THE MOST PAINFUL EVENT OF MY LIFE
Three weeks ago, I was just about to bring this partial story of
my life to a close, when something very tragic, yet not altogether
unexpected, happened to me.
It began with a lie. I was sitting one sharp, cool afternoon all alone
up in the Bonstone orchard, thinking what pleasant homes Gringo and
I had, and how few worries we experienced--a dangerous thing for dog
or man to do, for something is sure to happen--when Reddy O’Mare came
trotting round the corner of the barn.
Reddy is a bright-red, cocky Irish-American terrier who lives on the
next place to the Bonstones--a magnificent estate called Greenlands.
“Hello! Boy,” he said gaily.
“Hello!” I said soberly. “This is the second time you’ve been here
to-day.”
“Twice for me, means twice for you,” he said, in his impudent way.
“Look here, Reddy,” I said, “I’m Gringo’s best friend. He doesn’t like
you, and he’s laying for you. He says if you come over here once more
and sneak Weary Winnie over to Greenlands, he’ll wallop you.”
[Illustration: REDDY O’MARE CAME TROTTING ROUND THE CORNER OF THE BARN]
Reddy laughed. “Gringo’s an old fool,” he said gaily. “Sure Winnie
likes a frolic with a dog her own age.”
“She has dogs of her own age here in her own home,” I said.
“But all the dog-world likes to wander,” he said with a wink, for he
knew the story of my career.
I smiled. I couldn’t help it. He is so merry, so full of tricks.
However, I thought it my duty to warn him again. “Look out for Gringo,”
I said.
“Gringo is an old soldier dog,” he said, “he bosses too much.”
This was true, but Gringo is my best friend always and forevermore, and
I was not going to discuss him with this care-free wag.
“Sure you ought to pity me,” he said, “shut up in that big house with
forty thousand servants, but never a dog to play with.”
“I do pity you, Reddy,” I said. “I think it is very hard for your
master to go to the city, and leave you all alone with the servants who
don’t pet you. You know you are always welcome in our home.”
“But it’s the forbidden game I always want to play,” he said, with a
spring in the air at a passing fly.
“Here comes Gringo,” I said, looking toward the house.
“Let him come,” said Reddy, who was no coward, and he flopped down on
the grass.
The old dog came sagging along. Weary Winnie was some paces behind him,
and when she saw Reddy she dashed ahead, crouched to the ground, and
got all ready for a frolic with him.
Gringo went right up to Reddy. “Stand up,” he said.
Reddy stood up, and Gringo took him by the throat.
I thought he would kill him. I was first in terror, then in agony.
Reddy was very valuable, and if he were killed by one of the Bonstone
dogs, it would make bad blood between Greenlands and Green Hill. I was
also irritated with Gringo. He was too severe with the young dogs.
I ran up and down. Would no one come? Not a soul was in sight. I
galloped toward the house, then I had a sudden thought, and ran back.
Gringo still had Reddy pinned to the earth in that awful silence.
“Gringo,” I whispered, after I had leaped close to his ear, “your boss
is having a fit in the dining-room.”
Gringo never uttered a sound. He just let go, and raced to the house.
His private vengeance was thrown to the wind, when it was a question of
his dear master.
“Skedaddle, Reddy,” I said as he floundered to his feet, and staggered
against Weary Winnie who had sat watching the attack in her quiet
bull-doggy way.
Reddy skedaddled, and this time Winnie did not go with him.
I might have skedaddled too, but something told me I should not mend
matters by doing this. I had better stand my ground.
Presently Gringo came waddling back from the house. He was in a most
furious bulldog rage. I had told him a lie, and he was telling himself
that he had been a fool to believe me. Mr. Bonstone was never in the
dining-room at this time of day.
Beside that, I had given him an awful fright, and he was no longer
quite young.
“Gringo,” I said, “I thought you were going to kill that dog.”
