis, who was
a French-American, speaking fairly good English with here and there
a funny mistake, went on. “When I comes in for orders, there he sits
glooming one side of the fire, she the other--the table a-tween them.
Man and wife should be close up, and speaking by-times.”
“She ain’t got no language,” said cook. “She never does talk but of
fooleries.”
“She stands for her dog,” said Louis feebly, for the women always
out-talked him.
Here the young girl who did her hair and nails, and who used to come
out to the kitchen for a cup of tea, made a very dismal prophecy about
Beanie that unfortunately came true.
“Just listen to me,” she said wrinkling her dark eyebrows, “that
woman ain’t got no thought for anything but herself. Husband, help,
dog--she’d see you all in the Hudson, and never lift a finger to save
you. Why, when that fat dog comes between her and a table or a chair in
the bed-room, that she’s making for, he gets a push that lands him most
into the next room. If she took it into her head to get rid of him, out
he’d go.”
Louis was sweet on this girl, and he smiled at her. “I never saw no
kicking from her,” he remarked amiably. “Mrs. Putty-Face has been kind
along to me. I often gets a tip. Maybe she’ll make good yet. She’s
young, ain’t she?”
This brought on a long, tiresome argument. When the maids got on
mistress’s clothes or her age, I always left the kitchen. Why don’t
they talk about the war or politics, instead of that eternal drivel
about master and mistress?
The two people at the head of the establishment never mentioned them,
nor looked at them, except to ask for something. I wonder whether that
was not one reason why there was not more sympathy between the working
end and the commanding end of the house. I had been in several homes
before this, where there was criticism between employer and employed,
but a criticism softened by sympathy and mutual interest.
I blamed mistress. Down at the café, the servants were never familiar
with the gentlemen patrons, but there was a good spirit prevailing,
and I heard no hateful remarks there. The gentlemen were kind to the
_garçons_, in a quiet way, and the _garçons_ were respectful to the
gentlemen, and they got their reward, for once when one of them fell
ill, the gentlemen clubbed together, and sent him to a beautiful place
in the country.
To come back to Beanie, I had noticed for several days that mistress
hadn’t been talking silly talk to him, and usually left him home, when
she went out in the car. He wasn’t apprehensive about it. His too solid
flesh made him a stupid dog. He was simply annoyed to miss his outing.
However, to give him credit, he never said a word against his mistress.
He just plodded round the apartment after her, never doubting that she
adored him as much as she said she did.
One evening, when she was sitting with her two pretty, light
slippers stretched out toward the wood fire in the fire-place, she
said suddenly, “Rudolph, I’m going to change Beanie and get a toy
Pomeranian.”
Mr. Granton turned round and said, “What!” He was sitting, as he
usually did, beside a little table which had a shaded electric light on
it. He was reading a book about the war, and sometimes stopped to gaze
thoughtfully in the fire. Mrs. Granton wouldn’t talk about it to him.
All she knew about the fighting in Europe was, that it would stop, for
a time, her yearly visits to Paris to buy gowns.
He was staring at her. Finally he said, “I thought you were fond of
Beanie.”
“I thought I was,” she said carelessly, “but Poms are more fashionable,
and smaller. Beanie’s too fat to carry, and I think a small dog under
the arm looks smart.”
“What will you do with Beanie?” asked Mr. Granton.
“Sell him of course--I’ll get a good price. I gave two hundred for him.
I’ll send him to a vet to be starved for a while. He’s too fat now.”
Upon my word, I was sorry for Beanie. He sat listening to her, as if he
could scarcely believe his ears. The poor simpleton had so presumed on
the fact of her loving him. I could have told him long ago, he was in a
dog-fool paradise.
Mr. Granton opened his mouth, as if to say something, then he shut it
again. He took up his book, and went on reading about the war till Mrs.
Granton’s smacking of her lips over her chocolates and novel got on his
nerves. It usually did about eleven o’clock.
He got up, looked out the window, said, “I think I’ll take a walk.”
Then he said carelessly, “Have you quite made up your mind to sell your
dog?”
“Quite,” she said, smiling and showing her pretty teeth. She was really
very pinky sweet and lovely. If she had only had a mind in her doll
body.
“And you would be satisfied with two hundred dollars?”
“I’d be satisfied with a hundred and fifty,” she said, “he’s no longer
quite young, according to looks. His amount of flesh ages him.”