He said never a word, but I knew what he was thinking--couldn’t I
trust him to know better than to kill a neighbour’s dog? He was merely
punishing him.
“I couldn’t stand it,” I went on, “I was thinking of your reputation.”
Still he didn’t answer me, and I got angry. “You are too cross with the
young dogs,” I said. “Everybody says so.”
This cut him to the quick, and he gave me an awful look. Then, for his
anger was still burning in him, he had to give me a dig. “I’ll never
trust you again,” he said.
Now I was in a rage. I had done the thing for the best. I was trying to
keep peace, and preserve the good name of our circle of dogs.
“You are wilfully misunderstanding me,” I exclaimed.
“A lie is a lie,” he said, with a sullen fire in his dark eyes. “You
never lied before.”
“And I never will again,” I yelped at him, “unless I see you trying to
kill some one.”
“I wasn’t trying to kill him,” he retorted.
“You looked like it,” I said, and we went on arguing and abusing each
other for half an hour. We finally got down to the question, is it
right to lie under any circumstances? All the dogs heard us yapping and
snarling at each other, and they came running, and took a tongue in the
argument. They were tremendously excited. A row between two old friends
like Gringo and myself was a most startling event in our dog circle.
Some were for lies, some against. Yeggie said a lie was a mighty
convenient thing when a dog got in a corner. Sir Walter Scott said
it was underbred to lie. Czarina said to lie with discretion was
diplomatic. Weary Winnie said she’d rather lie than speak the truth,
whereupon she got a nip from Gringo, and was sent to bed.
Finally Gringo turned to me in a passion, and said, “Get home with
you--you make yourself cheap coming here so much.”
Imagine my feelings--I am a dog of spirit, and I raced out of that
orchard pretty quick. Gringo and I had never had words before, and I
was so broken-hearted that I yelped with pain as I ran home.
Now, being so taken up with myself, and listening to the animated barks
behind me, for every dog was remonstrating with Gringo for his severity
toward me, I did not notice properly the way I was going.
Usually, I am what is called an alert dog. I observe what is before,
and behind, and all round me, and ever since the dog-show, I had been
more than ever on the watch, for I remembered the evil looks of the
two youths who had stared at me.
This afternoon I forgot them. I had told a lie and lost a friend, and
this melancholy happening chased everything else out of my mind. So I
ran blindly, and evil fell upon me.
I was on what we called the rock walk, a long lane between our property
and the Bonstones’. Thick-growing alders were each side of it, and I
leaped from stone to stone, and ran occasionally along grassy places,
till I was near the Osage orange hedge that surrounded our rose-garden.
If I had been on my guard, I would have sensed the presence of
strangers, and would have noticed a rustling in the bushes. As it was,
I pulled up too late.
Something had just said to me, “Danger ahead, Boy: stop short, and go
back.”
I whirled in my tracks, but it was too late. A stranger had stepped out
of the bushes, a rope had curled through the air--I was lassoed for the
first time in my life.
Half-choking, I was hurled to the ground. Something gave me a whack
on the head, and I was stunned. Only partly, for I have been stolen
several times, and I pretended to be more unconscious than I was.
I knew better than to cry out. I just saw that the two men bending over
me were not the ones who had been at the dog-show. They were too clever
to come here themselves. These were older men. I knew I was being
carried to a motor car, that I was put in a box and run under the
seat, and that we sped toward New York.
I was terribly unhappy, of course, but not despairing. No one had been
able to keep me in a place that I wanted to get out of. I came to
myself fully after a bit, and lay still and watched events.
These fellows were pretending to be electric light or telephone men.
Quite often, when other automobiles were passing, they got out, and
tapped poles in a knowing way. They wore big leather belts, and they
dragged about ropes and coils of wire. I could look out of a crack in
the box, and I heard sounds that I pieced together.
I did not know by which road we were going toward the city, but
something told me after the lapse of an hour or two, that we were in
the Mount Vernon or Pelham Manor district.
I lay low, and went on saying nothing; and after a time I felt the car
stop, and my box was taken up and carried into some kind of a shed, a
door was banged together, the box was opened, and four young men faces
confronted me.
Two of them were the ones I had noticed at the dog-show. They had paid,
or were going to pay, the others for stealing me. I was ordered to get
out, and in a way that was not too feeble, nor too lively, I crawled
out on the earth floor.
They had stolen me to sell. I knew that, and I knew also this was not
the time to see about escaping. I was really exhausted, for mental
worry is as fatiguing to animals as to human beings, and I just
dropped down on a heap of straw.
“Ain’t much to look at,” said one of the men who had stolen me.
“It’s points,” said one of the white-faced youths. “I don’t understand
the gab about it, but he’s worth seven thousand all right.”
Their talk was dreadful--all tarnished with oaths and strange slang
that of course I shall translate, for it is not fit to repeat.
Poor fools--poor young fools, I thought as I looked at them. If master
could only get at you--but you belong to the class he dreads, that
pale-faced, anemic lot without morals, and with absolutely nothing to
work on. It seems as if ill-health, and crowding and poverty, make a
criminal class that is the most desperate, for you can’t do much with
it. These two poor wretches should have been locked up and carefully
watched. All the time I was with them I did not hear one decent word
uttered by them, I did not see one decent action performed. They were
rotten through and through.
I tried not to be revengeful as I listened to them. The two fellows
who had stolen me were more decent than the two others. They were
clamouring for their money, but they were assured none would be
forthcoming till I was sold. They detailed with disgusting glee how
they had hung about Pleasant River all day, pretending to be telephone
men.
“He’s cute,” they said in describing me. “He gives strangers a wide
berth. We most got him twice, but he veered off and ran down the road,
not minding us in particular, but just ’cause he’s cute.”
I groaned inwardly. I remembered these two fellows who had even had the
audacity to come up near the house and examine our poles.
Finally they went away, and my two jockeys went to a rough table in the
corner of the shed, took up a black bottle and shook it.
I had no fear of their injuring me. I was too valuable for that. In a
minute, it flashed upon me what they were going to do. I was to be dyed.
I smiled sardonically. My dear master would raise heaven and earth to
find me. A little dye would not turn him off the track. I hoped they
would be careful about my eyes, and they were, for one man rebuked the
other sharply, for letting the brush come too near an eyelid. Nothing
was to be done to me that would take anything off my market value.
I felt like a fool though, as they set me on the rough table and went
all over my hair with a brush. How the other dogs would laugh if they
saw me. A white wire-haired fox-terrier has some style--an all black
one, none whatever.
However, I just made up my mind to submit. There was absolutely no use
in worrying, and for to-night, I need not fatigue my brain by thoughts
of escape. When I had been stolen before, I had learned to take my
capture easily, till my captors were off their guard which they never
were at first. I must wait some days.
One thing I had done before when trapped, was to pretend to like my
captors. That rôle would not take here. These two fellows had no more
comprehension of the dog world than if they had been wooden men. They
loved no one, feared no one; they seemed to hate everybody, even each
other. It was of no use to try to cajole them, so I just pretended to
submit, without looking too happy or appearing to be ill, for then they
would have dosed me.
So I let them dye me and tie me, or rather chain me to a stout iron bar
run down into the earth. They pried off my collar, made a hole in the
ground, and buried it, and put a new, very strong metal one on me. They
acted as if they knew I was a dog with brains, but I fancy their motive
was simply one inspired by native cunning and skill in stealing. They
must take every precaution to ensure the success of their scheme.
Well, at last I was free to lie down on my bed of straw. One of them
stayed with me while the other went into the shabby house attached to
the shed and brought me out a plate of meat. Then they set a pan of
water beside me and went into the house, leaving the door open. I could
not make a movement without their hearing me.