Beanie gasped and panted by the fire, and finally went to hide his
shamed head in the corner.
“I suppose you know he understands all this,” said Mr. Granton.
“I don’t believe it,” she said, “he’s only a dog.”
This roused poor young Beans. He waddled up to her, rose on his hind
legs, and laid his two forepaws on her lap. His mouth was wide open,
and he was panting heavily, trying to look engaging and fascinating,
and succeeding only in looking silly.
“Go away, you little fool,” she said pushing him aside. “I’ve taken a
dislike to you.”
Beanie went to hide his diminished head under the sofa.
Mr. Granton was drawing a fountain pen from his pocket, and a little
book. He wrote out a cheque for one hundred and fifty dollars, and gave
it to her.
“You might have made it two hundred,” she said peevishly.
He smiled. He was too good a man of business to pay more for a thing
than he had to, even to his own wife.
“Your dog is mine now,” he said.
“Very well,” she replied carelessly, “and mind, I don’t want that fat
awkward thing round this apartment. We’ve too many dogs now,” and she
glared at me.
She had never forgiven me for staying with her husband, and I knew, and
he knew, that she was jealous of me.
“I’ll find a home for him,” said Mr. Granton. “Come on, Beans, since
you’re my dog now, come out and take a walk with Boy and me.”
He always called me Boy or Boy-Dog. He said I was too clever to be just
plain dog.
I hate sorrow and suffering and ugly things. With my tail between my
legs, I slunk after my master. I didn’t like to look at Beanie. He
was behind me. Poor, poor young dog--prematurely aged on account of
the over feeding, over-petting and the over-everything of a foolish
mistress, and now shaken out of his paradise.
He looked frightfully, but he made an effort to hold himself up, and
waddled toward the elevator with us.
When we got in the street, Mr. Granton said kindly, “I’ll carry you a
while, old man. You’re rather knocked in a heap,” and he actually took
that fat young dog under his arm, and walked block after block with
him, till Beanie got back some of his usual complacent self-possession.
Then he put him down, and walked slower than usual, in order to
accommodate his new acquisition. I walked close to Beanie, and from
time to time touched his head with my muzzle.
“Cheer up, young fellow,” I said, “you’re lucky to have changed hands.
You would have been dead in a few months. You’re all out of condition.
Master will get you a good home.”
“I don’t want another home,” he said miserably. “I want my old one, and
I love my mistress.”
“In spite of the way she’s treated you?” I asked.
“That doesn’t make any difference with a dog,” he replied.
“It would with me,” I said.
“You’re not an ordinary dog,” he said. “You’re an exception.”
“I believe that’s true,” I said. “I wonder where we’re going.”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” he said wretchedly, and he plodded
along like a machine.
Master had left Riverside Drive, and was going slowly up One Hundred
and Thirty-ninth Street. Soon we were in the shadow of Great Hall of
the College of New York. Some one was playing the organ, and through an
open door, we could catch the solemn strains of some dirge-like music.
Master stood still for a while, either to listen, or to breathe the
panting Beanie, whose eyes were dim with tears, as he looked not up
at the white-picked stone mass of the building, but down at the cold,
stone pavement.
Presently we went on with our faces to the east. Now it dawned upon me
where we were going. I jumped and frisked about my master. How clever
he was. He had remembered old Ellen’s address. She was just the one to
soothe and comfort poor Beanie.
“See what a nice wide avenue you’re going to live on,” I said to Beanie.
“There’s no view of the River,” he muttered.
I sighed. There’s no comforting a dog with a broken heart.
He did cheer up a bit, when we got into Ellen’s flat. How glad she
was to see my master. Not cringingly glad, but glad in the nice,
affectionate way coloured people have toward those they like.
She was sitting in one of the big rocking-chairs in her tiny kitchen,
and had evidently been looking out the window at the crowds of people
sauntering to and fro on the brightly lighted avenue. This was a great
place for the coloured persons employed among whites to come to see
their friends and families, and on a fine evening they did a good deal
of their talking in the street.
Master motioned her back to her chair, and he took Robert Lee’s rocker
at the other little window.
“I have brought you a present,” he said, and he glanced at Beanie and
me as we lay at his feet.
Old Ellen’s face glowed. “A present--for me, sir? May the Lord bless
you.”
“It’s alive,” said my master, and he pointed to Beanie.
Ellen almost screamed. “Sir! not that lovely, fat dog!”
Master nodded, and she swooped down on Beanie, and took him, troubles
and all, right up in her ample lap. It reminded me of the song she sang
me when I was here before. “Take up de young lambs, tote ’em in your
bosom, an’ let de ole sheep go.”
Beanie’s whole soul was shrinking from her, but he put a steady face on
his troubles, and even curled his short lip gratefully at her.
She began to sway to and fro, rubbing her bleached old hand over his
tired head.
“Don’t let him out alone,” said my master, “he might run home.”
Ellen’s face was almost silly with happiness. “There ain’t no little
pickaninny in New York, that’ll have the ’tention this little master
dog will have,” she said earnestly.
She always began to talk in a southern way when she saw master. I think
he recalled her old employers down South.
“How will you feed him?” asked my master. “He has quite a good
appetite.”
Ellen looked master all over with the good-natured cunning of her race.
“Sir,” she said, “you looks like the gen’l’men down South--you wouldn’t
let your little dog suffer nohow, even if it was Ellen’s.”
Master laughed heartily. He loved frankness, and hated deceit. “Ellen,”
he said, “that dog will have a limited income as long as he lives. It
will be paid weekly, and you will have to go to an address I will give
you to get it. As he enjoys driving, I will have a carriage call for
you once a week, and you can take Beans with you to report for himself.”
Old Ellen didn’t know what to say. She looked everywhere--all round the
room, out the window, down at the dog in her lap, and hard at me, as I
sat staring at her.
Finally she got up, put Beanie down, and said quietly, “Sir, would you
like a cup of coffee?”
“Very much,” he replied.
Ellen lighted her gas stove, got out the big pot, made the coffee, and
handed him a cup and saucer that she took from a cupboard in the wall.
Master handled it in surprise. “This is Sèvres,” he said, “and costly.”
“Sir,” she said solemnly, “that was a present from my old mistress
whose heart was broke by de war.”
Master held the cup out from him, as if he dreaded to touch his lips to
it.
“But,” said old Ellen in the queer, mysterious voice negroes can
assume, “happiness come afore she died--Sir, is you happy?”
The big, old negress suddenly towered over my master, and laid a hand
on his head.
“No, Ellen,” he said quite simply, “God knows I’m not happy.”
The old woman stared up at the ceiling, and her eyes became quite
glassy. “Oh! Lord,” she said with a frightful fervour--“drive away de
clouds from poor Mister’s heart. Bring him light--It’s comin’. Oh!
Lord--I see it--comin’ like de wings of an eagle. I see it a-swoopin’
right down on Mister, dear, good man,” and suddenly turning her back on
him, she began to clap her hands.
Master drank his coffee, and never said a word. I had been with him
long enough to know, that he was a very unemotional man, and yet he
was all alive with tenderness inside.
He had a little superstition too, for he was watching Ellen from the
corner of his eye, and was pleased by her interest in him.
Finally he got up, and went over to poor young Beans who lay in the
chair, taking no stock in all this sentiment.
“Good-bye, my dog,” he said. “You’re young--you’ll get over this.”
Beans, of course, tried to follow us from the room. Our last sight of
him, was at the head of the staircase, struggling in old Ellen’s arms.
“Dog, dog,” she said rebukingly, “old Ellen knows. There’s a cloud
going to burst over you all. Mister an’ dog--an’ it’s full o’
blessings.”
My master smiled at intervals all the way home. He always made for
Riverside Drive, and never stayed any longer than he could help in the
blocks and blocks of streets between it and East River. This night
there were heavy masses of clouds over the river, but just before we
got home, the moon broke through, and showed a superb, smiling face.
My master paused, and leaning both elbows on the stone parapet,
stared at the moon. “Suppose it should come,” he murmured--“perfect
happiness--in the right way--the only way it could come now, is a wrong
way.”
His voice was frightfully sad and perplexed. How I longed to comfort
him, but I was only a dog--and moreover, I didn’t know all his
troubles. I was pretty sure they weren’t money troubles.
I did all I could. I jumped up, and licked his hand.
“Boy,” he said, withdrawing his gaze from the moon to look at me,
“you’re the greatest comfort I have.”
Wasn’t I proud and happy! I almost wriggled myself out of my body.
With a beautiful smile, but a heavy sigh, he turned, and we started
toward home which we did not reach without a further adventure.